Happy Accidents with Landon Conrath
Image courtesy of Sawyer Brice
“Out of necessity, not demand.” In a way, this is an accidental mantra for indie-pop musician Landon Conrath.
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Conrath has stayed true to his Midwestern roots in both personality and craft. With his brand-new, bleach-blonde hair and a profound passion for music, he’s one of the most down-to-earth people you’ll ever meet.
The last few months have been excitingly hectic for Conrath. He got married, has been touring the US and is releasing an EP titled Songs From a Past Life on April 26. “It’s better than I ever could’ve expected,” Conrath says regarding the tour. From visiting new cities to meeting fans across the country to playing sold-out shows, 2024 has been off to a strong start for the artist.
“I did all the bookings myself this go-around,” Conrath says. Typically, musicians have a team of publicists, managers, agents and producers who work together to coordinate everything from the album release to the tour. Conrath spoke about how he had anxieties about managing the venues and promotion on top of the actual performances, mainly because he had no idea what to expect.
Conrath was also playing as a headliner in several cities for the first time. As an opener, other musicians have noted there’s less pressure in knowing most of the audience is discovering you versus knowing you. With about a month left on this tour, Conrath is happy to report that everything has gone “without a hitch,” even if he feels like he has to knock on wood before every show.
“I love the East Coast,” says Conrath, in regard to his favorite tour memory. “I feel like my heart is there, as much as I am a Midwestern kid.” After his Brooklyn show in February, Conrath’s wife met him in New York City for the weekend to explore Manhattan. “I guess that’s not really a music memory,” Conrath adds with a laugh. (We’d like to give a shoutout to fellow Midwestern kids who fell in love with the East Coast as adults.)
Landon Conrath’s start in the music industry happened more accidentally than it did intentionally. Originally planning on being a drummer, Conrath began making music with a friend from college in 2019 because his friend wanted more experience in music production. In 2020, Conrath began to release his music as a solo act, beginning with the single “Pieces.” Shortly after, he released “Acetone,” which put him on indie music fans’ radar.
Image courtesy of Charlie Flatten
With his background as a drummer, Conrath has an amazing ability to understand the instruments in a song before the vocals. “My style of writing and guitar-playing came from not knowing how to play guitar,” he says, “but I knew that was what I wanted to base my sound around.” Where most artists begin making a song with lyrics, Conrath begins making a song with instruments.
Landon Conrath’s hits, like “Papercuts” and “2AM” led many aspiring musicians to wonder how he got his sound. Initially, a lot of the unique drum beats and poignant electric guitar chords Conrath uses came from samples, simply because he didn’t have access to certain instruments.
“I feel like when people are making albums, they’re often times like, ‘How do we get the best drum sound?’ or, ‘How do we get the best guitar?’” Conrath says. “A way to make yourself stand out and be more true to yourself is to use what is readily available to you and what you know how to do.” Using his background as a drummer, Conrath was easily able to program drum beats for his songs. Since his guitar knowledge was so limited at the start, a majority of the backbeats included singular, repetitive notes. “I guess that’s how I got my sound,” he says. “It was all by happy accidents.”
There’s a lot of discussion about creatives across mediums — music, writing, film and so on — using what they know they have access to in order to make a product. This paves the way for creatives to produce unique work that they’re proud to share with the world, whether online or offline.
When asked about promoting his work on social media, Conrath laughed and said, “It’s the thing that gets hit over your head every day.”
One of the most talked about trends in the music industry is the pressure artists face to promote their work on platforms like TikTok and Instagram reels, regardless of if they're independent artists or signed to a massive record label. Artists only started discussing this more publicly in the last year, like Olivia O’Brien explaining her decision to part with Island Records due to marketing differences, or Aidan Bissett, signed with Capitol Records, calling himself out for constant promotional work.
“It’s funny because I’m signed to a record label and they have an entire marketing team, but the only thing they can still come up with is to ‘post more,’” Conrath says. He admits he often thinks about how he should post more on social media, but the point of having an entire marketing team is to allow the musician to focus solely on making music. “If TikTok actually gets banned,” he adds, “[marketing teams] are going to be sitting on their hands like, ‘What should we do now?’”
In 2022, a local newspaper in his hometown, “The Minnesota Daily” quoted Conrath as a musician who “hates chasing trends.” Conrath confesses he regrets saying that because it seems to be what music journalists will forever hold him to. “I guess it’s less of not wanting to chase trends and more of not feeling like that’s myself,” he explains. “It’s funny to think of me not wanting to ‘chase trends’ because there’s a million other dudes making indie-pop music in their basement just like me.”
It’s incredibly taxing for artists to have to put the same effort into posting on social media as they do into making music. When a musician needs to do the job of a musician and a marketer, they run the risk of creative burnout.“I’m sad that I don’t feel like I have the ability to go viral,” Conrath admits, “because at the end of the day, it is a skill to make those videos. I feel like I’ve never had that personality or that toolset, but I’ve also never really put in the effort.”
There’s the idea that if you don’t see the kind of media you want in the world — whether it’s books, movies, magazines or music — you should make it yourself. Instead of focusing on what’s trending and trying to “go viral,” Conrath just wants to make music that he likes and hopes that others like it too. So far, he’s achieved this.
Much of his mindset toward music and the industry can be credited to his Midwestern upbringing, where winters are treacherous and you have no choice but to stay inside. He used that time to make music, so many people in the Minneapolis music scene care more about “producing good music than putting out 10 songs at once.”
“There’s this band called FIDLAR,” Conrath shares. “They’re kind of like a California surf-punk band, but they have this cult following. I saw them play at The Echo in Los Angeles like two years ago and ever since then, that has been the goal for me. They [FIDLAR] have no presence online or that many monthly listeners on Spotify, but they announced this surprise secret show at The Echo — which is like a 400-cap venue — and they announced it 24 hours before. It was sold out by the day of the show.”
Conrath noted that he’d witnessed several musicians — all incredibly talented — perform sold-out shows, but the crowd only knew their most viral songs. After Lizzy McAlpine’s “Ceilings” went viral, the crowds at her shows began to sing the wrong lyrics because they only knew the bridge. Similarly, there are videos of The Kid Laroi performing for hundreds of people on tour, but the crowd only knew the lyrics to the one verse that went viral on TikTok.
“Kid Laroi is one of the biggest artists in the world right now,” Conrath points out, “but no one knew the words. No one knows who FIDLAR is, but where did those 400 people come from?” Since this realization, Conrath would much rather find the real people first and then let the online community come as a result.
Conrath’s newest work, Songs From a Past Life, comes out April 26. He released two songs from the project, “Overrated” and “Replay,” March 1 and a third, “Hollywood,” comes out on March 29.
Both “Overrated” and “Replay” began how most of his songs do, starting with production, then melodies, then the full lyrics. When Conrath first started making music, he used to force words to “fit” the melodies. Now, he works simultaneously to craft the lyrics and the melodies together.
Both tracks were written two years ago. The other songs on the EP were written four years ago. In the age of the internet, supply and demand controls music release patterns. Albums typically take between two and three years to make; if a song gets popular on a platform like TikTok, artists are pushed to constantly release music to meet the demand of followers.
In “Overrated,” Conrath writes about his feelings in what seems to be a toxic relationship. Instead of it being about a relationship with another person, the song personifies his experiences in the Minneapolis music industry through this tumultuous relationship.
While there is a strong music scene, Conrath has felt that musicians in Minneapolis are indifferent to him and his work. Conrath makes indie-pop music. He’s aware that this is mainstream and not “underground,” but it’s the kind of music that he enjoys. “If you’re trying to be a mainstream artist, sometimes people won’t want to work with you,” Conrath explains.
Often, fans and music journalists like to ask Conrath what he “means” by certain lyrics. In his song “Broken,” he mentions moving to New Jersey despite never having been there before. He laughs about this and says, “I just made all of that up.” When Taylor Swift’s 2020 album folklore came out, Conrath remembers Swift talking about wanting to use music to write fictional stories, which is something he feels very aligned with.
“If you can just reach down and write about the human experience,” Conrath says, “it’ll be relatable.” His song “Replay” touches on these elements of fiction but still has this element of relatability. It’s about the addictive feeling of having someone in your life even if they're not good for you. “At the end of the day, I’m married and in a stable relationship,” Conrath adds “so it’s not like I have context to write heartbreak stories anymore, but it’s still an emotion that exists in my life.”
Image courtesy of Sawyer Brice
His EP, Songs From a Past Life features music he’s made over the last few years that didn’t have a place on his albums or other EPs. Where a lot of artists emphasize finding meaning or inspiration behind a project before doing it, Conrath took Songs From a Past Life as an opportunity to try something new. “It’s always a treat when you throw something together and can kind of find meaning in it later,” he says of the process.
Conrath prefers to avoid explicitly saying the meaning of his work. “I haven’t thought about the meaning behind something until I’m asked to write a press release for it,” he says. “It’s songs that really held some meaning to me at some point and no longer do, but still feel like a part of me,” he says, on Songs From a Past Life.
“I think two of the songs that are most special to me [on the EP] are ‘Walking on Fire’ and ‘Pavement,’” he says. “They were both written in 2020 when I first started all of this.” Both “Walking on Fire” and “Pavement” have changed many times over the last four years, but Conrath felt they were finally complete this year.
“Walking on Fire” was written in May 2020; he was in quarantine in Fargo, North Dakota with two friends, both unaffiliated with music. The three of them had all recently gone through breakups, therefore they nicknamed their quarantine space “Heartbreak Hotel.” The chorus of “Walking on Fire” was written with these two friends, which made it all the more special, especially given that they don’t work in music at all.
Landon Conrath’s newest single “Hollywood” is out March 29. His entire EP, Songs From a Past Life, is out April 26. As a fan of college music publications and outlets, Conrath is particularly thankful for their role in his career. He credits a lot of his touring success to “college kids who are stoked about music.”
Hopefully, Boston gets to witness a Landon Conrath surprise show. (October, perhaps?)