Thursday 19 January 2012

The Saddest Landscape - Interview with Andy Maddox


The Saddest Landscape have just finished their recent UK and European tour. I caught up with Singer/Guitarist Andy Maddox to find how the tour went and what music has been inspiring them at the moment.

1. Can you tell us a bit about The Saddest Landscape and what inspired you
to start the band?


The Saddest Landscape formed 10 years ago, and it started just as a way
for us to express ourselves through music, there was no real trick or
thought out clear plan for it we just got together and played and it
seemed to work, Aaron and myself have been there since day one and over
the years have grown and learnt a lot and we are just amazed that we are
still able to do this and have people care.

2. You recently toured the UK and Europe, how was it?


The tour was great, we met a lot of really cool people and played to a
fair amount of really excited kids I could not ask for much more. No
Decline (who set the tour up for us) really did a great job so each night
essentially went off without a hitch which we were thankful for as it
allowed us the freedom to just play and hang out and not worry about much
which was nice for a change.

3. What were you're highlights?

Here we go, stream of consciousness style: selling out the first show in
Berlin, buying lots of records, talking about Dexter with Kris, selling
out the third show in Cologne, seeing We Were Skeletons each night, how
pretty our tour vinyl looked, the Brighton Pier, eating authentic Belgium
waffles in Belgium, eating quite possibly the worlds best tofu burrito in
Hamburg, Aficionado, more record shopping, the massive sing-along's to
Eternity, a haunted ghost tour in Edinburgh, realising our new band line
up sounds great live, Jeff turning us onto Pimms, Lion bars and Mr. Tom,
even more record shopping, Aaron's Pantera shirt, meeting a bunch of people
with Saddest Landscape tattoos, talking to people about what our band
means to them, the customs officials who thought we were post rock, Eric
explaining how often “Daddy needs his medicine”, Justin playing Goo Goo
Dolls songs, Matt being generally excited about AC/DC, what kind of dog is
that?, oh yeah did I mention record shopping?

4. What did you do to keep yourselves occupied during the long drive while
on tour?


For this tour we had a pretty posh vehicle to travel in with a nice TV and
movies so that helped, and our driver played lots of the National and
turned us into fans, mainly though we just slept a lot as we were up until
about dawn every day so the drives were our chance to rest.

5. How has the reaction been to "After The Lights"?

It is still a little soon to tell, the release date is still a few weeks
away, and it only just leaked a few days ago but so far it seems positive,
I know we are proud of it and Topshelf seems stoked on it so hopefully it
will do well.

6. What are your thoughts on the state of music at the moment?

I am very excited about the state of music right now, there are so many
bands doing amazing inspiring things, we truly feel lucky to just be a
small part of it all.

7. What bands are you guys currently listening to?

As I type this I am listening to a White Stripes bootleg, the new Pianos
Become the Teeth record is one of the best records I have heard in a very
long time, the EMA record was great, Deafheaven, Dangers, Fucked Up, I
have been spinning the new Neutral Milk Hotel box set a real lot.


8. What bands would you recommend that people checkout from your local scene?

I live in Boston and the music scene seems a little fragmented but there
is still a fair amount going on, I would recommend any of the bands on
either Topshelf or Run For Cover, who are both based here, Deathwish is
doing some pretty solid things still (even if a lot of their bands aren’t
from here), Defeater is awesome, I have high hopes for Choke Up.  The rest
of the band is from the New York area and there are some great bands there
as well, Sleep Bellum Sono, Laura Stevenson and the Cans come to mind.

Remember, you can find out more about The Saddest Landscape via Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TheSaddestLandscape and you'll be able to pick their record "After The Lights" via their BigCartel page at http://tslhbog.bigcartel.com/ and via Topshelf records http://www.topshelfrecords.com/.

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