Black Tide Bassist Speaks on Lineup Changes, Current Tour, Upcoming New Material

The last time the Miami-born quartet Black Tide made it back to South Florida was last September, when the foursome played a date at Revolution on their tour with Welsh metallers Bullet for My Valentine. It was an extremely short homecoming to be sure. And the band's nonstop touring schedule has kept them on the road pretty much ever since, with its most recent large-scale outing on a Kerrang! magazine tour across the U.K. this past winter. And again, the band incited a mini-riot. "The last night of the tour in London, we had to cancel the show, after they'd let everybody in, because there was no stage power. They're replacing all the lights in the city with some low-energy bulbs or something, and around 8:30 somebody hit the wrong switch, I guess," recalls bassist Zach Sandler." This was at Brixton Academy, which is a pretty big venue. And all the bands had to come out onstage and say, Sorry, we wish we could play for you but we can't. So all of a sudden, kids start throwing shit at the stage. I took a few CDs to my ankles."

Surviving the flying debris, however, the band scored a quick six-week break back in Miami for the holidays, and at the end of January set out for a U.S. trek with Escape the Fate and Burn Halo.

However, the personnel has changed along the way. Founding member and second guitarist Alex Nunez left the band last summer, to be replaced by his own bandmate in side project the Panix, Austin Diaz. "It's as simple as this," Sandler explains. "He wasn't into the music, and we didn't want there to be any awkwardness of trying to work on a record when we know there was someone in the band who wasn't into it. We mutually decided that we should get somebody else."

With Diaz, the band has begun to work on some new material, which Sandler says the members hope to further flesh out on their downtime this summer as they play the Warped Tour's entire run of national dates.

Black Tide performs with Escape the Fate and Burn Halo, Sunday, February 15. Culture Room, 3045 N. Federal Hwy., Ft. Lauderdale. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., tickets cost $14.99 in advance. All ages. 954-564-1074; www.cultureroom.net