Black Tide

MARCH '08

Harder Beat Magazine Online

Black Tide
Feel The Shockwave

By Travis Tutwiler

Black Tide

“It’s been awesome,” admits singer/guitarist Gabriel Garcia, as he talks about the last eight months. “The Ozzfest tour was f*cking crazy. It’s like our first really big tour. Before that we had done two shows with Trivium, which was pretty big, too,” explains the 15 year-old musician. “Everything has just been amazing, Dude. Avenged Sevenfold were cool, awesome guys and it was a really fun tour.”

With their much-anticipated debut, Light From Above, scheduled for release on March 18, this band of young musicians are about to take the metal scene by storm. Garcia is joined by Zakk Sandler (bass), Steven Spence (drums) and Alex Nunez (guitar). There’s been a lot of buzz about the age of the band members, which range from 15 (Garcia) to 19. However, their music goes way beyond, as they deliver a mix of thrash, 80’s metal and loads of guitar.

“My cousin got me into all the metal stuff, like Guns N’ Roses and Motley Crue, and from there it was just the Internet and the radio stations,” Garcia explains about his transition into music. “It was the same cousin who taught me how to play guitar. My favorite guitar players are Marty Friedman and Dave Mustaine (Megadeth) or Zakk Wylde (Ozzy & Black Label Society). I started this band with my older brother (who was a drummer), but he quit like two years ago. But then Steven and I met Alex (Nunez) and Zakk (Sandler) at school.”

To write their debut release, Garcia enlisted the help of producer Jason Suecof (Trivium and God Forbid). “Me and him wrote most of the songs. We did a five-song EP with him like two years ago, and I went back and forth to Orlando, where he lives,” Garcia explains. “I’d go there and we’d write. I mostly started off with a cool riff and from there would just branch out.

“So far, Garcia admits, “it’s been that I go over to the studio with Jason. Now that Steven (Spence) has joined (who plays awesome piano), we’ve been writing a lot of songs together. Like ‘Light From Above,’ which was written in the studio. It’s just him on the piano and me on guitar.”

One of the CD’s standout tracks is a cover of Metallica’s “Hit The Lights.” Their reason for choosing it? “We all just love (Metallica’s) Kill ‘Em All, and it’s just an awesome song.” As for other tracks, Garcia states, “My top three favorite songs right now are ‘Enterprise,’ ‘Black Abyss’ and ‘Light From Above’.”

The response has been great for Black Tide, even if the album hasn’t surfaced. They recently rolled into The Door in Dallas as support for Chimaira and All That Remains. The crowd was eating up every word and searing guitar solo that Black Tide offered up — the crowd pleaser being the smoking hot “Hit The Lights.”

This year looks to be a busy one for these young musicians. “We’ve got a lot of touring planned,” Garcia explains. “We’re coming through with the Rockstar Mayhem Tour this summer,” which will bring the band to Dallas’s SuperPages.com Center on July 25.

Hopefully they’ll make it through the tour without incident. “We have really bad luck with vans,” he explains. “We’ve broken down in our RV twice already in less than two weeks, which sucks.”

But the band is looking for good things to come. “Hopefully people will pick up the record and come to the shows,” Garcia notes, adding “thanks to everybody who has come out to the shows and… pick up a Light From Above in stores on March 18.”You won’t be disappointed.”