New York City-based band Tilden on their origins, songwriting, and live show experience
New York City-based band, Tilden, is a dynamic seven-piece group that makes it impossible to stand still when listening to them play. The group is composed of Julian Anderson (vocals), Jenna Mark (vocals and synth), Kallan Campbell (guitar), Diego Martinez (bass), Ryan Laetari (guitar), Steph Jacco (flute), and Gabe Camarano (drums).
Tilden can balance perfectly the scale of light and dark sound in each song. Some are perceived as hard rock, focusing on guitar, bass, and drums. Others highlight the softness of the flute and keys in solos or instrumental breaks. They create music that crosses genres with an exploration of sounds in order not to bind their music to one category.
You guys were a group of friends that turned into bandmates. Can you talk about how that switch originally happened from the core group being friends to creating the band?
Kallan: The pandemic started, and we had a jam space and we became a pod, most of us. We just started playing music. And we spent a lot of time just having fun, not really thinking it would ever become a thing. We wrote songs and we also had pandemic money, so we started going to the studio to record a little bit. But since then, bringing people in and some people have left, but the ethos still remains the same. It's very much like a democratic band and about friendship and improving the relationships for theirselves and others in general. That's the thing we do.
Julian: I mean, a successful band is like a degree from Harvard for business. You finally find the function of a band. You learn about yourself and you learn just how to communicate. You learn how to run a business. It's incredible. It's like an education that I don't think anybody could ever get that's not in a rock and roll band. So it should be in the first semester of everybody's curriculum at all these schools.
Ryan: Rock band 101.
When you guys became a band, was everyone already playing music separately?
Ryan: We met from being in other bands and playing shows together and working together.
Diego: And living together also.
Jenna: I didn't play music at all before.
And you two, (Gabe and Steph) were the last to join. How did you come into the band?
Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)
Gabe: I was living in Massachusetts. I was playing with another band at the time and got to know most of these folks, mainly Kallan. My band at the time would come down here and we would play together. New York kind of became like this place where I'm up till 4:00 AM every time I'm here. Then I got to know them better. I moved from Massachusetts and then that kind of synchronized with their drummer at the time leaving and they asked me if I wanted to play, and I was down.
If I'm also correct, were you (Steph) supposed to be just a one-off on a show?
Steph: Yeah. Gabe was like, 'do you wanna play with Tilden that night?' And I was like, ‘well duh.’ And I just tried to find a way to learn their sound and try to find my way into it. And then they just kept telling me to come back and I just kept coming back.
Diego: Trying to keep as little pressure as possible. If you want to!
Steph: I mean I was like, well duh.
As a rock band you have a really interesting structure because you have a lot of different elements in there. So how are you able to balance the mix of all the instruments, especially with the hard rock and then the softness of the piano and the flute?
Ryan: We just pay a guy.
Julian: We like contrast.
Specifically with the composition of writing songs.
Julian: Yeah. We just let it rip. If it sounds good, it sounds good.
Ryan: I think we always try to leave room for people to have their moment and breathe. Give each other space.
Kallan: It's all about the personal relationships too. It translates into music. It's communication, listening and leaving space for someone to have something to say. And so that's how we try to make the songwriting as well. It's collaborative and democratic, and it's just about asserting yourself as much as you want your part to be in there for the most part. But there's some songs that start from scratch as a jam. There's some that start with a seed that someone will come in with, like a little bit of groundwork, and then we work off it together and create parts together.
Can you talk about the origin of your name?
Jenna: We were going to the beach and doing a lot of psychedelics in quarantine. We were going to Tilden Beach and then that's at the same time that we started the band.
Are you guys inspired by the beach? That's quite a contrast to New York City.
Kallan: Yes, definitely. I think our whole thing is we are a very colorful band, which is kind of a hard thing to see in New York. I feel like we all have our own individual styles and brightness to us, I would say. And I think the beach kind of represents that as far as what we like to share with people, which is the best parts of ourselves and try to give out some warmth as much as we can.
“Daddy's Shoe” was the first single recorded and that was also released with “World On Fire.” You originally released your music on tapes. So what about that medium stuck out to you to release your music?
Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)
Jenna: It's cheap and fast.
Kallan: And accessible.
Did you want something in a physical form?
Julian: Yeah, it was fun. We got to do all these masks. At the bar we worked at, one of the owners is an artist and he collects and makes all these masks. I always see them and I thought let's put these individual masks on a colored paper behind it and just create these, sort of fold the open-the-tape pages. And you get all these cool masks.
Ryan: I remember that Julian was trying to have like 12 panels for the cassette cover.
Jenna: We got four in there.
What does a typical songwriting process look like for you guys? How does it start out?
Julian: Every Monday we go to practice. And somebody just plays a groove or a seed as Kallan mentioned. And it's great for me cause I can just go, 'Ooh, yeah,' for like three hours. And then there will be some words that come out. It's a fun technique. Maybe they'll keep jamming. I'll go take a leak. I'll be like, ‘oh, these are cool words.’ I'll come running back down and they’re still working on the material. So it's great. And I feel very free and non-judgmental in space. Just sing low, sing high, scream, or whisper. It's very nice. We get to do everything.
Kallan: So yeah, we try and let it unfold as it wants to. We'll record it and then listen to it on our own time. Then we kinda talk about it and work on it on our own and try to meld our ideas once we get back into the room, once we kind of worked on it on our own.
Ryan: Argue about the arrangements for an hour.
Diego: Yeah. Yeah.
Kallan: We're getting a lot better about communicating.
Gabe: Kallan writes a lot of songs too, and I think we will be inspired to write it for Jenna. Or knowing that the finished product is gonna be her singing on top of it and will kind of work with her on the words and stuff.
Kallan: Yeah. That's for me to get her on the mic a lot more too. As far as the style of songs, we don't really go for any sound in particular. It's just like whatever's coming out, naturally. That's why it's all across the board. It's just kinda like a roller coaster. It's whatever songs make it out alive.
So you guys rehearse every Monday? Do you sit down and write or is it just like everything?
Jenna: It depends on what we have coming up. Usually we're trying to get more time to start writing more, but usually we're getting ready for something and people have been outta town so we're catching up with practices.
Julian: Opening for Usher is gonna be intense. So these next two weeks have been dedicated to just the set for the Super Bowl.
You released “Daddy Shoe” and “World On Fire” in July of 2021. “Annihilation” in November, 2021. And then didn't release music until “Alone With Somebody” until May of 2023. What prompted the break between releasing singles?
Julian: Well, we were recording a shit ton. We just, I don't know what happened to all that.
Kallan: Yeah. We spent too much money and didn't have enough time for it. Then I just didn't have the right things happening in the recording process. A lot of things just didn't make it out.
Ryan: We started playing a lot of shows.
Jenna: We just went back to work and life went back to normal, so we had less time. We had to adjust to having less time.
Kallan: A lot of show offers we couldn't say no to as well. But then with “Alone With Somebody,” it was time, we gotta get something out. Especially wanting to get a song that Jenna was singing on out as well, so we could balance the things. We took it upon ourselves to record it on our own. The only thing we did in the studio was drums, and then we paid for a by-the-hour studio space to get vocals. Other than that, we did it in our jam space and just made It happen.
You played your first gig in 2021 and have consistently been playing around New York. Is the New York scene a source of inspiration for you guys at all? And how have you been supported in that?
Jenna: Yes, it's a source of inspiration. I think that all of our shows are pretty much like parties. People come to hang out, or just have a party with us. It's always just like a good time and people come for the energy, and we're as excited about the shows as people are to come because we all just hang out.
Diego: Yeah. Just like the essence of community is captured through. It's just like that one big experience that we all share together.
Gabe: People really show up with energy, and it just becomes a beautiful exchange. Always. It's like people are just jumping around and we feed off that.
Kallan: And for the other bands too, we're always front row for whoever we're playing with. It's us dancing around, making sure that we're giving back to the musicians we're playing with as well. We're all here to have a good time. We're all in it together. We like to show our support for the bands that we play with. And just in general, whenever we go to shows, we're pretty much having fun every single time. Dancing, just having a good time.
Diego: I think last year was arguably the most busy year for us as far as shows. It began in January in Miami. Literally on New Year's.
Julian: We got on stage at five in the morning.
Diego: And it never stopped really from there.
Gabe: Diego fell over three times.
Jenna: My voice went out in the middle of the set.
Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)
Steph: This is clearly a band who works hard just as much as they play hard.
Julian: Work hard, play harder.
For your last single “Alone With Somebody,” what was the creation process like? How did that song start out?
Jenna: Kallan sent me the basis of it, all the recorded music. It was mostly just guitar, right?
Kallan: It was just a very rough demo on GarageBand. And I was like, ‘is this something that you vibe with? Is this something you think you'd wanna sing on?' And it ended up working out.
Jenna: Yeah. I think it was January, or December of like 2021. I think I was quarantining because all my friends had covid and I was getting wine drunk in my bedroom, and I wrote some lyrics. So yeah, it's just born out of that, just him writing it intentionally with me to sing on it.
Kallan: But then everyone brings their flavor to it. It's not like, 'you gotta play this part.' Just figure out your part within this.
You're not writing the flute parts?
Gabe: Unless you're me and you get a text message from Julian at 3:00 AM, 'Hey, I love what you've been doing. But yeah, it's gotta be more like this.'
Julian: Sorry, yeah. I went to music school. I try to not get all heady with all that, but I can't help that.
Kallan: Julian's background is much more regimented. So I think that does translate into music a lot. I come from just like, I learned how to play in a rock and roll band. I mean, Jenna too. I think Ryan, most of us. So, I don't know, for me it's important to have the freedom to make the song however it needs to be and be a little bit loose with it. But then Juju comes in structure.
Julian: I'm more divide and conquer. Call somebody up after rehearsal.
Jenna: We'll meet somewhere.
What do you want people to take away from your live shows?
Julian: Have fun.
Ryan: Oh yeah, definitely, just have a good time.
Gabe: Yeah. It's a bleak world, you know? And if like for a moment people can kind of release and have a, have a positive experience and leave with some better energy than they walked in with, I feel like we've done our job.
Jenna: I also lyrically wanna write things that are relatable so that people want to hear them and feel seen.
Kallan: Yeah. I mean, when I listen to Jenna's lyrics, I'm like, 'yes, I needed to hear this.' I just went through a breakup this past summer that was really rough on me. And every time we played a show it really hit me to hear Jenna's lyrics in a new way. I believe in everyone in this band and love to see what they bring to it. It's as much for everyone as it is for us too.
Julian: What about my lyrics?
So you just like to do whatever is speaking to you in a moment?
Julian: It's a mix of that. If it's a jam thing, I'll hear just the way the word flows out of the sound and the mouth and that. And then you can sort of start carving that into something that might create a quilt of a song.
Kallan: I love his lyrics. Every time we jam he comes up with some incredibly catchy chorus or whatever. It's like, what the hell are you talking about? But I like it.
Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)
Gabe: I mean, it's nice cause we'll just be jamming and he can kind of just riff and write lyrics on the spot and then try things out. But yeah, maybe I should start sending him messages at 3:00 AM.
How do you remember those lyrics? Do you just remember, write it down, or are you recording?
Julian: Well we have it recorded. We record every rehearsal. This is like my way of just being in the studio and having the band just keep vamping that verse, just like they do now with a lot of rappers.
Do you have any upcoming new music plans?
Julian: Yeah. A lot.
Let's hear them.
Ryan: We have built up a lot more new songs. I mean, we only have like three singles, right?
Jenna: Four.
Ryan: We have four singles. Well, you know, we play a lot of songs, and we have more that we don't even play in our set anymore. We're just trying to figure out how we're gonna record right now. We're trying to record like before the winter's over or in the spring.
What’s the goal?
Julian: I wanna make a great record.
Ryan: I want to be rich and famous.
Julian: Well, you know, there can be things that come on the side of a great record.
Jenna: I want to travel and play cool shows.
Kallan: I want to just keep playing music with my best friends, and I wanna make it worthwhile for everyone. And getting a record done. So we have some sort of lasting thing, god forbid we can't continue doing this project. Just making the most of the time that we have now.
Diego: Yeah. I wanna share these songs with these people everywhere in the world.
Steph: I just wanna play. I wanna play this music. Getting to have the opportunity to play music with you all, and perform is so big to me. And also traveling. There's nothing like being on tour, being on the road. I feel like we haven't experienced that in the same way since before the pandemic started. And it has been such a long transition back in that direction. And I still think we're definitely not there yet, but having that as something to work towards.
Gabe: I guess for me, I ultimately just want to keep supporting the community that supports us and like, keep leveling up and play with sweet bands that ultimately inspire us all. And that's something that we get to take away from a show, and that positively kind of leaks into the rest of our lives. Just keep that inspiration going. Keep making cool shit. That's my goal at least.
Ryan: Rich and famous.
Tilden will be playing March 8th in Boston at Warehouse XI. Catch them back in New York City, March 9th at TV Eye.