By Kiri Coakley, news correspondent
Almost two years after the release of its first song, local band Tipling Rock gained global attention when online streaming service Spotify featured its single “Low Tide Love” on its “Fresh Finds” playlist on June 8. The song rose to the top of the United States Viral 50 before making it to the top of the Global Viral 50 chart, bringing the listener count from the thousands into the hundreds of thousands.
Singer, songwriter and guitarist Ben Andre, bassist Dillon Salkovitz and guitarist-keyboardist Matt Lewin are all Northeastern students. Along with drummer Tommy Schubert, a student at the University of Rhode Island whom Andre and Salkovitz met in high school, the four rising juniors formed Tipling Rock out of their mutual love for making music.
“For me, ‘Low Tide Love’ is a song that’s supposed to capture the excitement of summer and the feelings that come along with it,” Andre said. “I started writing the music and immediately I knew it had to be about the beach. It just has that vibe.”
After hearing about their rise to the top of several charts due to their feature on the Spotify “Fresh Finds” playlist, the band members were enthusiastic about the positive reception, but do not see the song’s popularity as the peak of their achievements.
“We’re at the point where we’re not really in it for money or fame or anything like that. We just love playing music,” Andre said. “If we had the opportunity to tour for at least enough money to live on, we would totally tour the world.”
For the three Northeastern band members, who all study music industry as either a major or a minor, their passion for music extends into other aspects of the field.
“We actually also do audio production and engineering,” Salkovitz said. “When we’re not doing stuff for Tipling Rock, we’re doing other music things.”
Matt Lewis, a friend of the band members, recently finished filming their music video for ‘Low Tide Love,” which will be released in July.
“The idea behind the video was that we fly down to Florida and the video would be about our trip, just sort of capturing our personalities,” Andre said. “We did some kind of funny stuff, including bringing our guitars into the ocean.”
Andre said that they are planning to release more singles rather than wait another lengthy period of time to compile enough material for an album.
“I think that the big thing is that we’re just really excited on what we’re working on,” Andre said. “The new music we’re working on we’re trying to release late summer, early fall. We’re probably going to be releasing singles for the foreseeable future and just trying to grow.”
Photo by Matt Lewis, courtesy of Tipling Rock.
