2008 Woodie Awards
Future Islands brings large crowd to The Corner
Band returns to Greenville and releases new album
David Puckett
Issue date: 4/10/08 Section: Features
Fans packed The Corner March 29 to see the Future Islands perform, a band that originated in Greenville in 2003 under the name Art Lord & The Self Portraits. Their unique sound, which consists of vocals from Sam Herring, synthesizers played by Gerrit Welmers, bass guitar played by William Cashion with an electronic beat, attracted listeners throughout Greenville and the surrounding areas. The band broke up for a brief spell, but reformed as Future Islands in 2006 with the addition of a live drummer and new songs.
"We had some friends from up North coming down here [to Greenville] to play, and they always helped us out when we went up there. We were like, 'wow, we aren't doing anything, we have got to get started on a new project.' So we got a friend to join the band, and started writing songs," said lead vocalist Sam Herring.
Herring refers to their sound as "post-wave, dance music," with influences from bands such as Kraftwerk and Joy Division. However, he said that their style of music changed between Art Lord & The Self Portraits to Future Islands.
"The style changed in the aggressiveness of the music. In Art Lord, I wore all white and spoke with a German accent, and the band wore all black. It was more of a concept and Future Islands is more of a stripped down, straight-up band," he said.
Over the past four months, Herring and Cashion have moved to Baltimore, Md., adding to the progressive music and arts scene of 'Wham City.'
"Wham City is an arts collective impulse that involves a lot of different artists, musicians and writers. It's basically a gigantic group of friends, but the term 'Wham City' is a space where a lot of these people lived," Herring said.
Herring says that keyboard player Gerrit Welmers has plans to move from Greenville to Baltimore soon, and although the members will no longer be living in Greenville, he still refers to them as a Greenville band.
"I found that it [Greenville] gave us a birth for playing music because it made us feel like rock stars; that we could do it. When we were kids, playing in Greenville made us feel like we could play in Raleigh or Chapel Hill, Winston Salem and Asheville, and then we were like 'we can go out of the state.' So it has all been a learning experience from all starting in Greenville," Herring said.
"We had some friends from up North coming down here [to Greenville] to play, and they always helped us out when we went up there. We were like, 'wow, we aren't doing anything, we have got to get started on a new project.' So we got a friend to join the band, and started writing songs," said lead vocalist Sam Herring.
Herring refers to their sound as "post-wave, dance music," with influences from bands such as Kraftwerk and Joy Division. However, he said that their style of music changed between Art Lord & The Self Portraits to Future Islands.
"The style changed in the aggressiveness of the music. In Art Lord, I wore all white and spoke with a German accent, and the band wore all black. It was more of a concept and Future Islands is more of a stripped down, straight-up band," he said.
Over the past four months, Herring and Cashion have moved to Baltimore, Md., adding to the progressive music and arts scene of 'Wham City.'
"Wham City is an arts collective impulse that involves a lot of different artists, musicians and writers. It's basically a gigantic group of friends, but the term 'Wham City' is a space where a lot of these people lived," Herring said.
Herring says that keyboard player Gerrit Welmers has plans to move from Greenville to Baltimore soon, and although the members will no longer be living in Greenville, he still refers to them as a Greenville band.
"I found that it [Greenville] gave us a birth for playing music because it made us feel like rock stars; that we could do it. When we were kids, playing in Greenville made us feel like we could play in Raleigh or Chapel Hill, Winston Salem and Asheville, and then we were like 'we can go out of the state.' So it has all been a learning experience from all starting in Greenville," Herring said.
Be the first to comment on this story