Interview: Q+A with Future Generations

We chat to Future Generations about their origins, their new album Landscape and where the best cheeseburger in the world is.

When listening to the neon indie pop of Future Generations you get the impression they are the happiest guys in the world, but dig a little deeper and you start to see them as romantics. Romantics who have been hurt before. Romantics who haven’t given up on love, or the idea of love. Romantics who have matured since their 2016 self-titled debut album. And this is what their new album, Landscape, is. It’s the sound of a band growing up, seeing the world with slightly different eyes and realising they have more to say about where they fit in it. We managed to catch up with Future Generations for a quick chat in between their current North American tour dates which continue until the end of October. Read it below. Check out Future Generations' video for 'All The Same' - a single featured on their latest album Landscape - out now via Frenchkiss Records. GigList: Where and when did the band get formed? Future Generations: The band started at Fordham University in the Bronx, NY in 2011. Eddie, Eric and Mike met the first week of freshman year and later recruited Devon on bass. Dylan was added off craigslist in early 2016 and we’ve all lived together ever since. GL: Your debut album came out in 2016. What have you been up to since? FG: We hit the road a few times, once with Private Island, another tour with The Lagoons and did a SXSW run. Along the way, we've eaten a whole lot of cheeseburgers (shout out to Husk in Nashville for making the indisputable king of burgers) and popped at least two air mattresses. GL: When did you start to record Landscape? FG: We started recording demos as early as 2015. We did some re-recording for the record, but a lot of the sounds were made in our bare bones apartment studio. We went into the studio with about 15 solid demos and in two weeks had re-recorded about 12 album ready songs. GL: How does it differ from your debut? FG: We think it's a bit more cohesive and reflects the variety of influences each member has. Whenever someone had an idea in each song, we were able to explore that idea and fully flesh it out before moving on or writing something different. Also, we’ve grown and matured as songwriters quite a bit since the debut album and we think that really aimed through this time around. GL: What are the main themes of the album? FG: The theme of this album circles around love, loss, and perseverance. After ending the first significant relationship of my life I had a lot of time to reflect on what went wrong and why. That in conjunction with trying to make a living in New York City allowed me to discover a lot about myself. That discovery process is reflected throughout these songs. GL: Why was this the case? FG: Writing about relationships in songs seems to be a form of therapy for me. A lot of the songs end up coming out as some kind of inner dialogue and it’s becoming more evident that this is the way I work things out in my head. GL: The artwork has a strong aesthetic. How important is this to you? FG: We always felt the artwork should have a neon theme. One night we were watching a late set at Welcome Campers festival last year and someone had dropped glow sticks on the ground and they landed in an interesting position. We took a picture and had it recreated digitally - it became our back cover of the album. GL: How do you write songs? Do you enter the studio with fully formed songs or do you jam them out? FG: We generally enter the studio with really strong demos. Sometimes we only have a verse and a chorus with no lyrics written but we have a general feeling and vibe to the song. It’ll start with a synth sound, a drum pattern, a guitar texture and then we all kind of jump in from there. GL: What are your plans for the next 18 months? FG: We just want to keep doing more of what we’re doing! That’s the beauty of doing what we love. We will continue to write new music and continue to play shows in new places. It’s what comes naturally to us.

Listen to Future Generations Landscape in full below