the saddest landscape - dwon interview

Declaring War on Nostalgia II/ interview with The Saddest Landscape/2012

DWON interviewing THE SADDEST LANDSCAPE(Andy Maddox)

Since exploring THE SADDEST LANDSCAPE, their tunes are definitely what I consider as

intense and emotional art in its most beautiful and breathtaking ways. Listening to the

voice of singer Andy is making me feel comfortable in silent moments of grief, moments of

insecurity as well as in moments of consciousness. Since naming this Zine after one of

their Songs I finally got the chance to ask them some questions.

In my point of view interviews can exhaust their readers through the same questions every

time, “what do you think of your new album”, “why have you formed a band” and so

forth and so on.

I will try to cut these sort of questions really short during this interview and focus on what

THE Saddest LANDSCAPE is all about: Love, Feelings, Emotions

Hi Andy thanks a lot to give me the opportunity to write to you! Can you maybe please

introduce yourself or let us just know how your day has been!

thanks markus, well i am the singer/guitarist for the saddest landscape, and so far my day is

ok just a quiet saturday morning at home catching up on things.

Which good book(s) and music has sweetened your life lately?

lets see for books it has been a lot of rock biographies, Steven Adler of Guns N Roses book,

the Decibel recording history of 25 metal records that sort of thing, also the newest Chuck

Klosterman and Joe Pernice novels both of which were great. For music, the new Two

Gallants, Birds in Row, and Converge records have been spinning a lot here, as i type this i am

listening to the new Mark Kozelek, the newest Whirr LP was really good as well.

We are living in a world that is ruled by greed. People are trying to make profit out of

nearly everything and of course feelings are no exception. Especially art is trying to sell

faked and exaggerated emotions. I’m thinking of television soaps, commercialized music

and stuff. I guess the media influences us even if we try to refuse. They transmit us wrong

stereotypes and keep us from being who we are. Do you agree with me about the fact

that there is a tsunami of exaggerated sentiments crashing on us each day? If yes, how do

you handle these involuntary influences and how do you keep your music as honest as it

is?

Sure i agree, but i don't really see this as anything new, greed has always been there, but the

thing is it exists so separate from what we do musically that it does not become an issue, we

just operate in a way we are comfortable with and work with people who we respect and

trust, and when you do that i think honesty just comes naturally.

I have already mentioned in the first paragraph that I explored the comfort in feeling sad


during listening to your records as well as to other emotional music. I once read an

interview of the American Black Metal Band Wolves in the Throne Room. There they said,

they wish to see their listener falling on the floor crying because of the intensity of their

music. Do you have any intension how your music should affect its consumer?

Not really, that is up to the listener, i would just hope that they get something out of it

emotionally, i will say that i would rather see a roomful of people singing along smiling than

looking out at a large group of people crying, but if that is the case that is fine too, music can

be intense, just living is intense, i would rather just people open themselves and feel

whatever it is they will.

I already touched on the term of stereotypes before, now I want to go more into detail.

Your covers and artworks and lyrics deal with the issue of beauty to a high amount. I often

worry about the fact that my idea of beauty is highly influenced by the media. Do you

think that the pressure of beauty obsession is a big deal these days or something humanity

was always set out to?

Of course, beauty is something that everyone deals with on some level, and while the

physical definitely factors into this, when i am writing about beauty it is often more about the

internal/emotional aspects of it, like what is it that attracts me to someone beyond a pretty

smile or whatever, or wanting to celebrate the good/caring aspects of a person, and a lot of

times it is a quest to improve myself, i often feel i can do better as a person, show i care more

etc. and i struggle with that. as for the media, yes it is important to be aware of it but i think

it is more important for us as individuals to define our own standards of beauty, embrace

what gets us off and show that different can be beautiful too.

I guess it is obviously that after your comeback you guys tend to surpass new limits in the

emotionality of your sound by using new elements. I am thinking of the female voice on

You will not Survive or the violins on the new LP. How do we have to imagine this process

of finding new elements? Who is coming up with such new ideas and where are they

influenced from?

It can be tough, believe me we have tossed aside many parts of new songs simply because

they were too similar to parts we have written already, and after a decade as a band it gets

harder. In general though we approach it the same way we would any new song/part, which

is just thinking of "what would work best here to make this song the best it could be" and

shaping it from there, in the case of Laura Stevenson's vocal part on "Imperfect but Ours", it

was something we wanted on there partially because she is a friend who has an amazing

voice but also a lot of our songs deal with relationship issues and i felt it was important to

have a female voice be represented as well. With the cello parts on After the Lights, that was

something we had talked about doing for awhile and it was Aaron who had the clearest

vision of how that part should work, and i think it came out sounding great, both women


were a pleasure to work with and really added a great depth to the songs.

I read a post or another statement regarding your touring plans where you claimed to

focus your touring activities on other continents than Europe. How long do we have to

wait to see you guys back on the European mainland? What are your upcoming touring

plans?

Not sure, i know we would love to be back at least once a year, right now it is really tough to

say, our next plan is to get to Australia and hopefully parts of the U.S that we haven't been to

in years but we shall see it can all change.

In the booklet of the We aimed straight down LP of your side project Her Breath on Glass

there is a statement about your displeasure of using a cell phone or writing a text

message, in other words being part of the information society. Time went on and these

days you guys have your own facebook page. Do you think that steps like these are

necessary to reach you audience today or have you discovered other comforts in being

part of this society?

well some of that was written by Nevin who does IFB (the label that put that record out), and

while we may differ somewhat on our beliefs, he is someone i respect and value his opinion,

even if we don't agree all the time, i think it is important to show that we aren't always right

and there are many different ways to do things that can peacefully co-exist. also even within

the saddest landscape we differ on how we view things like Facebook, some of us have no

issue with it and actively use it, others see no value and want no part of it, but that is part of

what makes us who we are as a band. as for being necessary, its tough to say, but we have

found that it definitely helps and it is the easiest way to reach most of our fans efficiently,

which is really what causes the necessary aspect of it, for a large portion of people who are

into music the way they find out about things is through these social networking sites and it

is important to us to not be exclusionary which is why we give the options to people, same

thing with records as much as we prefer vinyl we know a lot of people just want digital so the

alternatives are there.

Could you be so kind to give us an overview of the current state of your guys side project

Her Breath on Glass? Do guys have any plans of touring or recording?

As of now Her Breath.. is fairly inactive, we haven't written anything or done any shows in a

couple years, and nothing is really planned, it is just mainly as Her Breath is just Aaron and

myself and we both are in TSL which we're so busy with that lately that there really is not

much of a need right now to do it, never say never though, someday we may do more.


Do the band members of The Saddest Landscape have to do any jobs or studies besides

their band activities?

yup all of us, we all work day jobs, it is the most substantial reason we don't tour that often.

What motivates you guys to be the Vinyl Nerds you are? How would you describe the

pleasure of exploring, receiving or purchasing new records?

the motivation is just a simple love for vinyl, it is something that sort of chose us i guess,

sometimes it is hard to know exactly why you are passionate about something you just are,

you know? as for the pleasure of vinyl, there is just something special and exciting about it,

the whole ritual, the crisp crackly sound, the texture of it, the larger art format etc. plus i love

to record shop, not even having to buy anything i just genuinely enjoy the act of looking

through records, and the satisfaction of stumbling on a rare want that you have been

searching for is incredible, i remember every time it has happened, i have half seriously

debated writing a book about my life framed through vinyl purchases as i can trace each one

to a moment in my life.

Thanx so much for being a part of this! Please feel free to add whatever´s on your mind!

you are welcome, happy to be a part of it.

the saddest landscape - dwon interview

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