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Tide Bends Take the Jersey Shore to Madchester
The Asbury Park band talks about their new EP All Of The Time, recording it across three home studios, playing Sea.Hear.Now, and why they skipped the post-punk revival.
Asbury Park has never been short on bands, but few of them sound like Tide Bends. On All Of The Time, a four-song EP out now on Mint 400 Records, the quartet keep the heartland-rock frame they’ve built over the past decade and loosen it up, letting in the swing of Madchester and ’90s Britpop. The result sits near Beck, Blur, and Spoon, in a strain of melodic, UK-tinged rock from the late ’90s and early 2000s that almost nobody is making now. Plenty of bands mining the past fall back on post-punk revival by default. Tide Bends chose a less-traveled path.
Lead single “Advice” is a loose, grooving shrug at people who hand out life lessons they could stand to follow themselves. Frontman Dave Hough says it’s less about frustration than about poking fun at the hypocrisy, however well-meaning.
The EP was also made close to home. Hough, drummer Dan Nolan, bassist MJ Hancock, and guitarist Rudy Meier, who also plays in Jersey post-hardcore band Prop House, tracked across three home setups around the Shore, in Belmar, Brick, and Ocean Township. Meier then mixed it at his Yung Bull Studios.
We talked with Hough about the band’s lineup changes, where the Jersey scene stands now, playing a festival on the beach where he used to walk his dog, and how parenthood changed the way he writes.
Tide Bends began as two people and grew into the four-piece you are now. How did the band get from there to here?
It started with me and Dan around 2015. Gary Zampini joined on bass in 2016 and played with us until 2024. Rudy came in on second guitar around 2022, which was nice and let me focus more on vocals. MJ took over on bass in 2024, and that really changed the dynamic because he adds so much vocally. Same goes for Rudy. Now we have three-part harmonies. All Of The Time started as home demos I shared in the group chat, and the band was fully behind making it a band record.
The Asbury Park scene is huge and goes in many directions, yet hardly anyone there sounds like you. The Britpop and Madchester thread has been part of your sound from the beginning. Where did that come from, and how have you kept it your own instead of letting it become a throwback?
Asbury’s always been a bellwether for bands, more so now that the East Brunswick scene has cooled off, sadly. I’d like to see those spots liven back up. Red Bank, East Brunswick, Hoboken, Jersey City. A rising tide lifts all boats, you know? I think we come at it from a slightly different angle, mostly because of where we are in life. Families, careers, less time to meander. I grew up in the heyday of MTV Unplugged, which opened doors to the music I needed. Oasis and Blur led me to the Stone Roses and Ride. Our tastes all overlap. The Venn diagram is real. I read an interview with Stephen Malkmus where he said, to some extent, that the music we make is a digestion of everything we’ve listened to, especially in our formative years. That sounds about right.
You’ve played Sea.Hear.Now, right in your own backyard. What was that like? Give us an update on everything else too. Are you touring, and what’s coming after this EP?
Sheesh. It was an experience. Getting the treatment, the help with gear, the parking, the access. Hearing yourself that loud, right on the beach where I’ve spent so much time staring back at the shore from the water. I will say it’s a little odd being that far from the crowd. That takes some getting used to. I’ve always preferred being nose to nose with the front row. The whole weekend flew by, because you want to take in everything the day and those magic wristbands have to offer. Being side stage for TV on the Radio was a highlight. Watching Spoon and LCD Soundsystem on the grass where I walked my dog for years. Come on. It’s a head trip. But we did it, it was awesome, and now it’s a blurry, sweaty memory. Huge thanks to Sea.Hear.Now for having us.
As for now, we’re in a bit of a holding pattern. I’ve got a little vocal cord issue, so we’re not playing or touring until I get it sorted. It’s a bummer, but it’s giving us time to write new songs to follow up the EP. It’ll be OK.
These songs started with you, Dave, but the band recorded them across three home setups in Belmar, Brick, and Ocean Township, with Rudy pulling it all together at the mix. How did that way of working shape the record? Did anything surprise you when you heard it all side by side?
These songs started as demos at home. I’d written them thinking they might be a solo record someday. Who knows if that ever comes, and I have a hard time keeping ideas to myself, so I shared them with the band. Pretty quickly we all agreed we wanted to blow these up as much as we could. Having everyone on board and vibing with them was really special. I tracked at my house. Dan did drums at Rudy’s place, Yung Bull Studios in Brick, along with some guitars and synths. MJ has a home studio where he did bass, piano, and synths. Then Rudy mixed the whole thing at Yung Bull. It didn’t set any speed records, but letting it be that organic and homegrown is how it had to happen, I think. The idea was to replace, layer, and give space. I don’t think we’ll work this way forever, but it showed us another way to build songs up, and it gave everything plenty of room to breathe. As for surprises, there were definitely moments that blew me away, hearing what these guys came up with to complete a song. Drums, guitar, bass, vocals. All around.
Dave, you’ve become a dad in the last few years, and “Advice” is about people telling you how to live when they haven’t figured it out themselves. Did parenthood play into that song? More broadly, how has being a father changed the way you write, or what you even want to write about?
Maybe peripherally? I wouldn’t say any one song on here is about parenthood or that transition. I’ve written songs about that, and I think I wear that stuff on my sleeve. If there’s a through line on these songs, it’s probably transition and reflection, and a good amount of rapidly changing perspectives. There’s something about hearing unsolicited advice that makes me smile internally. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just getting older, and that’s part of the gift of age. Time is a thief. That said, being a parent has forced me to be more surgical about playing music, writing music, all of it. My voice memo app is crucial. You never know when something will hit, so you have to log it. If you don’t, it’ll probably drown in the sink of sleep deprivation with all the other ideas that never saw the light of day.
