Born in the Carteret County, North Carolina, Herring grew up in Newport and Morehead City.He began rapping at age 14 at freestyle battles and cyphers. 　　In 2003, while attending the East Carolina University, in Greenville, North Carolina, Herring and other colleagues started the performance art band Art Lord & The Self Portraits, which lasted until late 2005. In early 2006, some of its former members started Future Islands, and the band relocated to Baltimore, MD, in 2008. In 2013, Herring took a break from the band’s touring in order to spend more time on his solo rap project, writing more, and doing more shows. 　　Parallel to Future Islands, Herring continued rapping either solo, under the moniker Hemlock Ernst, or with his brother as Flesh Epic. Hemlock was his original writing name on an on-line music board when he was in the 9th grade, from a poem he wrote about Socrates taking the hemlock poison. Ernst comes from his character in Art Lord & The Self Portraits who was named Locke Ernst-Frost: a reference to John Locke the religious poet, Max Ernst, the artist and Robert Frost, the American poet.