The quintet now known as Future devised their name halfway through a bottle of Jim Beam. Guitarist Gordon Sterling elaborates: “We were doing a toast, ‘Here’s to the future.’ And we were all like, “Yeah, let’s name the band Future.’ It fits what we’re trying to do musically—and that’s not to say we’re the future of music. I’m not saying that. But the future of music is to blur the lines.”
And blur they do. Based in Washington D.C., Future wraps street-scribe rhymes around crisp blues-metal. Their 2008 eponymous debut LP also included detours into spaceship R&B (“Hummingbird”) and island gospel (“Mother Will Have Her Way”). With its historical sound bites and digital-Zeppelin riffs, the track “Wide Shut Eyes” evokes Afro-rock heroes Living Color. Sterling, 30, says although that group isn’t a direct musical influence, they did impact him.
“For me as a black guitar player, Living Color was one of the bands that made it acceptable to do that again. In the ’80s for some reason when hip-hop took over it almost became uncool for black people to play the guitar. Now thankfully we’re in a culture where most people don’t care about the color of whoever’s playing. They just care about the music (that’s)…playing.”
Future hits the stage at 10 p.m. June 26 at Gottrocks. Cover is $7.
For more on Future, check out www.futureband.net.
