My money story: Synthpop band Future Islands
Everybody has one, a moment or a story where money changes your life. This week, the band Future Islands and the unexpected financial side of making it.
“I think a big turning point was when we got picked up by a booking agent,” says band member William Cashion. “That was the first allegiance in the music industry. We always felt like we were kind of on the outside. I booked our shows for about seven years, and we all just did everything, especially the first five or six years. We were going to Kinko’s, making black and white Xerox copies and cutting them out in the van and burning CDRs.”
“As soon as we brought on a booking agent it was like somebody waved a magic wand and we were just getting guarantees everywhere we went,” Cashion says. “Which wasn’t a lot of money but it was like a door deal, it was like a pre-arranged amount of what we would get paid which totally changed the game for us as far as the kind of money we were making.”
But even when the band started making more money on the road, there were other unexpected financial problems.
“We were pretty far in the red at the end of last year,” says Samuel Herring. We pretty much sunk everything into the music as well as getting hit with 2012 taxes in the middle of producing the album and we were just like, ‘Oh, we forgot about that.’ We got hit really hard with taxes last year. Our accountant called us in one day and [said], ‘Umm … well first off you guys have very high taxes, because you made a lot of money last year, a lot more than I expected. And because you’re an LLC you’re in the highest tax bracket.’ I was kind of looking at the guys, ‘ Should we high five? We made it! Highest tax bracket!’ And we got destroyed. We got destroyed by the US Government. Maybe they’ll come after us.”
But with the band’s recent success, Future Islands is learning to balance their DIY upbringing.
“We’ve always worked solely out of necessity with what we could do, and I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve survived,” says Herring. “It’s funny because now it’s at the point where we’re realizing we do need these certain crew members. And I’m fiercely shacking my head like, no, like I don’t want to do that! Even though it is time to give the reigns over because it’s too much for us now.”
Future Islands’ latest album is “Singles.” They’re touring the U.S. this summer and fall.
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