Main article: Sam Herring and Gerrit Welmers grew up in two streets away from each other, and attended the same middle school in. They became friends around 1998, when they were in 8th grade. Herring had started making hip-hop music when he was 13 or 14, while Gerrit was a skater with interests in metal and punk music who bought his first guitar at age 14. Having different musical backgrounds, they did not consider making music together during high-school. William Cashion started playing guitar when he was around 13, having had a couple of bands as a teenager in, where he commuted to High School from. In 2012 he enrolled in the painting and drawing program at ECU and had drawing classes with Sam Herring.
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The idea to form a band came while Cashion was helping Herring study for an art history exam. They invited local record shop personality Adam Beeby to play rhythmic keyboards and fellow art student Kymia Nawabi for percussion and backing vocals. After a tumultuous debut on Valentine's Day February 14, 2003 at Soccer Moms' House, Herring also invited Welmers to join the band.
Only Cashion and Welmers already played a musical instrument —the guitar—but Cashion took the bass and Welmers the keyboards, for a -inspired sound. Sam Herring played Locke Ernst-Frost an arrogant narcissistic artist from Germany, Ohio, dressed in a 70's-inspired white suit with slicked-back hair, and a heavy German accent. The character's name originally was meant to be Oarlock Ernest Frost but it got shortened as a reference to the religious poet,, the artist and, the American poet.
The band quickly gained a local reputation and started touring the underground venues in the Southwest, playing shows with North Carolina acts like and Baltimore artists such as Height, Videohippos, OCDJ, Nuclear Power Pants, Santa Dads, Ecstatic Sunshine, Blood Baby, Ponytail and electronic musician whom they met during a show on May 26, 2004. Nawabi who was already a senior when Cashion, Herring and Welmers were freshmen, left the band to prepare for her graduation project in June–July 2003.
When Adam Beeby had to leave Greenville in September 2005, the remaining members dissolved the band. 2006–2007: Formation – Little Advances [ ]. The name is meant to be vague. (.) We were either gonna be called Already Islands or Future Shoes.
Because, seriously, you don't know what future shoes look like, but you know you'd want a pair! So after deciding Already Shoes was a bad name, we combined them to Future Islands. That's the boring truth, sorry! William Cashion, stated to BMore Musically Informed – September 30, 2009.
Honda Elysion English Manual Pdf more. When Art Lord & the Self Portraits disbanded in late 2005, its members forgot they had discussed with alt-country band The Texas Governor the possibility of touring together. Future Islands was formed in early 2006 to keep that commitment, with an original line-up consisting of Cashion, Herring, Welmers and Erick Murillo—bassist for The Kickass —who played an electronic drum kit. Already as Art Lord & the Self-Portraits, the band wanted to change their image and took this opportunity to do so. William Cashion stated: 'Me and Gerrit had been talking for a while about how we wanted to get rid of the gimmick. We wanted to be taken seriously. Our songs had outgrown the gimmick that the band was made on.
The songs were starting to deal with bigger, personal, universal themes. We wanted to be taken seriously.' The band played their first show on February 12, 2006 at an anti-Valentine's Day party in a venue called the Turducken house, opening for about a dozen bands. After writing 6-7 songs in only one week, they had to come up with a new name quickly, narrowing it down to two choices—Future Shoes and Already Islands—and combining them into one. Future Islands self-released the EP Little Advances on April 28, 2006 which they recorded in March 2006. A couple of months later, Herring dropped out college and left Greenville to deal with a substance abuse problem he had acquired: In June, I left town and didn’t come back.
It was just drug problems, man. I got sucked into the darkness of partying and shit college kids do.
I came clean to my parents and said, ‘Look, I have a problem and need your help.’ I stayed at my parent’s for about a month and then moved across the state to Asheville, North Carolina. It took about a year for me to get my act together. The band still continued and on January 6, 2007 they self-released a split CD with Welmers' solo project Moss of Aura, recorded in December 2006.
2007–2008: Wave Like Home [ ]. Bassist William Cashion at the Kosmonaut Festival (2015) In July 2007, Future Islands recorded their debut album Wave Like Home with Chester Endersby Gwazda at Backdoor Skateshop in Greenville. As Cashion describes: 'When we did Wave Like Home, we were working with a really tight schedule. Sam lived in Asheville and could only be in Greenville to record for a week or so, and we had to work very fast. We recorded the whole album in 3 days, and we spent about a month mixing it.' After a Halloween party in 2007, Erick Murillo quit the band. Having finished his degree, Cashion moved back to Raleigh: “We were scattered across North Carolina.
I was living in Raleigh on friends’ couches, Gerrit was in Greenville and Sam was in Asheville, which was five hours away.” Between November 2007 and June 2008, Future Islands—encouraged by and Benny Boeldt from Baltimore band Adventure —relocated to Baltimore. Cashion moved in November, Herring in January and finally Welmers. There, they could have access to cheap rent, be part of a supportive community and be closer to cities like New York and Washington, which allowed them to tour more extensively. During the first half of 2008, the band added another drummer, Sam Ortiz from the Baltimore band Thrust Lab, who left weeks before the start of their first national tour in late July. On August 5, 2008, the band released the track 'Follow You (Pangea Version)' as part of a split 7' with, through the label 307 Knox Records. Future Islands' track on the EP 'Follow You (Pangea version)' was recorded in April 2006 at the Bonque house in Greenville, NC during the Pangea sessions: the band's first proper session with Chester Endersby Gwazda.
London-based label released Wave Like Home on August 25, 2008 which made sales difficult in the US due to the import costs. The cover art was designed by Kymia Nawabi, a former member of Art Lord & the Self-Portraits. She also designed the cover art of the Feathers and Hallways 7' which was recorded in, on July 21, 2008 during their first U.S. Produced by Chester Endersby Gwazda, it was released on April 15, 2009 by Upset The Rhythm. This single was their first release as a focused three-piece: We have definitely talked about adding a drummer at some point, when the time is right, but right now it just makes sense to be a three piece if, for nothing else, the fact that it is really easy to tour as a three piece. We really have very little gear.
We really just have PA speakers for the keyboard and a bass amp. 2008–2010: In Evening Air [ ].
Sample of the song 'Tin Man' from Future Islands' album In Evening Air The strain of the band's first two consecutive national tours led to the end of Herrings' long-term love relationship in late 2008. This became the theme of Future Islands' second album ' whose first songs were written right after the breakup. In early 2009 Future Islands the band then toured Europe for the first time and the song 'Tin Man' took the band through 's US and European Tour. Later that year, the band signed to independent record company. It was 's bassist Bruce Willen who was responsible for giving the label a demo that contained early mixes of 'Tin Man', 'Walking Through That Door', 'Long Flight' and 'As I Fall'. Future Islands began writing the rest of the album after Whartscape 2009 and recorded it in the band's living room in the historic neighborhood in, with Chester Enderby Gwazda in July 2009. Released May 4, 2010, the cover art was again designed by Kymia Nawabi.
In February 2010, Future Islands released through the NYC art collective Free Danger the EP The Post Office Chapel Wave with remixes by Pictureplane, Javelin, Jones and Moss Of Aura, and collaborations with No Age and Victoria Legrand from. Future Islands debut with Thrill Jockey was the EP In the Fall released in April 2010 and produced by Chester Enderby Gwazda. Its title track featured vocals by Katrina Ford from. The EP also included an extended version of 'Tin Man', a 2007 track 'Virgo Distracts' and 'Awake and Dreaming' which had been written for In Evening Air but didn't fit the mood of the album.
The cover art was shot by Bruce Willen from Post Typography. Interested in expanding their sound, on July 7, 2010 the band recorded Undressed, an acoustic EP at Mobtown Studios, for a radio broadcast. Produced by Mat Leffler-Schulman, the art cover was again designed by Kymia Nawabi.
Played live at an art opening and at Whartscape 2010, the EP was released in September of that year: 'We had been talking about arranging and performing an acoustic show for a while, and in the summer of 2010, Elena Johnston and Natasha Tylea invited us to do an acoustic performance at the opening of the 'Wild Nothing' photography show that they curated. We got some friends together and figured out the acoustic versions.' On November 4, 2010 Future Islands released a split 7' with the band Lonnie Walker featuring the track 'The Ink Well'. The cover art was by Elena Johnston and the single lead to the creation of the Baltimore independent label Friends Records. 2011–2012: On the Water [ ].
Future Islands in 2012 at the Dockville festival, Germany, Hamburg Following a year of solid touring, Future Islands recorded their third album in, North Carolina, between late May and early June 2011 with producer Chester Endersby Gwazda. William Cashion commented 'Being secluded and free from distractions was the most important aspect of our going to North Carolina. Our friend Abe [Sanders] pretty much let us take over his house for ten days, and that gave us a lot of freedom to focus on writing and recording.' Sample of the song 'Grease' from Future Islands' album On the Water Not wanting to be pigeonholed, the band went against the expectation generated by, and the upbeat tone of the previous album was followed by a slow-burning record. Welmers' dance-floor-ready synthesizer and Cashions' uptempo bass were stripped down. The tone of the lyrics changed, according to Herring: 'Because I didn’t have that same anger, so I don’t write about it.'
Friction between the band and started to appear during the recording sessions, as Herring commented: 'We had some issues. There was someone from the label hanging around talking about deadlines. Can we not talk about business while writing a song? Do you want it to be a good album, or do you want it to come out on time?' Pressured by their label, the band rushed the mix and promotion of the album. The lead single 'Before the Bridge/Find Love' was released on July 19, 2011 and the album on October 11, 2011. It featured a duet with from on the track 'The Great Fire' and the art cover was designed by Baltimore artist Elena Johnston.
After one year of touring On the Water, the band broke ties with their label. On July 17, 2012, Future Islands released a charity split single with Baltimore band Ed Shrader's Music Beat through Famous Class records, featuring the song 'Cotton Flower' and on September 3, 2012, they released the single 'Tomorrow/The Fountain' through their previous label—Upset the Rhythm. 2013–2015: Singles [ ]. Main article: Having toured for five consecutive years, in 2013 Future Islands was finally able to afford taking a break from the road, to write ther fourth album: 'We sank everything we had into [Singles].
It’s definitely our most polished record. We were able to take time off the road because of the money we had saved from years of touring, so were able to write while not under the pressure of being in between tours.' They started writing in February 2013 in a rented a hunting cabin in rural North Carolina, while rehearsing for the ten-year anniversary of Art Lord & the Self-Portraits' first show.
About the writing process, Herring described: 'We ended up demoing about 24 or 25 songs, then went into the studio and decided to do 13 of those, and by the end of it we decided it would be a ten-track record. The writing process started in February – there were two or three songs that we had from the year before that we’d demoed – we stopped writing in the last week of July, and went into the studio in the first week of August.
So there was a good five and a half, six months of writing, and getting together two or three times a week over that period to just jam and see what came up.' The band financed the album and recorded it at the Dreamland studios in in August 2013 with producer. In early 2014, the Future Islands announced they had signed a three-album deal to, who released on March 24, 2014. The cover art was by mixed media artist Beth Hoeckel. Main article: In 2016 Future Islands took another break from touring and started writing their fifth album in January, in the small beach town of Avon, in the,.
William Cashion stated: 'We got a beach house on the outer banks of North Carolina in the dead of winter. There was nobody there but us. You could look out of any window of this four-storey house and you’d be able to see the ocean. We set up in the living room, we’d get up every day and start jamming after our morning coffee and just go all day. We wrote about eight songs there, and about three of them made it onto the record.
From that point on, we’d get together in chunks – we’d go to our rehearsal space in Baltimore, or over to Gerrit’s place or to my home studio. We tried to just write the way that we always have.' The band tested their songs live in August playing under different names: The Hidden Haven, named after the beach house where they started writing the album; This Old House, after the TV show Herring watched when growing up; and Chirping Bush, inspired by a disturbing dream Welmers had about a bunch of birds who couldn't get out of a bush. 'We wanted to do little shows, but we didn’t want any attention for the shows; we wanted to kind of do it under the radar. Future Islands recorded in November 2016 at the,, with producer. The album was released on April 7, 2017, and its lead single 'Ran' came out on January 31, 2017, followed by the single 'Cave' on March 24.
The album featured a duet with 's. As in the album, the title comes from 's poetry work and the cover art—a piece titled Chrysanthemum Trance— is again by Kymia Nawabi.
Artistry [ ] Musical style and influences [ ]. I don’t think that any band really escapes the genre tag. (.) We just gave ourself a tag that made sense to us just so we wouldn’t be put in another category.
We started calling ourselves post wave back in 2003 and it was kind of a joke. We definitely don’t want to be tagged as anything because we want to be open to as many people as possible. Sam Herring stated to The Quietus – October 18, 2012.
Future Islands' music style has been tagged as, but the band has routinely rejected that classification, considering themselves as post-wave, by combining the romanticism of with the power and drive of. The band's members came from very different musical backgrounds and sensibilities: Sam Herring grew up performing, Gerrit Welmers was into and and William Cashion was into,, and new wave, so a lot of the band's synthpop influences come from him.
Cashion was also a big fan of and, and was influenced by bassists from and, and from and. While Welmers and Herring found common ground through and, it was through 's which was sampled by that Cashion and Herring found some common ground when forming the Art Lord & the Self-Portraits. They explained: 'Our early influences were and and, so it all kind of came from those sounds. We were just using what we had at our disposal to create, and that were old Casio and Yamaha keyboards and a borrowed bass guitar, borrowed amps. We scraped together what we could to make music with, weird shakers and sound makers and stuff, and that just kind of lead us down a road. These kinds of things defined us early on and we kept with that sound, kept painting with that palette.'
Songwriting and Vocals [ ]. I’ve always considered myself a singer third on the list—I’m a writer, I’m a performer and I’m a singer. I don’t really think of myself as a musician. Those are the things that are most important to me—that I perform well and write something that will stand some test of time and be there for people. Sam Herring stated to Paste Magazine – March 24, 2014. In Future Islands writing process, Gerrit Welmers and William Cashion develop the music which Sam Herring responds to with the lyrics.
Herrings' sad lyrics often contrast with the upbeat mood of the music. He explains: 'Where the songs have always been kind of upbeat and happy, the message is often melancholy. I like it that way, peoples natural instinct is to let their guards down and dance, and then they actually let the words seep in.
Instead of turning away from the darkness, they embrace the light and find the darkness. I think the opposite is true too.'
Literary influences on Herring's writing include poet —whose anthology The Far Field names Future Islands' 2017 album and includes the 'In Evening Air' poem that names their 2010 album —and poet: whose poem and anthology 'The Great Fires' names one of the band's songs. Herring also admitted being influenced by 's prose during the time he wrote the single 'The Fountain'. In the spring of 2014, Sam Herring was diagnosed with. According to him 'There’s four causes. Acid reflux, smoking, talking too much or overuse of the vocal cords, and then chronic misuse of the vocal cords which is how I sing. So, basically, I was four for four.” Herring started compensating for the fact that he can no longer hit certain notes by growling, which in turn became distinctive on his vocals. Live performances [ ].
Main articles:,, and Moss of Aura Keyboardist Gerrit Welmers has been writing solo as 'Moss of Aura' since 2006. After releasing five albums on cassette, Moss of Aura released the LP Wading in 2012 and We'll All Collide in 2016 through Friends Records. The Snails In 2008, Sam Herring and William Cashion started a parallel project called with members of other bands. Their releases took place during Future Islands tour breaks: debut EP Worth the Wait came out in April 2013.
In February 2016, they released their debut album Songs from The Shoebox. Peals In early 2012, William Cashion formed with 's former bassist Bruce Willen, releasing their debut album Walking Field in May 2013. In 2016 they released the album Honey through Friends Records. Herring and Hemlock Ernst Samuel T. Herring uses the stage name when performing rap, the name Ernst coming from his Art Lord & the Self-Portraits character.
He has appeared on collaborative hip-hop releases by /,, among others. He has teamed up with producer for a rap project named Trouble knows Me, releasing an EP in 2015. Herring, he has collaborated with, Microkingdom,, Gangrene,, and.
References [ ].