In a world that seems saturated by a various offerings, sometimes a bright light shines through a maze and sets itself apart from rest of the field and has a promise of greatness. We believe that Taken By Tides is one of those bands.
Taken By Tides is a Texas-based rock band that merges Metal, Rock, and Pop into their music. Consisting of vocalist Omar Martinez, guitarist Guillermo Rodriguez, bassist Jack Strunk, and drummer Jayden Castillon they are primed to take on the world by a storm.
Our readers already had a chance to introduce themselves to this amazing band, however for the perspective to this interview you can refresh your memory with the links to the articles below:
Interview questions prepared by Andris Jansons, answered by the band collectively.
- How did Taken By Tides come together, and what was the spark that made you realize this was something special?
The band’s been a project for a long time now but we didn’t form into what I’d like to call this new band until the pandemic. Every member used to play in their own separate bands, we met through playing various local shows over the years in south Texas. I think there were plenty of moments in the band where it felt special, but one I can point to was just getting together and playing in a room for the first time in this lineup, it just fit. I had this out of body experience almost, I couldn’t stop smiling cause I couldn’t believe that we had such chemistry.
- How do each of your individual influences shape the overall Taken By Tides sound?
I’d say we all definitely come from different backgrounds and ideas, we all listen to some similar stuff but there’s definitely certain genres certain members gravitate more towards. For example, our drummer Jayden will sometimes bring a Pop inspired beat, we can mix that with our love for Metal, along with a bit of Reggaeton inspired rhythm when called for.
- Your sound is often called genre-defying. How would you describe your musical identity in your own words?
I’d say we definitely just write what we’re feeling at the time, and when that happens, there’s no rules whatsoever. That could usually end up making a song that feels a bit too soft for the heavy crowd, and a bit too heavy for the soft crowd, but as long as it makes us feel something, I think it’s a win for us. It’d be a bit difficult for us to describe our musical identity, but I’d say we strive for anthemic choruses with emotional verses/bridges.
- You blend Metal, Rock, and Pop into an electrifying force. What’s your approach to balancing aggression with melody?
The approach is trying to have the instruments not clash with the vocal. If the guitars are in their own space, and the vocals are sitting in a different space sonically, it allows for the heaviness of the guitars to exist along with a melodic vocal. Sometimes you want them to play with each other, cause then they could be too disconnected, but it’s definitely a balance.
- How do you keep your sound raw and emotionally authentic while still pushing the envelope sonically?
It’s definitely writing from the heart, we try not to have any rules when writing, except for some structuring rules we like to follow. But for the most part, sonically, it’s about capturing a moment. There’s been times where we’ll record a vocal, or some guitar part during the demo phase, and we can’t replicate that emotion when we take it to the studio to record it professionally. Sometimes it’s forced us to literally use the demo takes for certain parts, due to the take having that raw/emotional sound.
- What role do vulnerability and honesty play in your lyrics and performances?
It plays a big role now, more than ever honestly. For the longest time, I struggled with spilling my whole heart on paper, but recently I decided to just let go. It’s art, it should be real, painful, beautiful, good and bad. People tend to care more now, that the art is honest and vulnerable. I think they can tell when something feels authentic.
- Do you write with live performance in mind, or does that come later in the process?
Sometimes for sure. Most of the time we’re kind of just chasing those goosebumps, when you finally got a combination of notes in a perfect melody, and you get goosebumps just hearing the lyrics against it. We sometimes like to play the songs together before they’re even released, to see what they’d feel like live, then depending on how it feels, go back in the studio and maybe get that final 10% boost to a song.
- “A Thousand Lives” dives deep into themes of loss and devotion. What inspired you emotionally and artistically when creating this song?
I think the main line of the hook sounded really cool, it didn’t have any meaning yet, I just ended up mumbling some notes and eventually it started to sound like: “Would you sacrifice a thousand lives.” Once that came to be, the rest of the lyrics sort of started forming a story. There really wasn’t any inspiration from any media, but after the song was written and recorded, I had just watched Stranger Things, and Interstellar for the first time, funny enough. There’s some themes in both the series and movie where you’d do anything to find that person or people you care about dearly, I thought it was cool to see a visual representation of that. I kind of emotionally attached those lyrics to those shows while watching it.
- Can you elaborate on the line about “restarting life a thousand times”—what does that metaphor mean to you personally?
So you can definitely see it a couple ways. The 1st way I see it is, even if I were to reincarnate a thousand times, I’d still find that person, no matter what. Whether it be a love interest, a relative, a parent, a best friend, you can kind of attach that to a loved one. Sometimes, I feel like some people are meant to belong together, and I find it interesting that in a thousand different universes, they’d end up together no matter what.
- The music video adds a cinematic layer to the song—how involved were you in its concept and production?
Decently involved for sure, I’d like to point to our guitarist Guillermo, he’s been sort of taking lead on most of the music video treatments. As a band, we’ll sort of come up with general themes, take it to a director, and then finalize it from there.
- Was there a specific moment or experience that triggered the writing of this song during the winter you mentioned?
There were definitely a decent amount of tragedies happening in all of our lives at the time, some of us at different phases of coping with it. I don’t think it affected it directly, but maybe something subconscious was affected for sure. Something in that winter sort of just clicked, we then went on a rampage of writing lots of music, it was like a creative explosion that came outta nowhere. All I could think about was these songs. I guess it’s kind of nice it was in the winter cause you’re sort of locked in anyways.
- You wrote the song in your home studio—how does working in that environment affect your songwriting compared to a traditional studio?
It’s a good and bad thing, it’s a good thing cause you sort of can have unlimited time writing, and it’s a bad thing for the same reason. You kind of have to decide for yourself when the song is fully done, or at least ready to take to a real studio. When you’re renting out studios, budget is obviously a factor, so you kind of have a time limit in the back of your head the whole time.
- How was it collaborating with Drew Sullivan on the production? What did he bring to the track?
It was great, Drew definitely brought out a lot from me as a singer. We started working with me since our single, Death of The Old Me, back in Jan 2023. From that single to now, I’d like to say he definitely steered us as a band in the right direction, allowing all of us to grow. For this song, he actually suggested bringing in an acoustic guitar for the down part before the final chorus, I think it definitely tied the full song together.
- “A Thousand Lives” follows your explosive single “Ghost Vibrations” and your EP It Ends With You. How do these releases connect or evolve your artistic message?
All of these last couple releases live in their universe I’d say, there’s not really a connection between them artistically at least. But I do think you can notice the musicality shift at some point, you start to see growth through the songwriting, performances, and so on and so forth.
- What themes or sounds are you interested in exploring next?
We’re currently writing a lot more stuff, there’s lots to talk about as a band I believe. As for sounds, we’re sort of just taking what we know now, and expanding upon it. We’ve been investing into more plugins, sound libraries, and such, but we’re also trying to expand the core of the band, which is just Drums, Bass, Guitar, and Vocals. I really want to challenge ourselves as musicians and see what we can do with just those 4 elements. We kind of live in an age where synths and effects are sort of a part of the package now. Not to say I despise it, I absolutely love adding bells and whistles, it’s like you’re a composer for an orchestra or something, both styles of writing are definitely challenging. So yeah, in conclusion, just expanding upon what we currently know, is the goal!
Follow Taken By Tides:
Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/TakenByTides
TikTok: https://www.TikTok.com/@takenbytidesband
Facebook: https://www.Facebook.com/TakenByTides
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-JvvsGfajXqLJ6iPaS-m0w
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3g3R9lutRYQ8tnhDayhUHk
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