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.[51]
In Future Islands writing process, Gerrit Welmers and William Cashion develop the music which Sam Herring responds to with the lyrics.[32] Herring's 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, people's 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."[32]
Literary influences on Herring's writing include poet Theodore Roethke—whose last book of poems The Far Field names Future Islands' 2017 album and includes the "In Evening Air" poem that names their 2010 album[4]—and poet Jack Gilbert: whose poem and anthology "The Great Fires" names one of the band's songs. Herring also admitted being influenced by Italo Calvino's prose during the time he wrote the single "The Fountain".
In the spring of 2014, Sam Herring was diagnosed with Reinke's edema.[26] 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."[78] 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
Sam Herring at the Kosmonaut Festival (2015)
More than a studio band, Future Islands define themselves as a live band and have toured extensively. Frontman Sam Herring is known by his stage performances. According to William Cashion "A lot of the energy of the show comes from the audience. If the audience is putting off energy, we're able to bounce it back. It's like a feedback loop. If the audience is there with us and they're giving us their energy, then it'll be easy for us to find it."[59]
The style and presentation of the Art Lord & the Self-Portraits was determined by the art school backgrounds of its members: the band was meant to be a performance art piece. Herring has cited Ian Curtis, James Brown and Elvis Presley.[5][79] as influences but his background in performance art and conceptual art also became reflected in his stage presence, even for Future Islands.[50]
"I fell in love with performance art when I was 17 and that was the thing that I found: I just would sit and draw for 20 hours straight and make this thing photorealistic and then put it on a board and then people see it and that's it, or you can stand on the street and perform for 30 minutes with some weird thing you came up with off the top of your head, act out a play to no one but people are going to walk by and you're going to get a reaction. They may not get what you're doing or care about what you're doing, but there's something, you sparked something in their heads. And that's an exciting thing, to look into people's eyes. There's no expectation—you can create a memory for people, like I said, good or bad. It can grab people and that's a cool thing."[80]
Herring's dedication to stage performance has not been without physical consequences. When touring Europe as part of the Dan Deacon Ensemble supporting the album Bromst, Herring was tackled by a drunken spectator in Paris.[81] Six months later he realized he had torn his anterior cruciate ligament and underwent surgery in February 2010,[81] continuing to perform shows in the following months wearing a knee brace, which can be seen on the June 24, 2010 Amoeba show footage.[82] In 2014 Herring passed out at the airport on his way to Primavera festival due to exhaustion. Being revived by medics, he still made his plane and played the show that night.[83] In 2015, he tore a meniscus while doing a knee drop when opening for Morrissey at Red Rocks on July 16,[26] but the band completed the remaining four months of the Singles tour.
Touring
Drummer Mike Lowry at the Kosmonaut Festival (2015)
Future Islands has performed over 1,000 shows in their first 10 years.[26] Since 2013, the band has included a drummer in its tours. In late 2013 and early 2014 it was Double Dagger's former drummer Denny Bowen who had already played drums and percussion on Future Islands albums In Evening Air, On the Water and Singles among some EPs and singles. In the spring of 2014, due to tour schedule conflicts between Future Islands and his own band Roomrunner, Bowen was replaced by Mike Lowry from Baltimore bands Lake Trout and Mt. Royal. Lowry was also part of The Far Field studio sessions.[60]
"Our shows are all about creating a really energetic vibe, a physical thing, and we want more people to move – that's the big thing. We either want them to move, or be moved by the music. It was never weird to us that we didn't have a drummer, but to some people it was – they'd be like: "Where the hell are the drums coming from?"[50]
Coming from an art background Future Islands attribute importance to their albums' cover artwork.[84] William Cashion stated: "I think having good artwork is a big deal for any record. I think if a record has bad artwork I will just dismiss it, I just won't even give it a chance. I think a lot of people share that opinion, that artwork is very important."[39] Future Islands' cover artwork has been delegated to different artists, as Sam Herring explains: "As projects pop up, we decide what artistic styles best speak to the music and the medium, then decide on artists. We primarily choose friends' work, though, people who we've become intimate with as friends. I think that pulls something deeper out of the whole, working with loved ones. You give birth to something bigger than yourself when you involve other people's ideas and minds. That's always a good thing."[44]
Kymia Nawabi made the cover art for Wave Like Home, Feathers & Hallways (single), In Evening Air, Undressed (EP), and The Far Field. She is the most recurrent artist and is based in Brooklyn. She was a band member of the proto-Future Islands band Art Lord & the Self-Portraits[4] and directed the video of "Walking Through that Door" in stop-motion animation. William Cashion commented "Our friend Kymia ... as I said, we write and record in our own world and she kind of makes ... her artwork is definitely in her own world, in a way. The images she uses are all her own. We went to college with her and we've always admired her work and we love working with her. She also did the cover for the new EP and the Feathers & Hallways EP. We definitely put a lot of weight on the art, and we want to make the albums look as good as they sound."[39]
Elena Johnston created the cover art for On the Water, Future Islands / Lonnie Walker split 7-inch, Dream of You and Me single. She co-directed with William Cashion the video of "Dream of You and Me" and is the creator of the large canvas seen in the background of the interior scenes of the video "Ran".[85] About the On the Water art cover William Cashion stated: "We decided that we wanted the album art to be loose and abstract for this album ... We wanted washes of color. The cover is actually an excerpt of a painting that Elena had already created."[47] In another interview he added "It was great working with her. The piece wasn't made specifically for the album. We chose it from a series of paintings and drawings. She handled most of the typography on the album as well."[44]
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.[86][87]
The Snails In 2008, Sam Herring and William Cashion started a parallel project called The Snails with members of other Baltimore bands.[88] Their releases took place during Future Islands tour breaks: debut EP Worth the Wait came out in April 2013.[89] In February 2016, they released their debut album Songs from The Shoebox.[90]
Peals In early 2012, William Cashion formed Peals with Double Dagger's former bassist Bruce Willen,[91] releasing their debut album Walking Field in May 2013.[92] In 2016 they released the album Honey through Friends Records.
Samuel T. Herring and Hemlock Ernst Samuel T. Herring uses the stage name Hemlock Ernst when performing rap, the name Ernst coming from his Art Lord & the Self-Portraits character.[4] He has appeared on collaborative hip-hop releases by Milo/Scallops Hotel, Busdriver, Open Mike Eagle among others.[93] He teamed up with producer Madlib for a rap project named Trouble knows Me, they released an EP in 2015.[94]
1 2 Studarus, Laura (September 23, 2014). "Future Islands - The Under the Radar Cover Story". Undertheradarmag.com. Under the Radar Magazine (Publish on paper Issue #50 - June/July 2014 - Future Islands). Retrieved April 16, 2017.
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