Having just finished up on the Karma
Tour Futures have had a busy year thus far. After leaving their deal with Mercury
behind the four-piece went it alone, launching self built record label Indigo
and releasing their debut album shortly after.
Est.1987 headed down to Manchester’s
Sound Control as Futures headlined the “A Declaration All Dayer”. We chatted to
the guys about the new record, making the right decisions and having a Bon Jovi moment!
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| "We're coming for you boardmasters, we just have heat and traffic to deal with first." |
You were down in Newquay yesterday
playing at Boardmasters and Manchester
ANT [West, vocals]- Yeah, that wasn’t our legs I will tell you that!
[laughing] He didn’t pose for that photo, it actually happened and we just
documented it! But yeah Newquay was fun, it was good to be by the sea.
You just finished up on the Karma tour
last month after postponing it because of the album; how was that? How did the
new songs go down and is it nice to finally be able to play stuff other than
songs from The Holiday ?
ANT- The tour was really great; highlights were like London
and Manchester
CHRISTIAN [Ward, bass]- We’ve been waiting to play the new songs for ages so
it was awesome to finally get out there and be able to play them.
GEORGE [Lindsay, drums]- It was definitely a relief!
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| Futures "The Karma Album" |
You left Mercury and set up Indigo to release “The Karma Album”. Your last EP [“The
ANT- Yeah, I mean it’s coming up to two years since we started writing the
new album and then recorded it eighteen months ago. So to have everyone listening
to your old stuff when you have new stuff written is kind of weird so it’s good
to get it out.
The album has gone down so well; is it kind of a relief? Made everything worth it now?
CASEY [Roarty, guitar]- Yeah, we definitely came out on top in terms of
getting off our old label; it could have been a lot worse.
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| Futures on stage in Manchester |
Yeah, it was quite a bold move to leave
a major label; was there any point where you were regretting it or did you
always know that you had made the right decision?
ANT- There was probably like a week of decision making…
CHRISTIAN- Those thoughts go through your mind, because you’re
leaving quite a big thing. Your whole life you are thinking that’s what we have
to get, get a major deal
CASEY- …and then you’ve got to get out of it.
CHRISTIAN- But you come to that point where you realise you will
actually be better off without it.
GEORGE- We all realised as well, it wasn’t like any of us
were doubting
ANT- When the suggestion was made it was like we all clicked and were like
yeah that’s probably the best idea.
CHRISTIAN- It’s something that we wanted for so long [the record
deal] but then it just wasn’t what we expected.
Indigo records; how’s that going? It gives you more freedom but are you under more pressure to do everything?
ANT- In a sense there is less pressure.
CASEY- Yeah, if we had to send a song to a label and they
say it’s shit then there’s nothing we can do really
ANT- But now we just send it to ourselves; “oh yeah, yeah that’s really good”
[laughing]. When we were on the major label the album kept getting pushed back
for three months every three months, whereas when we started Indigo we set one
release date and it stayed with that date the whole time.
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| "Bradley Wiggins celebrating his Gold in the FTRS Snapback" |
You’ve designed some cool
merch, photoshopped lots of images, you did the “Futures and Friends” session
that you recorded; is this all down to the fact that you have creative
freedom now?
ANT- Yeah, we definitely have that freedom now.
CHRISTIAN- We can just do things on the spur of the moment and
don’t have to go through anymore- no board room to go through, because that’s
actually what it was like. Each decision we would make had to go through like
twenty different people. The vision that we had of what it would be like was
jaded by the time we wanted to leave.
To watch the "Futures and Friends session click HERE
To watch the "Futures and Friends session click HERE
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| Futures front-man Ant West |
ANT- Yeah, that was an impromptu, decided on the day thing; an energetic
evening. We started at like two in the morning, that was crazy. It was the
heaviest rain and we were like “let’s go outside and film”. The photographer
filmed down on me and I was on the floor on my knees looking up to the camera
like Bon Jovi or something, and yeah that was the one bit that go cut out
[laughing].
CASEY- Save that for Futures the movie.
You’ve also signed “Morain” to Indigo;
they’re playing today- how did you get involved with those guys?
ANT- They played with us a couple of years ago in Leeds
and we liked their stuff and they haven’t got a deal with anyone, so it’s good
to help out a band. It’s good to help out bands that want to release their
music but can’t, so yeah we’ll just take it as it comes and see what happens at
the moment.
And here's what happened when Futures took to the stage...
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| Futures headlining the all-dayer at Sound Control |
As
soon as Futures take to the stage to headline the all day event they hold the
crowd in its entirety; opener “Start A Fire” is rocky, punchy and layered in
sounds and melodies, still with a catchiness at its core. The band’s set showcases
their knack of holding down both slower numbers, such as “Indigo”, and rockier
anthems. The new album was a long time coming, but definitely worth the wait.
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| Ant West plays keys on "Karma Satellite" |
Stay tuned this weekend as we chat to Futures about Merthyr Rocks Festival in our preview series. The boys are set to play the festival on the Friday night and we chat to them more about the event and all their festival "do's and don't's"
