Photo: Diego Opatowski/The Wireless Photo: Unknown
Baltimore synth-pop band Future Islands are returning to NZ for three shows throughout the country in February.
Frontman Sam T. Herring has had an interesting journey in music, starting out as a rapper before finding huge success with Future Islands and forming his latest hip-hop project Hemlock Ernst.
Charlotte Ryan spoke to Sam about his songwriting and still finding inspiration in relationship break-ups.
Herring recently ended a long-distance relationship with a woman in Sweden, which ended up grist for the songwriting mill.
"The pandemic was tough on long-distance love, we'll say that."
Despite it all, Herring sounds cheerful when talking to Music 101.
"I went to therapy for the first time trying to keep myself from going into a dark place where I would have gone in previous times in my life.
"That's been really helpful and I was kind of like, why didn't I do this years ago?
"Honestly I am in a really good space right now. I feel positive, I feel strong.
"I feel really great as a writer right now and not feeling like I have to speak to a certain space.
"Future Islands is finishing up a new record and there, of course, is going to be a lot of the journey that I've been through in the last year, and even two, two and a half years, is going to be in that record.
"So it is going to be an intense album for those reasons."
The song-writing process can take twists and turns, he says.
"I had these certain songs that I really felt were these deep love songs. Listening to them in retrospect I realised that they're actually kind of foreshadowing the end and I didn't even realise at the time."
Herring said the band realised their albums were more than just a collection of songs, but a snapshot of the moments they were created in.
"These aren't albums, these are like pieces of our lives."
"They're all about break-ups, man," Herring laughs about his songs.
Herring's career began with hip-hop and he still does rap projects on the side.
"The interesting thing about rap for me is that it's actually more personal, but in a different way."
Herring didn't get going with Future Islands until he was well into his twenties.
"I started writing hip-hop first when I was 13, turning 14.
"The thing about hip-hop for me about being a new kid... hip-hop and rap gave me kind of an identity in a small town.
"It also became a kind of an armour to the world, something that made me feel strong, something that made me feel individual."
The two sides of his musical career complement each other, he said.
"With hip-hop I speak more often to like, my problems with addiction, drug addiction in my youth, and in speaking to those things where it's much less about writing break-up songs. And with Future Islands it's very rare that I speak about addiction."
"(Rap) was my first voice," Herring says.
Rap can be broad while pop songs tend to be concise which requires different writing voices, he says.
"You know, when you write a pop song you maybe get to write 20, 25 lines tops but when you write a rap song it can go on ... it can be endless, sprawling.
"That's the challenge of writing either that I really enjoy."
Future Islands play:
Auckland Powerstation on 23 February [Sold out]
Splore Festival 2023, Auckland on 24 February
Electric Avenue Music Festival 2023, Christchurch on 25th February
