By Mohit Puvvala, news correspondent
“There’s a saying that if you want it done well and right, you have to do it yourself,” said Ben Andre, lead singer and songwriter of the emerging indie band. “That’s the definition of Tipling Rock.”
Members Andre, Dillon Salkovitz and Tommy Schubert performed together when they were in high school. When Salkovitz and Andre met Matt Lewin at Northeastern University, the group officially formed Tipling Rock. Currently, Salkovitz, Andre and Lewin are in their fifth years at Northeastern studying music industry, while Schubert studies mechanical engineering at the University of Rhode Island.
The band invigorated the crowd at an Oct. 10 concert at AfterHours, where they opened for the indie group Flor.
“I was floored, pun intended, by the concert,” said Alyssa Marquette, a first-year health science major who attended the event.
At the concert, they encouraged the crowd to jump to the beat and follow the music. Every song built upon the last, and more people huddled closer to the stage and cheered on the band as the night progressed.
Salkovitz said the core of Tipling Rock’s mission is to “create music that is accessible but also well-informed.”
The band spends most nights performing past midnight.
“Half of us are currently on co-op, which makes things a little more difficult from a time management perspective,” Salkovitz said.
While they work during weekdays, they still find time to squeeze in rehearsing, mixing, producing, creating merchandise and playing gigs.
Tipling Rock has been able to apply their skills of marketing, supply chain management and accounting to their band, which Salkovitz referred to as their “start-up.”
“Unfortunately, in today’s world, it’s not simply enough to be well-practiced on your instrument,” Salkovitz said. “If you want to be a successful musician, you need to learn how to position yourself in the industry and prepare yourself for everything that goes into the behind-the-scenes, as well as onstage.”
Andre said after coming up with an idea for a song, he will immediately rush to record the bare bones. He said he eventually adds more layers as the song formulates. After Andre gets the melodies down, he takes the idea to his fellow band members, who turn it into a full-fledged song.
Andre and Salkovitz explained that the recording and production aspects are incredibly important.
Band members said listeners subconsciously recognize production value, so they work tirelessly with post-production software to reach professional industry heights. The band’s most popular hit, “Low Tide Love,” which currently has almost 50,000 plays on YouTube, took them a year to produce.
“When it comes to the production, sometimes we’ll sit on a song for a really long time just working on getting better,” Andre said
Tipling Rock works with Cubase, which is often considered one of the most professional and complicated music editing softwares. The band also has vintage microphones and various types of old, nostalgic equipment.
“We’re always looking at new machines,” Andre said. “I just bought some vintage monitors from the 70s. We’re literally gear collectors.”
However, these creative endeavours often involve roadblocks. The band works extensively to create the best experience. For many of their songs, they re-recorded instruments for hours until they had the perfect take. Moreover, some of the songs took years to finalize the lyrics.
“For ‘Starring,’ it took two years just to get the chorus,” explained Andre. “But we waited because we loved that song so much. We were on the verge of giving up since ‘Starring’ was a solid song, but we wanted it to be something more that would make people go ‘woah.’”
The Northeastern members of Tipling Rock are set to graduate this spring. After graduation, they intend to put more time into the band and create unique singles. They are preparing to release a new EP titled “On the Roof,” which they recorded on their rooftop. The EP comprises five live acoustic versions of their singles. Each song on the album will be accompanied by a video of the live performance.
“This is our lives,” Salkovitz said. “We would be putting this much work into this band even if we didn’t have the attention. This is something that’s a part of who we are.”
