the Urban Artist Group presents...

With their base instruments and a strong repertoire of acoustic "pop punk" songs, the three members who make up the foundation of the Future Kings of Nowhere have come to us from Durham, North Carolina to claim the throne to the kingdom of the City Earth Underground. It is not a position easily won, granted, though they are faring remarkably well. Well enough, that is, to be quickly emerging from the initial level of obscurity with which every band and singer/songwriter is faced in the beginning. After a single listen to their self-titled 2007 debut album, one can clearly see that these lads are destined to go much further than nowhere. And if there is such a thing as royalty of the Underground, these three are undoubtedly it.
           To get a better idea of the band's humble beginnings, I asked Shayne O'Neill
about it in our interview. To which he replied...
           This band has a bit of a scattered history. In 2003 I started playing solo shows under my own name, but I didn't get serious about playing out until 2005 or so. By the end of that year, I was starting to feel like there was something missing, so I recruited a couple friends to join me on stage, which was when the Future Kings of Nowhere officially began.
           My original desire behind the band was to play fast, catchy, acoustic songs that would sound good no matter how much or how little instrumentation was available. That approach has allowed the line-up of the band to be relatively fluid, with people coming and going over the past few years. Each new personality and instrument brings a different feel to the music, which I think is fantastic and ensures that the sound is always changing and growing as we go along. Recently, a core group (drums, bass, and guitar) has formed that are all willing and able to be permanent members, with horns and other auxiliary instrumentation coming and going as they please.
           The sound is close to how I had originally envisioned it, but the path to where we are now has been---how did you put it, James?---"a blunder of human trial and error."
           In order to give you, my readers, a clearer and more complete picture of the royal inventor of this mad project, Mr. Shayne O'Neill, I suggest picturing a tall, slender, clean-cut young man, most of the time sporting his eyeglasses (which suit him quite well actually), whose overall appearance isn't exactly something easily inserted into the countless categories and subcategories of human existence. Otherwise, he is more or less a part of the jeans-and-t shirt masses of the Suicide Generation. But later, it becomes evident that he is another breed of animal entirely...and there's definitely more to him than meets the eye.
Shayne's bandmates fall into a similar category of style, which is quite refreshing, for there's really not much that's overly deliberate or cultivated in their styles, and they obviously haven't the need to conform to some widely accepted set of genre fashions or to whatever countercultural stereotypes that may be attached to the scenes by the corporate branches which profit from infiltrating and exploiting artistic movements and such. (But that's another topic altogether.)
           Wanting to get a better understanding of the Future Kings, not just as musicians and singer/songwriters, but also as individuals, I asked Shayne during our interview about his bandmates and what each of them brought to the table.
           Mike Hacker (drums), explained Shayne, provides the driving energy of the band, both in the music and in life. He winds up being the motivational speaker, the one who says, "Okay, here's what needs to get done to make this happen." He keeps things fast and heavy.
           Jon Kornicki (bass), Shayne continued, is the newest member. He's quieter than the rest of us, which allows him to be more peaceful than the rest of us. While everyone else is vying for the limelight, Jon seems happy to be playing a bit more of a supportive role, holding down the low end and keeping things positive.
           Shayne O'Neill (guitar/vocals), he said of himself, plays guitar and sings. Neither of them terribly well.
           Kym Register, Catherine Edgerton, Colin Booy, etc, said Shayne, (trumpet, sax, trombone, saw, accordion, vocals, etc) bring the fun. They're not around all the time, but when they are, things are chaotic and awesome.
           Having come to know their sound rather well, I can say with the utmost certainty that the kingly trio and their court of royal subjects have succeeded in doing exactly what Shayne had first set out to do, for the music of the Future Kings of Nowhere is indeed fast, catchy, acoustic music that is pretty amazing despite the number of instruments being used. In some of the songs, however, the auxiliary instrumentation transforms them from basic bodies of sound to many-layered compositions with all the elements of intricate "acousti-punk"/"antifolk" masterpieces. Of course I realize that the word intricate isn't typically used in the same sentence as "acousti-punk" or "antifolk," and you must understand that I am not using intricate in the John Zorn or Sufjan Stevens sense, nor in the Charlie Parker or Coltrane sense, but rather in the sense that the Future Kings' song structures are like so many buildings in the immediate cityscape, all surrounded by scaffolding, level upon level of iron crossbars and ladders and planks, from which engineers work arduously at creating a more beautiful and interesting vision of urban architecture...the kind which cause passersby to pause and gaze at length, appreciatively and absorbedly. In other words, the auxiliary instrumentation fills in the gaps, further adorns the unusual décor of their musical abode, and weaves its way through the many apertures in the fabric of sound that the base instruments create.
           Most of the songs on the Future Kings of Nowhere record, although sincere and from the heart, also possess intelligence and a razor-sharp wit, an undeniable energy coupled with...well, with something akin to the wings of a hummingbird, which move so incredibly fast that they almost appear to be standing still, nearly motionless, like the way I remember them hovering at the nectar-filled feeders on a friend's front porch in Birmingham, Alabama. That is to say, despite all of the band's frantic energy and fast-paced songs, there's an undeniable clarity to them. Some of their songs are light and fun, while others are full of heartache and longing. Some are full of metaphors and irony, while others are cathartic and regretful. And like any great band or singer/songwriter of the City Earth Underground, the Future Kings' music is just as emotional as it is intellectual. Not only is the music emotional and intellectual, it is equally soulful, though on a very human level (meaning that their songs, although cerebral and visceral in turns, every once in a while simultaneously, are cerebral and visceral in ways that most people can understand and relate to.) Yes, there are things scattered throughout their catalogue of songs for almost every walk of life here in this vast and crazy City Earth.
           Speaking of intellect and emotion and soulfulness, a lesson I learned early as an artist was the holy trinity of art, which is evident in any important, meaningful and worthwhile piece, to be sure. Quite simply, if the work of art evokes a series of inner responses from the one experiencing it---if it makes one think and feel, and also touches upon that unnamable thing at one's center (which we will call the soul, for lack of a better word)---it possesses the holy trinity of art: intelligence, emotion, and soulfulness. Of course that's a tall order for any artist. But it is also what draws a very obvious line between a great piece of art and that which is merely good. It separates the extraordinary from that which is simply ordinary, and the utterly remarkable from that which is unremarkable.
           Some go by the old Shakespearian question of: "What's in a name?" While for others, such as myself, it's not quite that simple, and we are tempted to answer that there's much in a name. Take the subject of this very article, the band, and their clever moniker, the Future Kings of Nowhere. Now, when I first saw the name of the band, I thought it to be a smart socio-political statement of sorts, a reference to the times in which we presently live, a way of saying, "The world has gone to shit and there's nothing left for our generation but nothing and nowhere." And to a degree I still think I was partly correct on that one. Not only that, but I think it's a pretty accurate appraisal of the current state of affairs. All assumptions and speculation aside, I simply had to ask Shayne about the unusual moniker. To which he replied...
           It (the name) comes from a song I wrote a long time ago that had lines like: "Some day I'll close my eyes and be the king of everything I see." That sort of bitter, self-effacing humor describes who we are pretty well. There's also a bit of anti-authoritarian flavor in it that suits our outlook on life. I also picture a little kid with a towel for a cape and a stick for a sword; or two brothers in rural Appalachia who never made it to college but have figured out how to make their car run on sunlight and garbage. Dreamers, to put it generally.
           Ok. Now that we've covered the introductory segment, the band's history, the band members, and the moniker, I think it would be a good time to go into the style of music that the Future Kings of Nowhere play. The reviews I've read so far have mostly used the term "acousticore" to categorize the band. And while that's a decent description of their overall sound, it doesn't do them complete justice. So I approached Shayne with the following question:
           "Over the past few years, there has been a decidedly considerable increase in the distorted, screaming masses picking up acoustic guitars and attempting to add a sort of clarity and meaningfulness to their music, only without sacrificing their punk rock edge. And for the most part, that artistic movement---or whatever you'd like to call it---has been remarkably successful. And now you come along, the Future Kings of Nowhere, with a whole new formula for the "folk punk" equation, which isn't so much "folk punk" as it is the term coined by the existence of your project: "acousticore." Now, I'm not one to get overly hungup on categories and genres and so forth. Music is music, I know. And it is mostly my belief that there are two types of music: Superior and Inferior. But, all the same, I would like to ask if you think the term "acousticore" suits your style and sound as well as or better than the others associated with similar bands and singer/songwriters?"
           "Acousticore" might not be the best name for what we do, Shayne answered, but it's a lot easier than saying "catchy, lyrical, front porch music played at top speed on an acoustic guitar, with bass, drums, and other instruments that make you want to bounce around and sing." How are we different from "folk punk?" I'm not sure. We at least touch that genre on the edges. Maybe "folk pop-punk," since our songs are mostly about relationships and our own neuroses, and only occasionally about the political topics that a lot of the "folk punk" genre focuses on. Mostly I wanted to be able to play fun, high energy, "pop-punk" songs, but I wanted to write about more introspective things than usually get touched on in "pop-punk," and I wanted to be able to play an occasional slow song, and I wanted folks to be able to hear the words (hence the acoustic). Our music is the result of greedily trying to achieve all that at once.
           According to Mike Frame's review in Razorcake Magazine, the Future Kings of Nowhere's record... sounds like a cross between Against Me! and the first Violent Femmes record. To an extent, I agree with that comparison...the newer Against Me! material notwithstanding, of course, while almost all of the Femmes' songs were great and are therefore relevant to the subject at hand. What's more, I can also place the Future Kings beside such bands as: Fistful of Dynamite, Boners & Airplanes, and Billy Liar, among a few others of the "acousti-punk" underground. For the most part, however, the Future Kings' musical hybrid of "antifolk" and "pop-punk" stands on its own.
           There are two tracks on their album that especially stick out among the rest, mainly because they are so very different from the others. The first of which, "Downpour," goes in a rather peculiar direction next to the other songs on the record...which is to say, the song's trunk is a tricky structure of O'Neill's acoustic guitar and Kornicki's bass wound tightly around one another. Hacker's drums keep a steady, up-tempo beat and act almost like a powerful adhesive bonding all the components of the song together, including the brilliant horn parts which branch out from the trunk in a very deliberate pattern. In fact, the horn parts remind me, in this particular piece, of a vehicle going over hilly terrain, smoothly speeding along, up and over, while a scenery of impossibly green grass and trees like the wonderful crayon drawings of children go rushing by on either side under azure skies and golden shafts of sunlight. Now, the subject matter of the ther song is something else altogether, and is not so much up-beat and happy as it is a socio-political commentary on specific President Bush policies.
           The second song, "10 Simple Murders" is a disturbing narrative over a "country-esque," "acoustibilly folk" sound with pronounced basslines, slightly twangy strumming patterns, and a continuously skittering roll of a drumbeat. At times, in "10 Simple Murders," the union of horns and drums, bass and acoustic guitar seems almost reminiscent of a couple notable Spanish styles of music combined, such as the corridos (originating from 18th Century Mexico, the corridos is a narrative and somewhat poetic style of song, almost akin to a ballad), as observed by Jo-Ann Greene (All Music Guide review) and the ranchera (a more traditional variation of the Mexican mariachi sound, the ranchera typically includes acoustic guitar, other stringed instruments, trumpet, accordion, and drums). There are a lot of ingredients that go into this pot o' musical stew, though...certainly more than I can point out. All in all, it's a tremendously brilliant song.
           When I mentioned those two songs in our interview, Shayne said, We here at FKoN Industries are fans of the old "form follows function" adage. Hopefully the songs sound like what they are talking about. "10 Simple Murders" is a country-esque song because it's about a cowboy-outlaw type figure. "Downpour," a song about Bush's pitiful response to global warming, has a lot of 7th chords (the jazzy sound you mentioned) because 7th chords have an unresolved, expectant feel to them. There is also a falling horn line that mimics rainfall to some degree, and that, in the words of Dan Kinney---FKoN's old drummer---"sounds like a little kid worrying about the weather." Relationships like that are rarely intentional, usually occurring as happy accidents of the process in which the song and what the song is about get created at the same time, feeding back on one another. We're trying to walk a line between keeping the music fresh (not letting every song be made up of just power chords) and keeping it accessible (not getting too far from songs made up of power chords).
           Many of the Future Kings' songs seem to be composed around similar subject matter, true, such as relationship worries and woes, failed romances, unrequited love, and all the late-night musings of such things, like in the songs "Never" and "C is for Heartache" and "Like a Staring Contest," etc. Though their music conveys an undeniable intelligence, it also possesses an equally noticeable emotionality, and I found myself trying to figure out if it was more visceral or cerebral, or if there was a good balance between the two (if such a thing is ever really possible). And when I confessed those thoughts to Shayne, he said...
           I like the idea of balance, although I often find it a difficult thing to achieve in life. Most songs start with that visceral emotion, but in order to convey it to someone else you have to translate it into a more or less cerebral format (unless you just get on stage and shout, "bluuuaaarrrggghhhaaaooommmp!" which only fans of death metal seem to properly understand). I try to find the right analogy or descriptive moment to properly connect the words with the underlying feeling. I can also rely on the music to keep the song rooted in a particular feeling, since our songs are not ever terribly complex, musically speaking.
           With the obvious exception of "10 Simple Murders" and "Downpour," the Future Kings of Nowhere record could almost pass as a concept album. And I'm quite sure I'm not alone in wondering what their next contribution to the world of independent music will consist of.
           Towards the end of our interview, Shayne shared his views on music as art, which he articulately expressed by saying...
           The best thing that music can do is bring people together, either by dancing or sharing a love for a song, or just sharing an emotion of some sort. I hope that our music can make the world a better, happier place and that if we're lucky we can inspire some other people to do awesome things, like fight sexism or build communities. I'm not sure if that really covers the subject very well, but it's how we see music's place in the world.
           According to Shayne, the Future Kings are currently trying to make their endeavor a full-time gig, and they're touring as far as their little van can take them. They recently completed a short Northeast tour, and this fall they're planning to take a Midwest trip. They're also hoping on making it out to the West Coast next year. For information on this royal trio of the Southern City Earth, keep checking their myspace page: www.myspace.com/thefuturekings.