Landon discusses evolving as an artist, his new single “Next Time We’re Flying, and a rogue Amazon Echo

Landon Sears is one of those artists who can create a song that will stick in your head for days on end. That’s quite the feat. However, his catalog and track record suggest he’s found the magic formula.

Landon Sears: the prominent Hip-Hop and R&B artist out of Nashville, TN. Over the years, his versatility as a multi-instrumentalist and producer has enabled him to create his signature sound. Harmonically explosive, and rhythmically alluring, Landon’s arrangements derive from his unwavering love of Hip-Hop, R&B, Jazz, and Soul. The manner in which he weaves these genres in conjunction is all together free and effortless.

The 23-year-old has also spent time writing for other artists. In May of 2019, he signed a publishing deal with MZMC Music Group in South Korea, writing K-Pop hits for acts like CIX and Kang Daniel. He really does checks all the boxes as an up-and-coming artist. He can sing, he can write, and he can produce…I think he mentioned he was also working on dancing for future shows. Like I said, checks all the boxes.

He’s amassed quite the following on Spotify and Soundcloud, recording over 120,000 monthly listeners. Landon has seen success on all of his past singles, most notably his last tune with Bren Joy called “Sweet”. That alone surpassed the 6M stream mark last month. He looks to build on his growing fan count with this next drop.

Landon took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to us about his evolution as an artist and new single “Next Time We’re Flying” with Bren Joy.

Check out the entire interview below

Deviate: First off, welcome to Deviate Landon. It’s great to have you! Take me through a day in the life of Landon Sears.
Landon Sears: I try to make something new everyday, and I record vocals most days out of the week at least a little. Time is kinda split between pub stuff, cutting demos/producing and working on my own projects.

Deviate: How’ve you changed your approach to creating during the pandemic? or has it been business as usual?
Landon Sears: It’s been business as usual. Still woulda just been in the room recording either way. Obviously it sucks I can’t do shows right now, but it really just means more studio time.

Deviate: Being from small town Kentucky, how were you able to break out of that mold?
Landon Sears: Well… there’s not a lot of music in the town I’m from. There’s a few artist doing their thing, but when I grew up it was pretty isolated in terms of other people trying to make R&B. It was just trial and error of putting out terrible SoundCloud remixes and learning how to record/mix. Wasn’t much to do, but ride around with your friends or record. I spent my whole childhood recording since I was like 13 tryna figure out how to use garage band and finally graduating to Logic Pro. I was always focused on doing mixtapes because that’s all I listened to. I was just tryna copy the guys on Datpiff… just ripping YouTube beats. That was my method.

Deviate: Talk to me about your publishing deal with MZMC Music Group. How’d this come about and how’s it been going?
Landon Sears: Yeaaahhhh man. I’ve been working with MZMC for a while now. Went to Seoul twice to write and it was amazing both times. Met a ton of really dope writers and producers. I’ve got some fire writing cuts coming out in the new year.

Deviate: The way I see it, you’ve been making really good music since 2016. From your own point of view how has your sound evolved throughout the years?
Landon Sears: I think the more you do it you just start noticing aspects you lack. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I started and I kind of messed around in logic until it started sounding better. Everything from production, structure, writing, to vocal performance gets better when u apply focused practice. My new music, especially this record I’m about to drop, has a lot more complex production than previous projects. More live instrumentation and intentional musicality. Also now a lot of my stuff is very harmony-focused…. it’s like harmony rap.

Deviate: You have an upcoming single with Bren Joy coming out the middle of December…take us behind the scenes of “Next Time We’re Flying”.
Landon Sears: So ever since I did my verse on “Sweet” on Bren’s album (Twenties) me and Caleb knew we wanted to get a reunion track with Bren. He loved it and wanted to destroy me on the verse because of how dirty I did him on Sweet. Me and Caleb did like 10 versions of the production it and finally got it right. It’s just one of those ones that feels good from the moment you click play.

Next Time We’re Flying, 2020

Deviate: What can we expect from Landon Sears in 2021?
Landon Sears: ALBUM. January 30th..which happens to be on my birthday.

Deviate: If you were unable to be Landon Sears and instead had to be an inanimate object…what would you be?
Landon Sears: A rogue Amazon Echo Dot that only plays Landon Sears

That’s how you end an interview…

A huge thank you to Landon for taking the time to speak with Deviate. Go check out “Next Time We’re Flying” which drops tomorrow!

Landon Sears is certainly a Deviate