Future Islands on their path to Baltimore, 20 years as a band and that viral Letterman video

Though bassist William Cashion, singer Samuel T. Herring and keyboardist Gerrit Welmers began releasing music as Future Islands in 2006 as East Carolina University students, the band has become synonymous with Baltimore.

The trio relocated here in 2008 at the urging of friends in the local music scene, including fellow transplant and musician Dan Deacon, and has remained ever since, becoming one of the most beloved bands of the city’s 21st-century indie rock renaissance.

Over seven albums, Future Islands has established a sound all its own: an eerie, Lynchian, new wave groove that’s at once nostalgic and timeless. Over Welmers’ atmospheric synth work and Cashion’s melodic bass lines, Herring cuts a distinctive figure with poignantly elliptical lyrics and a voice that can transform from a lithe croon to a guttural howl.

Twenty years after their formation, Future Islands is commemorating their anniversary with a string of shows, including a Baltimore homecoming Thursday at Pier Six Pavilion with opening sets by Deacon and Ed Schrader’s Music Beat.

The band last week also released “From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth,” a compilation of B-sides and career rarities. The album is something of a time capsule of their Baltimore era, including early recordings with Chester Endersby Gwazda, who produced the band’s first three albums, and tracks with Double Dagger’s Denny Bowen on drums.

Drummer Mike Lowry of Baltimore bands Lake Trout and Mt. Royal became the fourth member of Future Islands after joining in 2014. I first interviewed the band that year, a few days before they made their network television debut on “The Late Show with David Letterman.” Their performance of “Seasons (Waiting on You)” went viral, drawing widespread acclaim from fans, critics and Letterman himself, confirming what Baltimoreans had known for years: Future Islands is one of the country’s most compelling live bands.

Cashion, Lowry and Welmers took time from a busy week of rehearsals and shows to talk on Zoom about their new collection and the band’s remarkable run.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Was there a lot more you could have included on the new album? Did you have to whittle it down to the best songs?

CASHION: Some stuff got omitted, and there’s a track or two that some of us probably wish was not on this collection, but I won’t name the tracks. [Laughs] A good chunk of these songs were like, “Why wasn’t this on the album? This is a really good song.” An example is the song “Find Love.” I think it would’ve fit on [our 2010 album] “On the Water,” but I do think it would’ve kind of shifted the tone of that album in a way that maybe it wouldn’t be the album it is now. There’s also a song called “Sail” that we wrote and recorded when we did [the 2017 album] “As Long as You Are,” and I think we all really liked that song, but for whatever reason it didn’t seem to fit on the record. I can’t remember why we decided that. I think maybe it’s one of those songs that’s better on its own little island — no pun intended — just out there floating.

It feels like you have a strong sense of this band’s musical identity. Is that unspoken, or do you guys talk about what Future Islands does or doesn’t sound like?

CASHION: I would say it’s definitely unspoken. The way that we’ve written always came about in a very organic way, driven by our own interests and our own enthusiasm, meaning like if we have a chord progression or a riff or a keyboard sound or a bass sound that we really like, we’ll keep following that thread. And if the sounds and the chords are pulling emotions or resonating with Sam, then he’ll take it and put words to it. That’s sort of always been the general formula at its simplest form.

WELMERS: Yeah, I think a lot of it is what Sam is drawn to, and that’s what we will focus on when writing.

Gerrit, you’ve said before that the electronic music band Kraftwerk is a big influence on your synthesizer parts. Is that still a key inspiration?

WELMERS: I would say that I was definitely influenced by those Kraftwerk records. But there’s also just so much material and so much songwriting that I can’t say for sure there’s any one particular thing. I think the goalpost now is more in songwriting itself and sort of trying new things, versus the actual sonic palette.

CASHION: I would add, Aphex Twin was an early one, in addition to Kraftwerk, that me and Gerrit and Sam were heavily into. We weren’t obviously trying to make Aphex Twin music, but those kinds of sounds, I think some of the chords early on that Gerrit was doing, felt to me like Aphex.

WELMERS: You’ve got Kraftwerk and Aphex Twin, I think the band Xiu Xiu was big in the mix at the time. I was really heavily influenced by that band for quite some time, along with the Baltimore bands like Dan Deacon and Video Hippos.

And Dan Deacon was a big part of you ending up in Baltimore, right?

CASHION: Yes, totally. He was telling us really early on, “Come move up here, you’ll be huge, it’s going to be great.” And through Dan, we got to meet most of the Baltimore scene, because he would always tour through North Carolina and he always brought a different band from Baltimore. So when we did finally move up to Baltimore, we were running into people, and they’re like, “What are you doing here?”

When did you all meet Mike?

LOWRY: I guess I met you guys in like 2012, at bars or whatever.

WELMERS: The first time I saw or heard you was when you started yelling at me when I was at the bar at Tapas [Teatro]. Do you remember that?

LOWRY: I don’t. Was I wasted?

WELMERS: No, but I was there meeting someone, and you were in the back talking to me about the tour, because I think [local musician] Dave Jacober had just told us about you being a good drummer.

LOWRY: Dave and I had the same practice space, and he’s actually the one that put me forward to these guys, because they were about to tour and needed somebody. I’d sort of run into everyone at bars, like William’s ex was friends with my ex-wife. I feel like we maybe connected there once or twice in passing. But I’m like a generation older, so I was sort of not in that orbit

When I talked to you guys before in 2014, you were about to do Letterman, and of course it was exciting that you were going to be on TV, but I didn’t have any idea how big that was going to be for the band.

CASHION: Neither did we!

Is it strange having a TV performance be your calling card as opposed to just a studio track or a video, or is it all good because it helps sell the live show?

LOWRY: I mean, it’s all good because it changed our lives, you know? But is it different to have a viral moment than, like, a hit song? I don’t know. I’m super grateful that it happened the way it did. Maybe a hit song stays around longer, but with the viral moment, I still see stuff from Letterman popping up on social media randomly. I can’t say what would have more longevity.

Is the Pier Six show going to be anything different from the usual Future Islands show? Are you treating this as a retrospective?

CASHION: We’re going to play all the hits and the fan favorites, but we’re going to throw some of these new deep cuts for sure. We’ve rehearsed at least half of the songs on the record. A lot of these songs haven’t been played live in 10 years, and some of them have never been played live, so we have no idea how they’re going to hit. Sometimes they surprise you.