Art Lord & the Self-Portraits
| Art Lord & the Self-Portraits | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Greenville, North Carolina, United States |
| Genres | Synthpop, alternative rock, indie pop |
| Years active | 2003-2005 |
| Labels | Friends Records, Thrill Jockey, 307 Knox Records |
| Associated acts | Future Islands, The Snails, Moss of Aura, Peals, Hemlock Ernst, Ruin Yer Stereo |
| Website | www |
| Past members | Gerrit Welmers William Cashion Samuel Herring Adam Beeby Kymia Nawabi |
Art Lord & the Self-Portraits was an American synthpop band in Greenville, North Carolina, composed of Gerrit Welmers (keyboards), William Cashion (bass, acoustic and electric guitars), and Samuel T. Herring (lyrics and vocals), Adam Beeby (rhythmic keyboard) and Kymia Nawabi (percussion and backing vocals). Created originally as a performance piece criticizing pretentiousness in the artistic world, when it disbanded in late 2005, its remaining members went on to form the synth-pop band Future Islands.
Sam Herring and Gerrit Welmers grew up in Morehead City, North Carolina two streets away from each other, and attended the same middle school in Newport, North Carolina. They became friends during the 8th grade, around 1998. Herring had started making Hip-hop since he was 13 or 14, Gerrit was a Metal and Punk skater who bought his first guitar when he was 14. Having different musical backgrounds, they didn't considered doing music together in high-school.
William Cashion started playing guitar when he was around 13, having had a couple of bands as a teenager in Raleigh where he commuted to High School from Wendell, North Carolina. In 2012 he enrolled in the painting and drawing program at ECU and had drawing classes with Sam Herring. Cashion describes:
"So a lot of the freshmen had the same classes. My very first was this drawing class. Sam was in that class. Later that day, I had these sunglasses I used to wear. They were the Back to the Future shades. Neon yellow and neon orange and kind of an odd shape. I used to wear them all the time. I was walking across campus and Sam showed up and said, "Hey man, cool shades." He had really thick sideburns. They framed his face. It was almost a full beard. There was a little bit under the chin. "Cool sideburns man!" We found out that we were going to the same class. Pretty much immediately we started talking about music and ideas."
Cashion and Herring became friends and as Herring explains, decided to form a band: "Then, right before Christmas vacation after the end of the first semester of school, we had this strange idea for a performance group that would be based around this character Locke Ernstfrost. The idea was kind of a group that was more of a performance art piece, like a social commentary on how we treat rock stars and pop icons — art stars. Just how society treats them, kind of idolizes them even though they seem to be often very narcissistic or just full of themselves."
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