Where the Ocean Meets the Tyde, Music is Made

Nov 02 2006 / Los Angeles, CA

This hot new band that doesn’t just sing about surfing, they live it

When Darren Ratemaker goes to the beach to ride his longboard, heads begin to turn. It’s not because he’s a pro boarder or can bust unspeakably cool tricks: it’s because Ratemaker’s the singer/songwriter for The Tyde, a beach-bum band that just might be this generation’s answer to the Beach Boys. But this is no retro throwback: the Los Angeles duo just happens to specialize in writing indie rock songs about surfing, the sun, and surfing some more – just like a certain sunny ‘60’s pop group that eventually became art-rock darlings. 

Maybe that sounds a little contrived, but singer/songwriter Darren Ratemaker’s no poseur: growing up skateboarding in Florida, all he wanted to do was surf. “I just didn’t have the friends, knowledge, or waves to do it,” he says, adding that the West side of Florida – where he was living – just didn’t have the right breaks. But once he moved to Los Angeles, it was all over: “When I got to California,” he says, “it was like ‘why not start now.’”

That was years and bands ago: Rademaker was half of the seminal 90’s band Further, who played a bit with surf imagery but never went the full boat, pun intended. When they disbanded, though, Rademaker put the Tyde together with his wife, Ann, and a purpose: to spread the word of the California scene through the world. For the band’s second record, “Twice,” they enlisted famous surf artist Andy Davis do the cover. “It took a year and a half after that album came out,” Rademaker says. “I started meeting people at the beach and they had my record, or I’d meet some kids that were looking at me funny – and I’d realize they knew my band.”

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Things haven’t changed much on their most recent album, “Three’s Co;” Rademaker’s still singing about chasing the perfect wave, composing a soundtrack that’s a perfect alternative for riders sick of Jack Johnson’s lounge-rock but not quite rowdy enough to punk it out. “California’s kind of like our religion that we’re spreading,” Rademaker says, “Some people get it – and some people don’t.”

Rademaker doesn’t much care about those people that don’t get it. The band just got off the road with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the dark, psychedelic band profiled in the movie “Dig!” Their fans’ response wasn’t always great: on one message board, a member said that the Tyde looked like members of the Brady Bunch; another compared them to Hanson. But Radmaker takes it all in stride. “We don’t want to wear all black,” he says. “We want to celebrate California wherever we go.”

He’s an avid longboarder, and says that these days he’s surfing more than ever. “I finally got to the level I would have liked to have been when I was younger,” he says, though he does remember just getting started. “It felt really good: it takes a long time to catch your first legitimate wave.”

But asked to pick a favorite – playing in a band or hanging 10 – Rademaker’s torn. “Playing on stage and being in a band for me is one of those things you can’t really decide,” he says. “So is surfing. When you’re out there surfing – and you’re alone or with your friends – it’s one of those things that can’t be matched.”