Ghost Alley Magazine

Foxtide has made it to the forefront of the San Diego music scene, with performances alongside the likes of Beach Goons, Carpool Tunnel, & Arcy Drive. Elijah catches us up on his musical inspirations, song writing process, and what he hopes to leave behind.

Tell me about how Foxtide got started.

Basically, we all met at School of Rock, if you know what that is. It’s like the movie but real life. We were kids, man. I joined School of Rock when I was like 9, and the rest of the dudes came around when I was like 14-15, like 8th grade. Basically, we were all in the same show, and we just started to mesh together really well.

Funny enough, the drummer — Ethan — first drummer, he went to preschool with me, and we really good friends at like the age of 4, and I didn’t see him for like 10 years and he comes back to this music school and I’m like ‘I know you — I’ve seen you before — we used to be homies.’ We just hit it off and started giggin’ and shit, and it was super fun.

What’s the most exciting gig you’ve had, or your favorite?

Personally, I really liked opening for Beach Goons at the Irenic. That was probably our most fun gig because I liked winning the crowd over from like no one knowing us — you know? We got added to the bill like a day or two before, and so, you know, we were just like the opening act and everyone was like ‘who’re these dudes?’ Then like, seeing that moment when they all started to accept us, I was like ‘bet, alright, here we go.’

Where does the name ‘Foxtide’ come from?

To be honest, I really like the name Tame Impala and I really dig Kevin Parker. I kinda liked that weird psych-rock kinda twist on the name, and so I just took 2 things that sounded cool, and I’m from San Diego, so I thought Foxtide worked. It kind of made me think of the sound that we were creating.

And you said you write your songs yourself, right?

Yeah, so the writing process is usually I’ll just be alone in my room. Make a riff, make a melody, bring it to the band, they add the rhythm section, and maybe tweak it a little bit — ‘you should do this, or this’ and then yeah, we just get it going. It’s a lot of jamming, it’s a lot of free flow.

When you write these songs, do they come from personal experiences or do you write fiction?

Definitely personal experience. Whether I’m kind of taking the percent of another character kind of — for example, this song we have ‘Tide’ is about a pushover, and it’s kind of related to me cause everyone can be a pushover but not totally related to me. Maybe just honing in on tiny things about your personality.

Is there a song you’ve written that means the most to you?

They all kind of take a little chunk but some more than others. I liked writing ‘She’s Not Yours.’ cause at the time it was just so emotional, like ‘She’s not yours, she’s not mine either.’ It’s a weird spot that I felt people could related to. That one, and ‘Tide’ as well. Kind of like taking a little personal chunk.

Are there any bands that inspire that writing style?

Yeah, I love the fuckin’ first Tame Impala album, the first Strokes album — that one kind of took a shine on ‘She’s Not Yours’ too. That guitar part I really love. Honestly, I’m inspired by a lot of the stuff I don’t really write. Like Anderson Paak, Steve Lacey, Cosmo Pike, maybe some Smiths, The Doors. You know, sometimes I hear a tiny bit but not really. Just a lot of different shit.

You’ve done a couple music videos too, right?

Yeah, we have one real one out it’s for ‘Everything That’s Mine.’

And how did those come about? What was the most exciting thing about that?

Those were just like, we don’t have any money, we have some homies with cameras, and literally most of the shots were shot on an iPhone. I was like — I had an idea, ‘alright let’s go to the desert cause that’s kind of the scene I’m getting for this song, and let’s just fuck around, put our band set out there and see what happens.’ And that was probably the most fun because we just went out to the Dunes and shot all day, got sunburnt as shit — it was so fun dude.

And the next scene we just did at the City Parks Skate Park. Y’know, keep it local. Invited a bunch of little homies that I knew, skate the bowl around us while we were playing in the middle of it. I just felt like I haven’t really seen that before, so I might as well take a gash at it. It was so fun, man. I loved telling people to just jump in the music video — they loved it.

When everything is said and done, what’s something that you hope to leave behind?

I would say just like inspiration. Cause like any time that I find an artist that I’m inspired by, it’s like a totally fucking positive impact on me. I’m just like, this guy shows me that I can do it. For example, like Kevin Parker (Tame Impala). Like this guy was literally just in his house making this fucking great music.

It just inspired me cause my favorite album by him was recorded in a shitty room with subpar mics and shit like that. Yeah, I just want to leave behind something positive to where I can be like ‘hey man, you can do this to.’ I think it’s really a blessing to be able to explain yourself through music, put it out there, and get that little chunk shared.

How do you guys record?

The first project that we did was called Blind, and the bassist, Orion, just had an idea, he was like ‘hey y’know that coffee shop Le Stats we always play at? We should just record there and do a live one take recording.’ And I was like ‘fuck it, dude, I’m down.’ So we just had Loue, the owner, press record and barely adjust levels, and we just played the whole album through. Then I just layered some vocals on it in my room, tried to mix it as best as possible, and just set it out. It’s really rough, but that’s it.