They've already made their Late Late Show debut, sold out Cork Opera House, carved out an early reputation as purveyors of energetic and hugely commercial guitar/synth pop and now Cork brotherly trio True Tides have released their latest single, Survive.
And with a title like that, the bright, effervescent song may seem like either good timing or an unhappy coincidence as the Coronavirus changes every aspect of our lives.
However, speaking to RTÉ entertainment, the band’s talkative vocalist Cian MacSweeney explains it wasn’t like that all. "We don’t see it as a happy or an unhappy situation. We think it’s more serendipitous because it wasn’t pre-planned. It was written back during the Beast from the East, in similar but much less serious circumstances of a lockdown.
He adds, "I was working at home and at the time I was going through a rough patch and finding it hard to know who I wanted to be and what I wanted to be. I was a bit down on myself and struggling to get out of bed.
"I was literally roaring 'get up!’ to myself every day. I knew there was light and I thought they may be something to that and I started writing the song. The chorus says ‘get up through all your fears, get up through all your nights, through your darkest moment, you will survive’.
"The song is saying try, even if you can’t, try and you will survive. We worked on it and it came together in early December and we realised that this song wants to be released and we agreed on a release date of March 27 and lo and behold it was released in a time of lockdown. I did fear that people might take it up the wrong way."
Cian and his drummer brothers, drummer Conor and guitarist Eoin, started playing music when they were kids growing up in Ballintemple in Cork and they come from good musical stock. Their mother was a member of local alt-folk band called Copinger Sound with her siblings and cousins and they once supported Thin Lizzy in Cork City Hall.
"Initially music started as competition between the three of us," says Cian. "Conor literally started on pots and pans and then Eoin got a guitar so I had to start too but you can’t keep playing on your own so we began to jam together."
Now signed to Warner Music Ireland and managed by Lar Kaye of Dublin duo All Tvvins, so far True Tides have uploaded four songs online, including the widescreen indie of Higher and the more expansive and poppy Survive.
They make a bright, immediately melodic and commercial sound and Cian says it’s a reflection of the trio’s upbeat personalities.
They’ve also managed to avoid the kind of friction usually associated with brotherly acts such as Oasis, The Kinks and The Beach Boys.
"We’re from a big family, there’s nine kids and a lot of us are musical so in regard to Oasis and bands with brothers, we’ve gotten our fights out of the way many moons ago," says Cian.
"Jamming together for years, we eventually and naturally found out what worked and because we’re brothers we can be super honest with each other in ways that we can’t be with other people.
"You might worry that if you argue with a band mate, he might leave but with brothers, he has to come back because mum will make him come back. Hahaha."
#untilltomorrow
— TRUE TIDES (@truetidesband) March 28, 2020
Hope everyone is keeping safe and well. 📸 Taken from an early True Tides practice. Loving the reaction to 'Survive' ♥️ keep sharing x pic.twitter.com/xyD9ZxBrPK
Alan Corr @CorrAlan2
Survive is out now on Warner Music Ireland
