Get ready for a deep, heartfelt talk with Samuel T. Herring, the spirited and dynamic frontman of the synth pop band Future Islands. Samuel's candidness will leave you thoughtful and inspired as he talks about his musical journey, the band's sudden rise to fame, personal struggles with addiction, and how he discovered his artistic voice through the likes of Marvin Gaye and John Coltrane.
He talks with Paul about the effects of streaming services and social media on musicians. Additionally, he sheds light on the band's evolution and the challenges they faced while rising to stardom, including recording their first album amidst financial struggles, and the effect of constant touring on their songwriting process.
As we conclude the conversation, Samuel opens up about his personal growth and self-reflection experienced during his journey. He speaks about how his music and lyrics have evolved to mirror his life changes. He further discusses his struggles with balancing his personal and professional life, underlining the importance of empathy and understanding in relationships. This episode will leave you with a deep understanding of the power of music, creativity, personal growth, and the resilience of the human spirit.
Presented and produced by Paul Hanford
Paul Hanford on Instagram
Future Islands’ 6th albium ’People Who Aren't There Anymore’, out 26th January via 4AD.
Current single, 'The Tower' is out now
Lost and Sound is proudly sponsored by Audio-Technica
Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more.
Subscribe to the Lost and Sound Substack for fresh updates and writing.
Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins
Get ready for a deep, heartfelt talk with Samuel T. Herring, the spirited and dynamic frontman of the synth pop band Future Islands. Samuel's candidness will leave you thoughtful and inspired as he talks about his musical journey, the band's sudden rise to fame, personal struggles with addiction, and how he discovered his artistic voice through the likes of Marvin Gaye and John Coltrane.
He talks with Paul about the effects of streaming services and social media on musicians. Additionally, he sheds light on the band's evolution and the challenges they faced while rising to stardom, including recording their first album amidst financial struggles, and the effect of constant touring on their songwriting process.
As we conclude the conversation, Samuel opens up about his personal growth and self-reflection experienced during his journey. He speaks about how his music and lyrics have evolved to mirror his life changes. He further discusses his struggles with balancing his personal and professional life, underlining the importance of empathy and understanding in relationships. This episode will leave you with a deep understanding of the power of music, creativity, personal growth, and the resilience of the human spirit.
Presented and produced by Paul Hanford
Paul Hanford on Instagram
Future Islands’ 6th albium ’People Who Aren't There Anymore’, out 26th January via 4AD.
Current single, 'The Tower' is out now
Lost and Sound is proudly sponsored by Audio-Technica
Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more.
Subscribe to the Lost and Sound Substack for fresh updates and writing.
Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins
Lost in Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica. Audio Technica are a global but still family run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones. They make studio quality, affordable products because they believe that high quality audio should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to AudioTechnicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. Hello and welcome to Lost in Sound.
Speaker 1:I'm Paul Hamford, I'm your host, I'm an author, broadcaster and lecturer based in Berlin, where I'm speaking to you now from, and this is the show where, each episode, I have conversations with the musical innovators, the outsiders, the mavericks, the artists that do their own unique thing, and we talk about music, creativity, life, the things that inspire us to make the things that we make. Previous guests have included peaches, suzanne Chiani, jim O'Rourke, chilly Gonzalez, cosy, funny Tutti, jean-michel Jarre, mickey Blanco and First and More, and today on the show you can hear a conversation I had with Samuel T Herring. My book Coming to Berlin is in all good bookshops or via the publishers website, and so, yes, here we are. It's a really, really, really cold Monday morning in the beginning of December in Berlin. I hope, wherever you are, you're having a fantastic one and I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. I certainly did. I certainly enjoyed having it with singer, artist, rapper and actor, samuel T Herring, best known as frontman of the Baltimore based synth pop group Future Islands, and we spoke ahead of the release in January of the band's sixth album called People who Aren't there Anymore. As a self-described non-musician, samuel is an artist who, I really feel, understands how to use his voice and his physicality as an instrument, as something of pure expression.
Speaker 1:I think the two words that I'd used to describe Samuel's style the most are emotion and performance, and this came crashingly onto a global radar around a decade into the band's career four albums into the band's career in 2014,. Around about the release of their fourth album titled Singles. I wouldn't say it was one thing, but a performance on letterman of the band performing what has now become such a seminal tune seasons waiting on you became such a genuine pop culture moment. I remember I was addicted to watching the YouTube of this performance. I had to keep going back and watching it, and that got me into the band. It got me into the other stuff. Following this, the band grappled with the ups and downs of sudden fame and attention before getting into their flow again several years later.
Speaker 1:And Sam, someone as well on a personal level, that's been very frank and open about his own life and situation dealing with addictions, and we talk about some of this in what I think you're going to find is a very frank and feels to me very honest, genuine chart. Along the way he's also collaborated with a wide bevy of other artists, perhaps, I think, for me most notably lending his voice to the Bad, bad, not Good song. Time Moves Slow in 2016. It's another ubiquitous song. As an actor, you can now see him in the Apple Plus drama, the Changeling with LaKeith Stanfield, and I love his work. I was so excited to have this chat and I was thinking I was so excited, but I forgot to turn on my camera on Zoom at the beginning for a few seconds, and this is where we go into the chat, are you?
Speaker 2:going faceless.
Speaker 1:Paul, oh yes, no, I'm not Sorry, that was a flaw. I like the faces. Okay, I'm good. It's so strange this whole thing with Zoom as well, isn't it? I mean, we've had a few years now. Do you feel accustomed to it?
Speaker 2:now. Yeah, I mean, I really do. I think even more so. I mean it's kind of weird as a touring musician, facetime or Zoom or whatever has kind of revolutionized being away from home in just the sense that you can really check in with people and see how people are doing. It makes me think about the old days of touring and going through dead zones with, like, a flip phone. I think someone's breaking up with me right now, but I'm not sure. We're kind of hyper-connected and that's I mean. Of course, that's like a good and bad thing, give and take, but yeah, it is kind of crazy how Zoom has become such a huge part of our lives because of the pandemic and everything. I think the way people work, the way people interact.
Speaker 1:I hadn't really thought about it before. The whole kind of concept of like going back in time, it's kind of crazy to think of. When I think about festivals in the 90s being pre-internet, organized pre-internet, it's quite outstanding. It sounds terrifying.
Speaker 2:Yes, actually it sounds terrifying because I remember when we were first coming up as musicians in Greenville, north Carolina, with our first band that was before Future Islands, new William and Garrett we were making a go of it. I just remember the band that was kind of the band in town when we were there, this rock group called Valiant Thor. I remember Herbie, who he was probably maybe only like four or five years older than us, but he'd already like built up a and you know this is 2002, he already had like his black book of these are the venues around North Carolina and the South, these are the contacts, these are the people that run them, and he like gifted it to us as he left town as like as kind of a vote of confidence and that was something. Of course it meant a lot to us at the time. But then we were kind of by that point. I mean we booked all our first tours.
Speaker 2:William, our bass player, booked all our first tours through like MySpace, you know, before Facebook, you know. So he was booking shows through MySpace and this kind of thing. So we were kind of we were before the true digital age but kind of on the cusp of the of not having to do the true DIYs we're. I mean, I remember our first tours we would have to print, like Bibles from MapQuest, you know. And I remember going to New York City and getting lost and having to somehow get back to the path that we were on to then redo the steps but just like terrified of where are we, how are we getting home? And, yes, it's such a different world, touring from those early days and I can't even imagine when you were just like we have a map, we have an atlas of the world and we're going on tour.
Speaker 1:It's quite crazy to think. You know, just like the. You know I do feel sorry for the map industry, the print's map industry now and you know, you know there's been quite a lot of incarnations and a lot of you know a lot of things that have happened and people who aren't there anymore is coming out in January. So when a new album comes out, do you get reflective?
Speaker 2:Well, that's kind of funny. I mean, the thing is the songs. The songs, of course, are coming from a place of a reflection, but they kind of are. They're the initial exorcism. You know, you kind of you get it out, you make the demo and then you do the recording process, you know, later on, which brings its own kind of new reflection, because you're, you know, you're worried about, you know this is going to last forever and I need to reconnect with the original emotion. You know whether that song is six months old and you're recording it forever, or it's two or three years old and you're recording it forever, there's pressure to it.
Speaker 2:But then I think the big thing is when you get to this, this, the interview process, press process of an album, and that's when you really start to really think about well, it's kind of before that. So when you put them out together and constructing it and the track listing, and then when I'm talking about songs and people are asking me questions within within songs, like did you mean this, and that's when I'm really like did I mean that? I'm not sure. And also that's kind of like a beautiful thing to me about the creative process, because I am, I'm definitely much more of an emotional, an emotionally inspired person as opposed to being really intellectually trying to do something Like. I really just want emotions to flow out, like what the music, what the music the guys create, brings out of me.
Speaker 2:So then, so then you kind of go from this emotional process to this intellectual process and that's that's the thing that it brings me joy, although it also, like, can crush me sometimes because it, because it reveals things you know and within the thought of an album, even I mean people who aren't there anymore that title coming to that later on, after these songs are constructed, after the whole album is Constructed, and then finding the title, you're just like, oh, this hurts me in a whole new way, because now I'm thinking about all these other things, like, because that doesn't only represent the people that are out of our lives. That represents people who we were. You know, the people that we are no longer and and the people that we've been at times in our lives, for the, for the loved ones in our lives. I'm not there for the big occasions at times in. You know the life on the road of being on stage and then being gone, like we're in your city for 12 hours. Bye.
Speaker 1:So that there must be, that there's such a transient nature in a way to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean I think you can listen to. You know that that's definitely a running thread through all our albums, not purposefully, it's just because it's our lives. You know, being on the road is something that you you hear in our music a lot because it is. You know, we're reflecting on that, the life that we live, and you know, and that that goes into the same ideas of just work within Everyone's life.
Speaker 2:You know, you know I, like my partner, is in the entertainment industry as well and you know she talks about.
Speaker 2:You know sometimes she has to go away for a month or two or you know she's she's working so much that she doesn't get as much time with with her child, and then, but then she's like, but then when I'm off, I just have 24 hours a day all the time, and it makes me think about my parents who really just they worked, you know, eight to six, seven every day and and that was normal, but I was like I guess I didn't really spend a lot of time.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. It's like I guess they were there, but they were working and and it's kind of it is that same kind of distance that's created because, you know, distance isn't always far away. You can be. You can be face-to-face with someone, you can be sitting on a couch Watching your favorite show that you share with your loved one, and you guys actually are not together. You're complete, you're alone. There's distance because of the lack Inocation or a lack of intimacy, a lack of bonding, and so, yeah, you know it makes you think about all those things. The road just kind of turbo charges everything.
Speaker 1:Hmm, I can imagine that. Yeah, and because you say you're an emotional songwriter, so I guess, and you're not so intellectual in the process. So I guess, when it comes to doing things like interviews, or or when you listen back to the album, do do things like, sort of, is it quite surprising sometimes how people interpret the music, you know? Do you sometimes feel like, oh, my god, I'm being psychoanalyzed?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I guess that's kind of that is part of what I love about it, you know, and and because it is, you know, I understand art as art. You know coming from coming from music, from an With with kind of a visual arts background, you know being in, you know I flunked out of art school. I Didn't graduate, but I was there. I was there for a few years. But you know that critique process is a really important part of the process. And then, and allowing people's, allowing people to apply their own Experiences and being open to it and actually allowing that to, to, to open yourself up to that, or is like its own form of empathy, you know, its own form of of Understanding things in different ways and being open to, to ourselves to change as well.
Speaker 2:Because I think, as a younger man, in writing I you know, especially writing about breakups, there was, there was so much like frustration and anger and sometimes rage and like really deep despair and I think, as I've gotten older, it's naturally. You know there's a calmness and an acceptance to it and a way to look at things not so one-sided. Early on, it would just be like you did this to me and never like, oh yeah, I kind of did this to us too, or I did this to myself, you know, never taking those, taking that responsibility for, for our actions. So I, I think, in a way allowing, giving people my emotions and allowing them to to hopefully learn or Eel, you know, because a big part of what we try to do, and what I really hope to do, is to Just allow people to connect with their own emotions you know I think I think in being you know, for all intents and purposes I am a pretty normal masculine looking guy, you know, and I.
Speaker 2:I think it's important to show that I can also be on stage and be a very powerful man and I can also be a vulnerable man, to engage with my emotions and to hopefully allow people to say, oh, I can also engage with my emotions and not be weak. I can also dance and not feel like I look silly. You know I can, I can feel power and in a Vulnerability. So so that's that's like a big part of the of the arts for me is really about like expectations and things, but but allowing people you know, you know, because the songs change for us as well, you know, as you, as you grow older and you understand things differently. Then that young kid who Didn't really understand his emotions or his actions, or I don't know. So, yeah, I think it's important. It's an important part of the process because it uncovers new things and for for the, for the artist as well as the audience.
Speaker 1:Mmm that's a really lovely way of putting it and like over this kind of timeline and stuff and of the kind of reflections, if you look back on it now, where, where do you feel? Was there like a point where you feel like, okay, music has come into my life in a way that feels a little bit more than just you know enjoying what, what's on the radio or what you know buying a record once in a while?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I guess there were probably a few different Moments like that for me. I mean, you know, I always reflect on the fact when I was like five or six I had like a Marvin Gaye tape that it like, really it made me very emotional, I guess in child and for some reason that was, I was drawn to that and you know, later on that was being drawn to like John Coltrane, you know, in my teenage years, and being like, oh, so it's not just words and stories that can make me feel a certain. And really that's what it was. It wasn't like wanting a sadness, it was. It was music that was engaging me on an emotional level, like Music that was giving me a feeling, so like to hear Coltrane years later and I always forget the name of the song, it's on blue train, it's a beautiful slow ballad and I was just like, oh, oh, this, you know this, this horn is killing me, you know. And so it wasn't just the, it wasn't just the lyrics or the song that was pulling me off. That was pulling something was. It was literally like the melody In the movement of the voice, of an instrument.
Speaker 2:And then later on, you know that would become, you know, around that same time I was discovering hip-hop and started writing. So I kind of discovered poetry and hip-hop at the same time. It's like Theodore Rettka, carl Sandberg and Karris one Were like really important to me as teachers in writing. And then that kind of gave me. That was something that gave me voice. Um, it made me feel like I could be a part of the music as a, as a non Instrumentalist like I just don't play any instruments Um, it was a non instrumentalist. Then I felt like, okay, I, I connect with the writing and now I connect with the voice. Um, and that was four, thirteen, fourteen years old.
Speaker 2:But but even up until college, like I, I wanted to be an mc. When I got to college and then I met William and we just started this performance art piece that was our first band art lord, and the cell portraits, um, and then I just kind of followed this path. But that was not my intention. You know, I wanted to be. If I wanted to be an artist, I wanted to be a teacher. That was my plan for my life when I was 18 years old, going off to school, and then, you know, five years after that, I was A college dropout.
Speaker 2:I was getting clean from drugs like a drug addiction. I was broke and I was washing dishes, and that was kind of when music became. You know, I was like, okay, I don't have I ruined my school career. I have, I have no assets, like no job assets, and you know, and I'm kind of restarting my life because I, you know so, a couple years in my own life with drug abuse and then, and uh, but I was like the music is the thing.
Speaker 2:You know, music was the one thing that still brought me a lot of joy. That still felt like like uh, uh, I it, it was like gave me a purpose and a place. You know, there was. There was joy taken from the audience, there was joy given to an audience, and that was that was when I decided to move to Baltimore and at the same time, william had the same idea and then we convinced Garrett to move and that's and that's when future islands became, or like.
Speaker 2:I feel like that was when we so that was like two years into the band, that uh, that discovery at 23, which was like, okay, now we're gonna do this thing, um, and you know, from 2008 to 2012 we were just on the road.
Speaker 2:But but, yeah, there's, there's like a lot of those, there's a lot of moments in reflection you can say, you know, that kind of gave me, gave me a voice or made me feel like I could be a part.
Speaker 2:But it really came from that initial thing of of knowing that music, like it, gave me something before I had a voice, you know. And then and then being like, well, what do I have to give, is it's kind of the next step? Because now we really feel like we're a part of a cycle. You know, when you're a young band, you look up to you, look up to these other bands that inspire you, and then, after 10 years, you actually are meeting them, you know you're, you're opening for them, you're meeting them at festivals, and then you're like, well, we're like you know we're uh, you know there's a mutual respect and and you feel like you're a part of the same family. And then, 10 years later, as we are now, now we're meeting the young bands that that we inspired and that's that's like a really, really beautiful part of this cycle as well. Sorry, kind of I'm a big talker.
Speaker 1:So no, I love it, I love it, absolutely love it. It's great, it's interesting. You're talking about cycles, so you view, you know, sort of seeing yourself as part of the continuum now, rather than you know and and and is that sort of. Does that, does that sort of change your perspective in terms of like confidence? If you ever felt like you know you didn't feel it was your place to make music or, you know, to enter into the realm of, like you know you got the greats like John Coltrane and stuff Did, it did take quite a lot of period of time of confidence for you to to become with the journey, with the music.
Speaker 2:I would say probably. I mean, I always talk about my greatest weaknesses and my greatest strengths, and one of them is this one of my greatest weaknesses is definitely like problems with self-confidence and self-consciousness, but at the same time, that's something that I really utilize, that I think if, if you saw me on stage, you wouldn't be like that guy doesn't seem like he's confident. You know what I mean. That guy seems like he's very self-conscious about himself, as he's like as I'm tearing myself open for people and and allowing myself to be seen. So so it's. I think those, those things are working within me all the time, like I've never felt like I had a place, I never felt like I belonged within any canon, you know, and and it is through, it is through this, these steps and them, and in the years where I'm really starting to accept like we're almost like a legacy act guys, you know we're coming up on 18 years in February of this band, 21 years together, me, william and Garrett writing music together, and that's something I'm very, very proud of.
Speaker 2:I think like 10 years ago we could have said, you know, oh, we finally got a break. You know we were when we got a break, but it was like we finally got a break. And then you know you're like I feel really lucky that I got a break, but that, but luck isn't what carries a band. Luck doesn't. Luck might get you some money. It may, you know, it may lead to other things, but it can also run out really quickly. And I think that hard work is something that I really respect in other artists and other musicians. You know there's there's musicians that I've met that I did. I'm not a fan of their work, but they've been doing this for 3040 years and I'm there's nothing I can do but give my utmost respect and and want to learn from those people, because it's not an easy job and it's not something that because you are like really putting yourself out to people. So I think Art of Future Island story is that we always felt like an underdog and it was a couple years where we didn't feel like an underdog. You know, when we finally got a break at 30 years old which that's an underdog story is getting a break at 30 years old but but that spotlight actually, I think, worked against us Like we didn't really.
Speaker 2:We appreciated the extra shows and getting in front of more people, but at the same time, it kind of took away that inertia of like, because there's something about when you feel like people don't understand me. I'm going to show them, like you know what I mean, I'm going to show them who I am. Like I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to win them over. Like that's such a good feeling, like it's such a good feeling to be for me at least to kind of come into a place with with no expectation or low expectation and try to fight against that, as opposed to coming in where people are like All right, you're like, these guys are supposed to wow me now wow me.
Speaker 2:So, in a way, like those those years after singles that were really like around our fifth album, the far field, were really kind of, they were difficult for us because we were ready for, like a bigger moment. But then I don't think we really understood and we kind of like lost ourselves within that, because we had lost that thing that we kind of understood for ourselves for so long, which is that the media doesn't really get it, the mainstream doesn't really get it, but we have a group of you know like fans or audience who really important to them what we do and they really connect and that's who we make music for. And so I think when we were like I think everybody gets it, but but it was, but it was, it was all just like smoke and mirrors for a second people, kind of they caught on to a performance. So I think I think it's been good with with this album and the last album, as long as you are was really are trying to return to who we were and believing in ourselves and not trying to make music for anybody else but ourselves, which we had done for years before, until the far field. We're like oh, I guess people like this kind of music. Let's try, we can write all those songs.
Speaker 2:That idea you should never make music for anybody but yourself. Because the fact is is, as a musician, you have to play that music and I don't like it, especially if it's if you write a big hit and you're like like, yeah, I just wrote this song for a big hit and then you have to play it over and over. I think that happens to a lot of musicians who you know, because, because you do feel the need to do that, like, hey, maybe I can write this song, maybe people will like this, but then you. You feel disconnected from it because it didn't come from that, that very pure place.
Speaker 1:And I think people can tell as well, can't they? You know, I think people can tell when you know if music is sort of a sort of a communicate, or art is a communication of souls between, like you know, someone making it and the receiver. You know, I think people can kind of tell when it's not coming from a pure place.
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely, definitely, and there's there's something to be said like I think I think you can trick a like a greater audience, but the people that have been there for you are going to be like this isn't them? You know what I mean, and really that's those are the most important people. You know those, those supporters. They do become a part of your, they become a part of your life. I mean, they're literally the people who allow us to eat and and continue to create art, and so it's yeah, it's, it's a. It's a difficult thing because you want that larger audience, but then you kind of need to to pull back and understand, like, what the most important thing is, which is really really connecting with yourself, so that you can really connect with with people, because, going inward, you're not, you're not going to speak to 100 people, but there's going to be like two people that really need your words. And in the greater world, I mean, everything's global.
Speaker 2:Now, you know, we're also connected through all the different streaming services and YouTube and and TikTok, like to find music that there's actually so much space for so many different musicians, musicians to exist, which I think is really great on a on like a macro level, I mean, in some ways. I mean, of course, streaming like hurts us sometimes too, because it doesn't pay us, but it doesn't pay musicians properly. Or I mean, I don't, I don't know the models, but but but at the same time, I feel like you could be the musicians that we were in our bedrooms 20 years ago and actually find your audience, which I think is a good thing, because because that's that's what people want. Anyways, I'm rambling, I was just thinking. Like you know, there are people out here who don't even listen to music. They do exist, they do exist.
Speaker 1:They let people that don't like I don't know. I mean sometimes I think fries as well. Everyone likes fries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I don't know, man, if there was somebody that told me like nah, never right, don't like them. I don't, I'm opening the door.
Speaker 1:It was. It's a deal breaker. It's a big deal breaker.
Speaker 2:And now it stayed with me, though I met someone years ago who told me I don't remember the, I don't really remember the connect. They might have been like a Uber driver or something, but they were just like what do you do, you know? Just trying to make small talk on the way to the airport. I'm like I'm a musician. And they're like, yeah, I don't really listen to music. Oh, you don't listen to music. Like, no, I got like this is like a 35 year old person. It's like now, I got like three CDs.
Speaker 1:And I was like what?
Speaker 2:Why even have three?
Speaker 1:Maybe they were gifts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like, I'm like going away on a tour so tired, like to go do my job, and you know my passion, and then I'm just like I guess there are people out here just don't even like music.
Speaker 1:It is strange, isn't it? I mean, I guess the world has to have all types, doesn't it? But I mean, because you're talking about like this kind of big thing that happened and then going back to, like seasons and then the Letterman thing particularly, did that take you by surprise? You know when that happened, when that all kind of kicked off and the amount of attention. Did it feel like it was part of the continuum that you were working for at the time? Or was that just like whoa?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was very. It was really strange. You know, the thing about doing Letterman was we didn't. We actually didn't think about what was going to happen because we had been told our album before singles on the water. We had been told that we were going to get Letterman and we were going to get and make our TV debut. And I remember we had this I shouldn't say the guy's name anyways but the guy that the label brought in to do press was like I promise to you, I will not, I will not quit this album cycle until like one late night TV and we're like that's great. And then we just kind of never heard from him again and Letterman happened.
Speaker 2:And I remember after we did Letterman, you know, three years later, william was like I guess that guy's finally not working for us now. We got a late night but but yeah, I think you know we had to cancel a show, which is something we never do, just to play it. And we almost didn't cancel because we are so against canceling shows. We're like no, screw, late night, we can't. You know we're not going to let down the 300 people in Charlottesville. You know that's messed up. And then our labels, just like you, were insane, like you have to do. So we did, we canceled the show and we we did Letterman.
Speaker 2:And that night we, you know, we drove back to Baltimore, picked up our buddies which is about a four hour drive picked up our buddies we were going on tour with in Baltimore and then drove another three hours to Richmond, virginia, slept on somebody's floor and then hit you know eight hours down the road the next day on our way to South by Southwest. And that was our first South by Southwest, because that was something we we'd always kind of been against, because we didn't really feel we didn't have a media presence, so there was no reason to go do it for free, you know. So, anyways, but it was, it was on that trip, you know, that week and a half down people kept hitting us up about this, this thing we had done, and we're just kind of like yeah, yeah, it was cool. And then we, when we got to South by it, was like we were kind of everybody was just like talking about us more, like, well, this is, and you know, our shows went great. We ended up winning some award. It was like the first year of this award they gave to, you know, the best international act and the best us act to play it South by and we're like, well, this is weird and you know, the thing just kept rolling.
Speaker 2:I think the more surprising thing is it's still. It's still rolling in a way. You know, it's still become, it's still a big part of our history and something that people still point to. But but you know, for us, we were just, we expected to jump, because that was our first record with 4AD, we expected something, some things to get a bigger, maybe like two or three times bigger than they were, just through that association and the record that we worked so hard on. But then, you know, really it just it grew really quickly, very, very fast. So we'd been on this really long, like 10 year or I guess it was eight years at that point, organic, slow climb, and felt really confident about who we were as musicians, felt confident about who our audience was and how important they were in connecting with them to continue to make music.
Speaker 2:But that performance really just like shot us up, brought in a whole new audience, for better or worse, you know, because, like we've made some lifelong fans a lot of lifelong fans do that, but it also, you know you. When you're in a spotlight, you open yourself up to to both sides. You know up to a lot more criticism, a lot of misunderstanding, but you know that and that's the. I think that's the thing that caught people about that performance was that it was really polarized. People you know which is the as an artist, it's what you kind of hope to create, even if it's difficult because you have to deal with a certain backlash or being misunderstood. But at the same time it's like that polarization is what. What is what creates the conversation. It's people like you know, two stones rubbing up against each other until there's a fire, or is that how it works Two stones?
Speaker 1:I don't believe so, but I've not been in the situation. I've had to do that. But I believe from. I believe from. You know my education.
Speaker 2:It is like you know that you know when you have people going, this is amazing, like no, this is terrible. You know that those two sides really create the conversation and we were just doing what we were doing. You know we, we just continued to tour and and didn't really look at it, and that's maybe the one thing that I regret is that I didn't appreciate that time more and just kind of kept my head down and kept moving forward. I wish I had looked up and and been appreciative, but that's, you know, as I said before, that's one of my, my issues, like I think I feel. You know, since I was a kid, I I felt like I didn't fit in and I've always looked for that place where I fit in. So so I think keeping my head down allowed me to just stay with myself and feel my own security within my, within my band, my group of friends, but but you know, but then in the end, you know, you finally look up and you're like where are we? What happened?
Speaker 2:You know, you're like on stage at Glastonbury and you're like what's going on? We were, we were like playing to 400 people, you know, a few months ago. You know those kinds of moments and that's the thing that I miss is I didn't like that, like the Glastonbury, for instance. I didn't appreciate it because it was just overwhelming, or or I was just so tired from the touring, instead of really appreciating it and and accepting that moment as a gift. So so that's. You know these, but these are. This is life, you know, this is how life?
Speaker 2:goes, you don't always appreciate things in the moment. So if you're lucky, you get a chance to look up years down the road and you can you can appreciate them and learn from them. So I do feel lucky for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I guess it's interesting what you're saying about the hindsight and not appreciating at the time and you do have the opportunity to kind of look back on these things and it took a bit of time as well, you know, after the success, without the attention of that like. So I've heard you say that the far field wasn't you know, it felt like it was a sort of an artistic compromise perhaps, or you felt like you weren't in the right zone with that album. But like recovering from that, was there something like what kind of process did you have to go through and did the band have to go to to kind of find that that sort of inner strength again?
Speaker 2:Well, there was a few things that happened. So, with both singles and the far field, they were written in similar ways but in very different times in our lives. Like we were with singles, we were coming off of five years of touring, like 800 shows over five years. It was our first break we had taken because we were all able, you know, at the beginning of that, you know, in 2008, we were all making $8,000 a year playing 150 shows. By the end of it, you know, we were like making a living, you know, and we'd all actually saved up some money and we're like, you know, I think I can. I remember I'd saved up like 30 grand and I was like this is gonna last me forever. Like six months later I was like, hey, garrett, can I borrow some money? Like there isn't any money, like what are you talking about? And then, and you know, we pulled, we pulled all of our money together to make, to record singles on, just like a vote of confidence, like knowing that it would come back through touring and these kinds of things. But, you know, even our like Garrett loaned shares for me and William, our manager, loaned some at the time, he was our booking agent. He loaned money for us to make that record. It was really like everything we had. I was dead broke.
Speaker 2:We put into that record but we took six, seven months off off and we wrote songs in that period and then we went and recorded them. But then, you know, and then we hit the road with singles and we did like 320 shows over 22 months. Four months was a lot. You know, it's kind of like Strike by the Irons hot. So we took like five or six months, wrote a group of songs and then went straight to record them. But we never like. We never like like that album should be about how crazy the last two years had been. You know what I mean Like how crazy it was to like what we were kind of going through. But instead it was just. I mean it was about what we were living through. Like that whole all of the far field is really a being on the road on tour album, which isn't really what the average person connects with. I mean, I think you can't and I do think there are great songs on that record, but it just there's not enough like variation and I think there were ideas that we cut, that we didn't record because we're like, well, let's not put a ballad here or this ballad because, because you know, people like you know this more mid tempo, up tempo jam. So I mean that that record's pretty mid tempo.
Speaker 2:So with as long as you are, you know, in the old days with our first three albums we basically do a month and a half of touring, get off the road for two weeks, write a song or two, take it immediately on the next tour. Those songs survived, they became a part of the set and then you get home from that tour for three or four weeks you write another song or two, you take that those songs on tour, they survive and then after like a year and a half you have this collection of five or six songs that are really road tested and we would go into the studio record those songs while writing brand new songs. So we did that for the first three records and it wasn't it was only through hindsight, because singles I believe singles is a very complete record and it really captured a lot of different emotions within like that six, seven month period. But with the far field it was. It just felt like we hadn't lived life, you know, kind of like.
Speaker 2:For me I felt like a lot of it's on me, because I felt like I was really grinding, grinding down the same kinds of ideas because I hadn't, I hadn't, I was still just like I'm on the road, I'm far away from someone I love how do I get? And I'm still. I still work within that. That's still a part of my life, it's still a part of the music. But when you write us, you know the first three or four songs that came out of the far field were really powerful, but then the next was just kind of like lost the tension.
Speaker 2:But when you're writing a song every two, three months and collecting them, you're, you're, you're kind of always coming at it with attention and an emotion and a feeling and inspiration like I need to write, and collecting like a group of songs, so so, with as long as you are, it was written over a longer period to try to catch, catch those moments over time instead of you know, because the other thing is you, it's really hard to go from being the kind of robotic way you need to be on the road to get through life to kind of go into tour mode, which is a little bit of disassociation, a little bit of self protection and but really getting through it.
Speaker 2:And when you get off the road, you don't want to, you know, you want to rest, you don't want to like go straight to writing, but it became really important with as long as you are, like we don't have to write, write, but we have to make an effort to capture emotions in between tours and to capture our lives. And I think more so people who aren't there anymore is even more so of that, of that in motion, because what happened was, you know, the whole world changed within the first song we wrote and the last song we wrote, and as well as our lives, you know, because this is during the pandemic.
Speaker 2:This is yeah, yes, the first, the first song we wrote was Deep in the Night, which was written I mean, I guess it doesn't go before I'm trying to think yeah, deep in the Night, which was written in June or July of 2020. So it was kind of heavy set within the pandemic. And then the last song was written in, I think, around August of 22. So so it's a good, you know a good two, two and a half years of life and so you kind of it. Really, you know some. I mean I, of course, I'm going to look at it very personally and understand it, but I know the great change that happened in there. You know, and within the first five or six songs there's, there's a change Like I always consider the, I consider that middle pocket of the record to be like the therapy suite, literally me getting back from from Sweden going through a breakup and then going to therapy for the first time in my life and being like how do I control myself, how do I control this, this moment of my life, instead of falling into, you know, negative patterns of my past.
Speaker 2:You know like self abuse with, with drugs or alcohol or gambling, and I have all the addictions. I just smoke, cigs, but but those things course through you and I was like I want to control it this time. I don't want it to get out of my control. So, so, you know, there's that reflection within the album, which was a reflection within my life. Try to understand like. Iris is a really good example of like.
Speaker 2:Like, why do I hold grudges in my life? Like it's accepted in my family, like, yep, our family really holds grudges, like that's just the way we are and I'm like. I'm like why? But why do we do that? Why do I hate so and so? Since I was four years old, because I was told that so and so was, I don't even know so and so why am I carrying around anger for other people and these, these kinds of questions of trying trying to undo these cycles?
Speaker 2:Because, once again, back to the cycles, you know so much of coming home. You know you say, within the record, it's corner of my eye. You know I'm back in this room, that I thought I was leaving. You know I I thought my whole life was changing. I, just I. You know, on the last album I found love and peace and acceptance, and now I'm back in this, this room. You know that I spent the whole pandemic and the pandemic's over basically September 21. And now I'm back here Like what did I do and why is this something that's happened to me before and why am I going through this? How do I break the cycle? How do I break the chain? And that's Iris, can we, can we break this, this chain? So so yeah, I don't know the I forget the initial question.
Speaker 1:That's alright, it's just about the flow is about I'll be like, but I guess it could lead on to sort of feeling like so I mean, you know, I guess a lot of kind of like work life balance really, you know, and how they sort of feed into each other. And how do you feel like you've changed the most, which is a sort of, since you started?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think I'm definitely much more reflective in the moment. I mean, I definitely have an emotional person within a relationship and on stage and within my art. But I think, as of a few years ago, I became much more reflective within my art to try to be just a better artist and a better storyteller. Did they say there's three sides to every story? I've talked about this before, how it's like I used to tell just one side of the story. I told my side of the story, but if you tell all three sides, then you have the three songs. There you go, an AP.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it is like that idea of I used to just see my side and accept that If I'm speaking my truth, then it's the truth. And why I often don't go into politics is because I feel like I don't educate myself enough. I feel like if I'm going to sing a political song, then I really need to read some books first. I really need to educate myself and form my own conclusions and really be truthful about it. Whatever and I take politics as an example, but whatever I want to sing about there needs to be truth and it needs to be from me. And, as myself, I'm an expert on myself, so that's usually where I pull from. I pull from those emotions. But being reflective within songwriting is very different, and being a good listener to yourself and your band members is very different than being a good listener within a relationship and I don't know learning to once again practice and empathy so that things are not about you. Not everything is about you, which is also very different within, which is an important thing within the band, which is because I take so much.
Speaker 2:I think I pull so much from myself. I've been asking myself the question more and more of when do I stop sharing? Is this the last record where I sing about my heart? You know what I mean, because I think there's something that I give away in that and there's something to protect, and that's not just my heart, it's the person who is a part of that. And you know I can't do it, I can't do it yet.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think just that reflection and trying to be calmer and more understanding of people, because I believe that's who I am. But then in practice, I think it's really easy to, with time and space, to understand how we act and how we react, but in the moment it's important. It's something that I'm working on and I'm getting better at. It's really changed with me over the years, which is understanding how people feel, and that goes within the relationships within the band as well, because when you're in a band with people for 21 years, that's a marriage and that is something that needs attention and it's really easy for us not to connect with one another because we feel like it's work.
Speaker 1:You kind of ignore each other's kind of in the lives of feelings.
Speaker 2:I mean, we see each other more than we see our families, you know for sometimes, and then when you get off the road, it's really easy to just be like I'll see you in two months or a month or whatever and not continue. You just kind of forget that friendship exists and getting caught within the business, I mean, that's a big thing. That's changed too, which is, I think, I really used to just be plainly an artist. You know, 20 years ago I was an artist and I really believed. I believed in myself in so many different ways and in my abilities with different things, and I think I question that more.
Speaker 2:But I'm also at the same time, grounded in accepting of like what it is that I do do well, and kind of being more focused towards well, I don't have to do everything. You know, my work needs to be separate from my life so that I can live life and understand like, if you don't live a life, then there's no life to write about, you know. So practicing calm is and peace. I'm a very anxious person, so I feel like I have the same workaholic thing that my parents had, which drove me crazy as a kid. I just relax, but now I'm very much the same. I need to feel like I'm doing something where I get in despair, depression, but I'm getting better at like being like no, no, no, it's taking your time and accepting the labor which is. Rest is important as well, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I guess, like you say, though it's about, it is a practice, isn't it? It's something that you kind of have to keep turning up for and being present for.
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely, definitely. And, as you know, I don't want to make this the therapy podcast, but it's something doing. You know, doing therapy once a week for two years and I guess I'm just about to be two years has been really great. For me to be accountable to someone who isn't my friend, my lover or my parent cop. I feel like I fucked up last night, man, like I fucked up. I'm sorry, you know, and you know I'm coming up on a couple years clean, but I remember early on in therapy, you know I'm getting out of this breakup and I just want to do drugs to quiet this pain, to feel some other pain to take. You know, it's like, it's like stabbing your arm to make the fact that your foot is cut off. Now you know these kinds of things, so it's but, but yeah, after a few months I was like I don't want to do that anymore.
Speaker 2:But I did have to be accountable to this person and that's been. You know it's weird, it's not, it's not a friendship, but it is a friendship in there of like this person I can trust and I can tell them anything and it's, it's helped me be, he helps me, be reflective on me. I'm like, well, I feel this way this week and this is how everything is. And he's like well, that's not what you said last week. And I'm like do you really feel that way? And but also understanding, you know, emotions ebb and flow.
Speaker 1:And that's okay.
Speaker 2:You know, okay to like to go within and out because we will return to a safe, a safe place. Well, we do have to be mindful of that. But so a lot's changed. Yeah, yeah, 20 years in the last six, seven years, and in the last two years, like I think my life has radically changed over and over. Hmm.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. That was great. Thanks so much for sharing the hour with me and sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much. Okay, so that was me, Paul Hanford, talking with Samuel T Herring of Future Islands, and we had that conversation towards the end of November 2023. I loved having that conversation. Thank you so much, Samuel, for your time there and sharing all of your thoughts. Future Island's sixth album, People who Aren't there Anymore is out on 26th of January on 480. You can pre-order that now and the single the Tower is out now.
Speaker 1:Lost and Sound is proudly sponsored by Audio Technica. Audio Technica are global but still family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones. For the conversation you heard with Samuel, I used the 82020 USB mic. You just plug it into your laptop and it just does everything. I love it so easy to use. Yeah, my book Coming to Berlin is available in all good bookshops or Viola Publishers website, Velocity Press, and the music that you hear at the beginning and the end of every episode of Lost and Sound is done by Thomas Giddens. There's a hyperlink in the show description to check out his other work. I hope, whatever you're doing, you're having a fucking lovely day today, this evening, whenever you're listening to this, and I'm going to go and have a coffee chat to you soon. You.