Futures: Teen angst, Jack Kerouac and the festival season

Rising from the ashes of ‘Tonight is Goodbye’, Futures are spearheading the up-and-coming movement of UK bands. Front man Ant West of the four-piece melodic rock group discusses why Jack Kerouac is an inspiration and how they’re keeping quiet about bookings for the festival season.

Are you looking forward to ‘Start a Fire’ being released?

Yeah! It’s been a long time coming, so we’re really excited to get it out there… We’re at the point where we’ve been sat on it for so long. Some of the songs we wrote quite a while ago. We wrote 57 songs for the album! We then recorded only 12. We want to get this out more than anything.

The last two years has seen huge success for you guys. What was the definitive moment where you realised Futures was more than a project and something a lot more successful?

A big turning point for us was getting a phone call from our manager saying that Rock Sound magazine were going to put our first album on the front cover. That seemed really fresh at the time for us – we were the first band to do it. It was a big turning point because the record that we were sitting on for eight months was finally being put out, and to 20,000 people as well. It was a big confidence boost to have support from those guys from day one.

Obviously band life has its perks, but it’s not all sunny days, surely?

I think there can be a lot of downsides. You can get bored very easily when you’re off tour. But for me, I try to put it off by writing more and recording more.

I see, because you [Ant] do a bit of producing, right? How does it feel to be producing rather than being in a band?

Yeah, it’s pretty cool. You learn a lot from working with other bands. You feel you’re progressing in other ways than just writing and playing music. I’m starting to take time off to concentrate on the band.

So it’s a different creative output?

Totally, it feels like a different job. But Futures takes priority.

‘The Holiday’ seems to document the story of teenage anguish and comeuppance. Was that the soundtrack to your adolescence?

Yeah, well I wrote some of those songs when I was about 19 or 20. So at the time I was in a relationship, it’s weird looking back on it because it was so long ago. It’s strange to think people still listen to the songs and think it’s still relevant; it was just to wipe the slate clean, really.

Does ‘Sal Paradise’ bear any resemblance to the character Salvador Paradise in Jack Kerouac’s ‘ On The Road’?

Yeah…I read ‘On The Road’ when I was 20, so it was quite a big thing for me. It did a lot for me, so I thought I’d pay tribute to it. When we’re on tour we tend to read rather than get pissed and watch TV.

Were they written in the days of Tonight is Goodbye?

Some of them yeah. But they were released under Futures.

Was it sad to see Tonight is Goodbye go?

Yeah, it was a really positive thing really. But at the time it wasn’t. We were sort of thinking, “What are we going to do with our lives?” but we just thought we’d get back on our feet.

So you, Casey and George started Futures when you were 16. George [Drummer] has played for a lot of bands like King Blues, too?

He’s played for them; he plays on a lot of records that I produce too. He’s a busy man!

As far as Futures goes, are there any collaboration you’d like to do?

For me, I’d love to do something with Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie. I’d love to play on stage with him. One day. But we really like to keep ourselves to ourselves with that sort of thing. It’s about our sound and we don’t want anyone to change that. We had a chance to work with Gil Norton on the last record and that was a dream come true for us.

You guys are all prospering. Who would you like to see get the same success as you?

There’s a lot of cool music around at the moment. The main thing that separates bands is not always talent. There’s a lot of talent but not a lot of drive. What separates people from getting from where they are to where they want to be is drive. Pilots have a lot of potential. Or a solo artist called Nicholas Stevenson. He’s really, really talented. I just think there’s a lot of good music out there, people have just got to take a step back and realise.

So what’s 2012 for Futures?

The album is out in April. After that, festival season. That was the plan – to get it out before summer. There are a lot of festival anthems on there so it’d be good to hear the masses singing them back!

Any bookings that you can speak about?

I can’t say. But it’s looking to be a fun summer.

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