Wichita band Tideway released its full-length debut album in January 2017 and closes out the calendar by issuing a new EP with close friends Kill Vargas. Both bands are on the bill for a show at the Crown Uptown Saturday, Dec. 9 which also feature local act The Cavves and Salt Creek from Lincoln, Nebraska.
Tideway guitarist and vocalist Trent Gaddie (the band is rounded out by drummer Will Mercer and bassist/vocalist Scott Garver) stopped by the KMUW studios recently to chat about the new EP and Tideway’s history.
Jedd Beaudoin: You’re putting out this split release with Kill Vargas. Is this a band that you’ve done a lot of shows with over the years or was this something that came out of the blue?
Trent Gaddie: We’ve played lots of shows with Kill Vargas. They’re probably one of the reasons that we started a band. We were always best friends with Austin Engler, the bassist, and later we came to know Logan and Griffin Bush. They’re a huge influence on us and who we are as musicians. It’s awesome to get to play a huge show with them.
Kill Vargas basically started in high school. Is that where Tideway started?
All three of us in Tideway went to Maize High School with Austin Engler from Kill Vargas. We saw what they did being a high school band and said, ‘Hey, we want to do that too.’
Starting out in Maize, where there really aren’t any music venues, did you do garage shows, talent shows, that kind of thing?
We did a lot of school stuff. They had a talent show and we played a lot of house shows. Another great place was The Donut Whole, where we were always allowed to play. We love that place so much.
A lot of times there are rooms that are 21 and over and then there’s really nothing. But you often have a whole bunch of musicians who are under 21. So it’s got to feel good to have a room that you can go to.
Good all ages venues are very hard to find. Especially ones that are long-lasting and don’t get shut down after three shows. It’s great to have a venue that’s good in the eyes of the city and that stays open and hosts great shows and is a great place.
Tideway is a band with a pretty eclectic sound. It’s always identifiable as you, but you cover a lot of musical ground on your full-length album Yawedit.
All of us have very, very different musical tastes. So that adds a lot of eclectic differences between our songs. We all write the songs, so everyone writes in a different style and that all compiles into one. We’ve gotten a lot better lately at molding the styles but when we first started one of our key factors was all the vastly different song structures and styles.
You’re also not afraid of being a little bit humorous
We have always been a funny group of people. We like to joke around and that definitely shows in our music too and the way we play shows. We suck at talking on the microphone in between songs so that usually ends up being awful jokes that we tell and just awkwardness. That’s just who we are, I guess.
You talked a little bit about how the material’s evolving. How does the material on this new split release reflect where the band’s at now?
These new songs are vastly more mature. When we wrote the songs for our full-length it was some of our very first attempts at writing music. We released that in January, so we’re almost a year past that. We’ve had a chance to mature in our songwriting and the building of structures. So it’s given us a chance to create songs that have a lot more lasting impact and aren’t just surface level good, but are actually good throughout. So that’s been nice.
What life lessons do you take away from being in a band?
One thing that I have learned is to be resourceful and also to be assertive because a lot of people do this half-heartedly, not because they’re meaning to be but because they don’t have a lot of time for it. It teaches you how to be assertive in what you want and what you need. As well as planning. I’m not an organized person, so planning is not my strong suit. Planning out tours and planning out routes and when we’re going to leave in the morning and how much gas is going to cost and figuring out how much money we need to make at the venue to break even–touring teaches you a lot of life lessons. It’s mostly where you learn how hard it can be.
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Jedd Beaudoin is the host of Strange Currency. Follow him on Twitter @JeddBeaudoin.
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