FOXTIDE INTERVIEW

Following the release of their debut EP, Blind, in January of 2019, Foxtide has gained notoriety for their unique jazzy style and impressive skill. Fans flock to their shows all across southern California to witness the musical talent of Elijah on vocals and guitar, Orion on bass, and Ethan on drums. In this hour long interview with Foxtide, Joe and I discuss the origins and motivations of the three piece band taking the San Diego local scene by storm. 

Kisi: Elijah told me that you guys have been jamming for about two years, so I was curious to hear how you guys got together as a band and how you know each other. 

Elijah: From the beginning...I’ve know Ethan since he was in preschool, we used to be really good buds. Then we met again in highschool, it must have been sophomore year. 

Ethan: So it was about a full decade later that we met again. 

Elijah: We all met in the beginning through School of Rock. We were playing with another drummer and that didn’t really work out, and then we found Ethan! 

Kisi: So you met at School of Rock..what’s that? 

Orion: It’s a music program, but the way they do it is a little different. It’s not somewhere that you just go and take music lessons and learn one instrument...

Elijah: It’s interactive. 

Orion: Their whole shtick is that they have these programs where they take these students who all play different instruments and put them together. 

Joe: So they make you into a band basically? 

Orion: Kind of...they separate you into groups and each group has a theme. Like for example you might have a group with a Led Zeppelin theme. Everyone learns the same songs on different instruments and at the end you perform together. So you're learning how to play with a band and learning an instrument. 

Kisi: That’s awesome! So were you all grouped together? What was the transition from School of Rock to formal band? 

Elijah: Me and Orion knew each other through a couple of shows and at the time I was in eighth grade and Orion was a freshman, so we weren’t really serious about anything. We just liked jamming. Then the first real show we got together was a progressive rock show, it was kinda harder music and you could start to tell who was more about it. Some kids wouldn’t learn their songs or would forget their songs, but these two dudes would learn their stuff and I was like damn, they can play. 

Orion: So you chose us? 

(Laughter)

 Elijah: Well, Orion and I were working on some stuff with our previous drummer, but I’d say that when Ethan joined, it was like night and day. 

Orion: Everything completely changed. We used to play generic ass classic rock, and it was really corny. I don’t think anyone really liked it besides us. 

Ethan: You guys both came up through School of Rock, but for the period I had been drumming I spent very little time actually at School of Rock. I had my own different way of playing, so when I joined the band that’s probably what changed it a little bit. I drummed a little faster… 

Orion: Well Ethan listens to like, punk. 

Kisi: So the technical skill was a bit different? 

All: Yeah.  

Orion: Ethan listens to Blink-182 and bands like that. People shit on those bands all the time but the drumming is demanding. If you can get your stamina up to that level, then you're pretty much set. Ethan was already rippin’ those songs out, so when we had to tone it down or learn other styles, he picks it up so fast because it’s all already there. 

Elijah: Yeah, we all kinda met up through different styles but we still had stuff in common; we all love to jam. 

Kisi: So how was the process going from creating the band, playing with each other, and then to releasing an EP? 

Elijah: I remember it was around the beginning of summer, we had just played a progressive rock show, then we moved to Rush, and we started to play more on our own and not so much at School of Rock. At first we just did Rush covers (laughter), and that was kind of the binding thing for us, we all could play Rush. I’d say right as we started writing our own stuff we just thought we had to share it, ya know? We were playing a lot of shows over the summer, after the School of Rock shows. 

Orion: In School of Rock they also have a songwriting theme, so instead of a certain band or genre being the theme all the kids in that group write music together. After the progressive rock show we knew we could play well together, but it was writing the songs ourselves, working together in that different way that helped us become a better band. 

Kisi: Yeah, that’s a really different dynamic than just learning covers. 

Orion: One thing that made us more serious was definitely the songwriting. You can learn all the Rush songs you want, whatever, but once you actually have to take your ideas and put them together and work with other people, things change. 

Ethan: It’s more fulfilling. It’s a different feeling than just learning a song. 

Orion: Because you can do that with anyone. 

Ethan: When you create something that is your own, and you really dig it, it gives you a way cooler feeling than covering a song. 

Elijah: At School of Rock they made us practice at least once a week on songwriting and they'd also tell you to practice at home too, so I’d come in with a riff, we’d expand on it, and it would snowball from there. 

Joe: So it’s very collaborative. 

Elijah: That definitely stoked the fire for our tendencies to write. 

Orion: Yeah, like a lot of the songs on our EP we’d been playing for at least a year before the EP even came out. But recording them and getting them out is a lot different. 

Kisi: How was it releasing your EP? What was that experience? 

Ethan: Some of it we got done fairly quickly, like the instrumentals. We could have got them done faster…(laughter)

Orion: There we so many recordings of the songs on the EP that were done in different places, but we were never really happy with how it sounded. 

Elijah: We didn’t stop until we were confident with the sound we got. We got recording from Lestat’s, and we actually recorded a fifth song but the sound engineer messed it up and there was a big glitch in the music, so that’s why we released four songs! I’d say the longest part was me having to go out and buy the microphone, the headset, the audio interface. I had to save up the money to get all that stuff. Then I spent a ton of time researching and looking up Youtube videos, learning how to record vocals and learning how to mix the songs. 

Kisi: So it was very much a do it yourself process? 

Elijah: Yeah. 

Ethan: It was kinda a good thing and a bad thing because it just took so much time. 

Kisi: But you also get more autonomy over your own music and you can make it sound exactly how you want. 

Ethan: Exactly, I think we were pretty happy with the end result because we were part of every step.

Elijah: Yeah, like when you're listening to our music you’re hearing all the hard work we all put into it, literally me in my room for hours fixing some glitch or something like that. But in the end I think we were all really happy with it. 

All: Yeah. 

Joe: So for any upcoming music, do you think you’ll go through that process again or was it a one time thing for the release of the EP? 

Elijah: Honestly, I don’t know. I think a happy medium would be good.

Orion: Personally I hate recording. Like when you see us play our songs up on stage, it’s not like we can just go into a studio and do the same thing and then release it. It was so tedious! There is a lot of little things that you don’t think about when you’re just listening to the music. For example, for Elijah it’s recording the perfect vocal take. You can’t just hit that, it has to be perfect. And even if it’s good, you’re always gonna think it could be better. 

Joe: How many times do you think it takes? 

Elijah: Vocal wise...at least a hundred. Cause what I do is record the whole thing, do it a fuck ton of times, and then take little pieces that I like. 

Kisi: It seems like the band takes up a lot of your time, at least from what you’ve told me, and you guys have been playing more shows recently following the release of your EP. How do you balance that with being a high school student? 

Elijah: Oh, I love music way more!

Ethan: Yeah, it’s definitely more important to me. 

Kisi: So you all agree music is more important to you? 

All: Yeah. 

Kisi: So how do you guys feel about school in general? 

Elijah: Honestly, the first half of junior year was one of the most stressful times of my life because I was taking five challenging classes and also recording the EP. I was pushing myself way too hard, just constantly grinding on my homework and then immediately working on the EP. I never went out. That was my whole life. 

Joe: So..in a band, chicks? 

All: (Laughter)

Orion: Nah.. 

Kisi: Maybe when you guys get a little bigger? 

Ethan: Actually, you’d be surprised..

Kisi: Oh! 

Ethan: It’s kinda weird actually. Like we’re a local band but sometimes people treat us like we’re famous. 

Kisi: Well, you guys do have a really dedicated fan base. I feel like that’s what sets you guys apart from a lot of the other local bands. I mean everyone at your shows knows the lyrics to all your songs! People are screaming along! What does that feel like? 

Elijah: We had never experienced that before the EP and honestly it’s amazing. I was kinda shocked the first few times it happened.  

Orion: Yeah, I mean the fans keep us going. 

Ethan: Definitely. We got used to it just being our friends knowing the lyrics and then suddenly it became random people! 

Orion: We played a house show a week or two ago and we were all kinda sick. Elijah’s voice wasn’t great so he tried to avoid singing as much as possible. He actually lost his voice after the show. But during Honeybee it was like we didn’t even have to sing. The fucking crowd did it for us! 

Elijah: I love being in a local band because you can talk to everyone who likes your music. 

Joe: How long has the EP been out? 

Elijah: I think four months. 

Orion: No way it’s only four months...oh shit!

Elijah: Yeah, but we had been playing shows and stuff for at least a year before we released the EP.

Kisi: It seems like you guys have really blown up since the EP came out. You’ve been playing a ton of shows and have a ton more planned for the summer. 

Ethan: It’s all felt really quick, way more than I expected. Because the EP only came out a few months ago and we’ve only been playing shows for a year, which is a lot less than some other bands. 

Orion: Yeah, I know some bands that have been playing house shows for 5 years. 

Joe: So what’s in the works? 

Elijah: That’s a great question..we’ve been trying to figure out a good way to get our music out there and get it to more people. I love releasing music and if I could I would release everything nonstop. But we need to grow our fanbase in order to have that demand. We waited a whole year to release the songs for our EP and that’s because during the year we were playing the songs at shows so people started to recognize them. 

Ethan: Yeah, people would always ask us when we were gonna finally release them. 

Elijah: Exactly, so we already had listeners lined up. 

Joe: So there has to be a demand. 

All: Yeah. 

Kisi: Well now you guys are having to look at it from a marketing side, and it has to be more strategic compared to when you guys were just jamming out a year ago. 

Elijah: Yeah. It’s definitely the less fun part about making music. Like I just recently spent 80 bucks on trying to promote our music that’s already out. It’s basically just submitting to a bunch of playlists and blogs, and out of the 50 or 60 playlists and blogs I submitted to, we only got one. It’s actually the True Detective soundtrack playlist! 

All: (Laughter)

Orion: Yeah, I don’t know if Honeybee has more plays because it’s on that playlist or because people actually like it. 

Kisi: I’d say it’s probably both! Speaking of which, what was the inspiration for your song Honeybee? 

Elijah: If you listen to the lyrics, it’s kinda about rejection but also denial..like for example say you have a friend who’s significant other you are into. It’s your homie’s girl, so there’s nothing you can do. But you also want to be with her! So it’s kinda about that. It’s a happy sounding song but there’s also this attitude that comes across. 

Joe: Do you try to fit the lyrics with the vibe of the song or do you just let it flow? 

Elijah: For Honeybee I wrote the melody and chords first, and I wanted to keep people guessing so I made it more about a feeling than anything else. Then I wrote the lyrics and the riff, then Orion and Ethan came in with ideas about the dynamics and how to make it better. 

Joe: It is usually melody first before lyrics? 

All: Yeah. 

Elijah: I’m always humming shit out and kinda thinking about lyrics. 

Orion: Honestly we write most of our songs that way. 

Kisi: It’s interesting to see how intentionally collaborative you guys are not only with your songwriting but also as a whole, tracing it back to the School of Rock teaching you guys how to play with a band.  

Elijah: We also all play each other’s intrustuments, at least mediocre. 

Orion: Elijah and I used to have drum battles! (Laughter) 

Joe: That’s really interesting. 

Elijah: Yeah, so like I can bring stuff to them and they can critique and suggest changes to parts they don't even play. 

Kisi: It makes more sense to me now, why you guys play so well together, because you all have a deeper understanding of each other’s instruments and that helps in the collaborative process of songwriting and playing together. 

All: Yeah. 

Kisi: So for my last question, where did the name Foxtide come from? 

Elijah: Honestly I wish the story was more interesting. During our School of Rock days, we were playing this show and two of the songs that we had written were named Desert Tide and Fox Hole. I just put them together and thought Foxtide sounded cool.