After years in the shadows, TiLT 360 returns with Blindspot—a raw, reimagined EP blending old struggles and fresh resolve. We spoke with them about legacy, recovery, and resurgence.
1.
Congrats on the release of Blindspot! How does it feel to finally share this EP
with the world after such a long journey through the band's history?
It feels
really good and it has been released before back in 2005 but we remixed it and
put a master on it. Just to see how well our music is doing this many years
later is inspiring and gives us all a sense of achievement.
2. Three
of the four songs on Blindspot are reimagined versions from your earlier work.
What inspired you to revisit and remaster “Divide,” “8:21 (Embrace),” and
“Blindspot” specifically?
We have a
lot of recorded songs, and a whole album that didn’t get released in 2004, then
we released the ‘Point Blank’ Ep (2006) and our full-length album ‘Day 11’ in
2008. So, putting these songs all together on 4 song Eps is the plan. I am
mixing and matching songs that i feel would go well on these ep’s together.
Some never even heard on disc before only live. These new distribution
companies and streaming platforms is what made me re-release this music because
we didn’t have any of this kind of networking when we was coming up.
3. The
song “You’re Not Everything” is brand new to listeners. What can you tell us
about the writing and recording process for this previously unreleased track?
Well, we
had a battle with keeping a guitarist through the years, we went through 3
until Jay Miller came and solidified the sound. They were all amazing
guitarists and they brought their own sound. I write some music and my bass
player drew wrote quite a few of the songs musically so our sound was there but
it definitely evolved. The story with ‘You’re Not Everything’ is we had a
guitar player for little less than a year but he had many songs structured and
memorized coming in, so we hit the studio. We had his scratch guitar tracks,
and heather’s drum tracks recorded and then he bounced. We weren’t going to
waste the studio money so our fill-in guitarist and my bass player drew wrote
that kinda on the spot to make a song out of drum tracks that were to a
totality different song by the guitarist that left. I like this version best.
4.
Blindspot as a title track really sets the tone—both musically and lyrically.
What themes were you exploring with this song and why does it still resonate in
2025?
The lyrics
are about mental health and addiction issues i struggled with for damn near 15
years and still do to this day as far as mental health but I stay in recovery
by being clean and sober and the therapy and meds help my mind stay balanced as
much as a Bipolar persona can be haha. And to this day there still is addiction
and mental health issues, so this song can resonate with anyone who struggles
with either or both.
5. How
has the evolution of your sound from your early 2000s material to now shaped
the production choices on Blindspot?
We started
out in 1999 as rap metal/Numetal and recorded a demo in my living room with a
little computer program we passed out. No click track, not much time on the
mixes cuz everyone was just too fresh at all this but my buddy Frank was a bit
ahead of his time in recording so it sounds pretty good, but you can hear the
evolution of pro tools as he engineered and recorded all our music we ever
released but got better and better at using those DAW systems and i tell you
what, you put our recordings off ‘Day 11’ up to any million dollar recordings
it holds its own for just being in different studio rooms with pro tools and a
great musician and studio engineer.
6.
You’ve had an impressive history—touring extensively and opening for acts like
Nonpoint and Mushroomhead. How do those past experiences still influence how
you approach music today?
That was a
very cool experience, especially hanging with Nonpoint, They were so chill and
down to earth and definitely killed it live. Just to meet and hang out with a
“famous” upcoming national recording artist and opening for them definitely
boosted our confidence and stepped up our game to practice and get tighter and
tighter. It really didn’t affect how we approach music as far as writing, but
it did check you as to how much more work ya gotta put in to be on the level
because at that point we were just 3 yrs in as a band.
7. The
band was active from 1999 to 2010 and now you're back in the streaming era.
What’s it like to navigate the modern digital music landscape compared to the
old-school scene?
That's a
great question. I look at it as a double-edged sword, in a way when we were
coming up we could have used this kind of platforms to get exposure but we had
a different type of hustle, that nowadays I feel bands don't have that I see of
because they have access to everything at their fingertips. We were out there
in the winter and the storms staple and flyers to poles, putting flyers on
people's windshields walking all over downtown Youngstown and then thereabouts
to promote shows hand and out flyers doing street team type stuff. We would
walk by we would hand demos to people I mean it was literally like opening the
trunk and pulling out the tapes except there were CDs by then. That grind and
hustle met with the streaming era can really be beneficial so if you could take
our old school grind and bands that had to do that and meet with technology now
it would be a total “A" game. Unfortunately, technology has made a lot of
artists lazy, no one wants to do the grind but everybody has access to a studio
that can put out any kind of junk if they want to and when I say junk I mean
I'm practiced too fast because the daws are available everywhere. So, to any up
and coming artist that read this interview, if you're not out there handing
flyers out promoting by word of mouth and meeting people it's going to be hard
to get people to come to your shows. Sure the internet's great but if you don't
meet people and have a personal relationship with them especially as an
original band not a cover band cuz people will go to see cover bands but they aren’t
going to see original bands unless you make them come and the only way you can
make them come it's for every 100 flyers stapled or hand it out you could
assure that you'll get 10 people. That's the kind of hustle though we had to
have.
8. Let’s
talk about the track “8:21 (Embrace).” It’s a fan favorite from the Day 11 era.
What makes this version stand out from the original?
Well not
much, the only thing that makes a stand out better is that I used the mastering
system on LANDR to bring up the levels on the mix because the mix was very
tight, but overall I felt that out of all the songs on ‘Day 11’ the 2 tracks
that needed more mastering and a volume boost was title track “day 11”
actually, and 821(embrace). So, it's a lot bigger and beefier with this
mastered version.
9. What
message or emotional arc do you hope listeners take away from the full EP
experience of Blindspot?
Well,
that's up to personal interpretation…but for me as the songwriter, I used these
songs as a kinda cry for help and therapy session battling drug addiction in
those later years which ultimately led to our first “break up" in 2004.
Then we rejoined in 2006 around, and I was in a better place but not for long.
Addiction is a MF’er and it is a black hole that sucks the addict and also the
family and loved ones down with them to an eternal abyss unless the chains are
broken. For me, it took damn near 15 yrs on the streets runnin and gunnin
before I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, beaten into a state of
reasonableness by psych wards, rehabs, and being locked up in jail 5 times. It
was God that stepped in and took the chains off on the best and worst night of
my life. A violent night involved me setting out to commit murder, police
tasers and beat down, suicide by cop was the intent after I had nothing left
but being homeless cuz of a mental obsession, physical allergy, and spiritual
sickness. God stopped it all, I never was religious or followed any kind of
spiritual path until 2014 happened. My testimony is real and the only reason
I'm alive. When I listen to these songs again I remember the pain, the
emotions, the wanting to die but didn't have the courage to do it myself so
like so many others (Layne Staley, Kirk Cobain,) many more, the music was a cry
for help at some point and ultimately it ended in death but I'm still here by
the grace of God. I hope people who understand this or going through the same
thingß here these tracks, relate to the pain and raw emotion and get right if
they are struggling. You have to surrender to win, it is a paradox and
something I could never understand being a boxer, and Army infantry veteran.
And that's what kept me out there so long was my own will trying to beat this.
Even though I have some of the strongest will power on the face of this earth,
ya can't cure a spiritual disease with a physical solution. That's a long-detailed
answer but it is needed, every word of this.
10.
You’ve had praise for your dynamic shifts—from aggressive, guitar-driven
choruses to more melodic
moments. How intentional are those contrasts in your songwriting?
Very
intentional, especially in the earlier years being of the rap metal, numetal
era. That's what started me on a microphone. I love hip hop and I am a good
writer not much of a singer but a got a roar of a scream. So, my promising pro
boxing career cut off by a serious injury I lost myself and found solice in
music and writing. Bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit, RAGE against the machine, and
Deftones allowed me to think I could spit some bars and scream. So, that
started it even though some of those bands I named aren't all “rap metal"
it started me on a journey. I grew up in the grunge era and loved it, but pearl
jam, AIC, Soundgarden, NIN, and Pantera to name a few some of these cats have
amazing singing voices. I wasn't blessed with that I worked hard to get my
voice where I had the confidence to shift from rappin to sing screaming. A
nudge from my bass player Drew Salzano, whoa wrote “Drown" and handed me a
CD of spineshank and something else where there was heaviness and Melody
started me to work on singing chorus and verses. " Drown” was released
recently on our ‘It Grows' EP, written in 2002. If y'all hear it then you can
see it's kinda IMPOSSIBLE to rap to. Lol, so Drew trapped a bruffa. Much love
cuz it worked out a lot better as we evolved.
11. With
Blindspot now out, what’s next for TiLT 360? Are there plans for new music,
live shows, or a full-length album?
We've
talked about a reunion show, me and Drew actually start another band called
‘Dempsey’ which is an acoustic rock / alternative hip hop type sound much along
the lines of say Everlast, and some blues and we play from 2016 to about 2021
so we've always remained in touch and our members are mainly still around the
area with one down in Florida now and US scattered in Ohio and Pa so not sure
if we're going to ever play live again maybe we get together and do a nice
Reunion show in town just for the hell of it cuz it'd be great. Or we may just
write music in the studio because of technology and we can record it and put it
out so you might be hearing some new songs or a live show it's all up to time
will tell.
12. For
fans just discovering TiLT 360 through this EP—what’s the one thing you’d want
them to know about the band’s legacy and what you stand for in 2025?
What we stand for it's an original rock band that formed the sound that is timeless proven by songs that have been written in 2004 and 2008 that are playing right now that you're all here in and still getting reviews and praise and love to these days. Maybe because it's come full circle and people want to hear some more of that grunge rock type metal and rawness and emotion that moved away from with some years there but I'm not sure because I lost a lot of years listen to other music I'm still stuck in the 90s, however we stand for hard work, relentless drive, a hard hustle and the bands that Ford all their heart find some souls and blood sweat and tears into their music but didn't actually make it to where it was their lifestyle to never give up to keep grinding and you never know with technology these days and this streaming it's way easier to get exposure than when we were coming up especially if you're not in a big city known for music. But if you go to the local Youngstown Ohio music scene when we were coming up there's more talent in that scene than half the bands that are signed right now and I can name it. It's just weird like the little big city in between Cleveland and Pittsburgh and a run-down steel town and it was hard to break out of. So don't give up and you got to stand for something or you'll fall for everything. Respect y'all.
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