Interview: Landon Conrath details his hitmaking origin story
by Diane
January 07, 2025
In a nutshell, Landon Conrath’s success story is: “It worked, so we tried it again.” A Minneapolis-based, music-making force, Conrath has gotten far with this mantra over the past four years. Since handing off the drumsticks in local rock band Harbor and Home to take center stage as a solo artist, Conrath has written and released 40-plus songs.
In 2024, the prolific artist put out the album Employee of the Year and Songs of a Past Life EP. His adeptly produced, melodically catchy songs accompany lyrics that hit home with the day-to-day experience of living in your 20s, especially regarding friendship, love, and heartbreak.
Today, Conrath has amassed tens of millions of Spotify streams, and toured the U.S. and Europe. At the start of 2025, he kicked off a 7th Street Entry residency, which continues on Jan. 9 and 16. Conrath spoke in detail with The Current about how “just a dude from Lino Lakes” became a local hit-making machine, including his origin story, songwriting process, collaborators, inspirations, and more.
Transcript edited for clarity and length.
What's your response to your sudden rise in success as an independent artist?
Landon Conrath: It feels like I've just now caught up with the last four years of my life. It feels like a very distinct era that just happened. [From] 2020 to 2024, I never went more than maybe three months without putting out music. It was this constant chasing my own deadlines, going hard and fast, like, as much music as I could put out, we were doing it. And yeah, like you were saying, out of nowhere, for sure.
I didn't grow up writing songs. I didn't grow up singing, really. I grew up playing piano, and that was the only thing I played. And then I played trombone in band, and then I transitioned into drums in middle school, high school-ish. [I had] a really great teacher, killer local drummer, Steve Gould — he played in a lot of bands around here. He's a national, world-touring drummer. Great guy. He taught me everything I knew about drums, and that made me fall in love with music.
Harbor and Home is such a big part of my musical journey. Kaleb Williams, the lead singer of that band, taught me everything about live music. It was the perfect storm with pandemic. Just had free time. I think it's a story for a lot of artists. You're at home with nothing to do. Like, what are you going to do? I guess, write a song. And a friend of mine named Alex, we worked on my first EPs together, and it all happened in Hudson, Wisconsin, of all places. A basement there.
That makes me think of Yam Haus.
And yeah, it was their house!
Okay, yeah! There's talks about trends in the Minnesota music scene. And I feel like there's this big trend of pop musicians. [Clip of “2AM” plays] Musicians that could sound like they're actually on Top 40, including yourself. Yam Haus, you, Ber, Anna Graves, Guytano — these [artists] who just have these pure, wholesome, crystal voices. And so to me to hear you say I did not grow up singing is crazy because you're just a natural.
Thank you. Yeah, I guess music was like a part of my life, in the way that my family — my grandparents — were very musical. They were choir directors and things like that. But it wasn't a part of my daily life. My direct family isn't really musical. And I didn't grow up in bands. I had no friends that played any music.
Wow.
Looking back to high school, I was like, "Oh, I wish I was in a garage band or something." But that just wasn't a thing. I played soccer, and all my friends were the other soccer players. I didn't have musician friends. So it's been a whirlwind in the last six years to get thrown into the music circles and meet all these people. And it's so fun.
Yeah, we have a really great scene, and you're definitely right in the middle of it. Yeah, I hear you played soccer. I feel like there's a lot of musicians that I know that were also athletes. So I don't know if there's some sort of crossover between just being hard working? [Clip of “Overrated” plays] Because to think about how you're constantly writing — that takes dedication and hard work. Is that something you feel like was instilled in you as a young kid?
Oh, man. I mean, I guess so. I don't know that it was like a super direct correlation, but growing up, I was younger than my siblings by 10 years, so I had a lot of alone time. So I got used to doing things by myself and being self-motivated. And combining that with school and sports, it all just kind of pushes you forward a bit. And I have always been that way. If I want to do something, I'm gonna try to do it and do it as good as I can. And I'm okay with doing it by myself, which, as a solo artist, you don't have anyone else telling you that you need to do this today. It can be hard a lot of times, but I think that's a characteristic of mine that maybe helped is just being very self-motivated. Sometimes, obviously, you don't feel that way, and you hate every second of it. But yeah, I think that has definitely helped me in the past four years of my life. Just trying to keep pushing.
Bring me back to your first two singles, you mentioned that something happened. It was a breakup that basically led you to songwriting. In particular, what was that emotion you were feeling when you were like, "I want to try songwriting,” after being a drummer for so long.
Growing up throughout high school and everything, I was never in relationships. It was like a very new thing for me in college. So I was later in life experiencing my first relationship, and it was a COVID relationship, which was weird. Everything in life was weird at the time. And I remember we broke up, and it's like the most cliché moment in my life. I'm listening to "RE: Stacks" by Bon Iver driving away from the place, like, weeping. [Laughs]. I was destroyed.
It's one of the hardest things to ever go through.
I never had experienced it before. I remember driving, like, 75 mph and I can't see the road because I'm wiping away tears ... I can still really vividly picture that. And it's amazing how the song connects you to things like that. So when I first started writing music, it was like, straight up Bon Iver. Acoustics.
For Emma, Forever Ago.
And the first Coldplay record, I was like, “I want to make ‘Sparks’ again.” Well, I guess back to your question of how I started with it. I had a friend in college who I thought was super cool. She was a songwriter. And I was like, “I want to do that, but I feel like I can't. I don't have context for it.” I thought my life was super boring. I was like, there's nothing I need to write about at all that anyone wants to hear. I'm just a dude from Lino Lakes.
And how wrong you were [laughs].
I mean, yeah, I guess so! And so I had something, finally. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I have context. I have something to write about.” So I wrote that first song, and it was like early Coldplay – acoustics, drums. I brought it to my friend Alex Kimball, amazing writer, amazing producer, and he gutted the whole thing. And I was also gutted. I was like, “I forked over this really personal thing, and we changed the whole thing.” And it was like, “Oh my gosh. I didn't really like that feeling, but I'm rolling with it. Let's keep going. Let's put the song out. Maybe I won't do another one because that was kind of a strange experience.” I didn't love it.
January 2020, I am on break. It was like a holiday break for college, and I was visiting one of my roommates' families in Colorado. And we were on a sunrise hike. Just a picturesque moment, beautiful. We get to the top ... I don't know if you've hiked in Colorado before, but when you get to the top, you have cell service. And as an 18-year-old, you're like, "Oh my god, we have cell service! Let's check our phones." I don't know if we sat down to do that, but I remember checking my phone and my newly released songs. So it's like, you're addicted to the artists’ app for Spotify. It gives you feedback of your metrics and stuff. So it's like, oh my goodness, statistics. I love those … In the beginning it's so like, "Oh my gosh!"
Exciting! I know, it's a measurement of exactly how you're doing.
And I was used to 100 plays a day or whatever. I had a strong start because of the built-in audience at my college, which helped a lot. But I remember checking it and seeing that 600 people were currently listening to the song. And I was like, "Excuse me!"
[Clip of “Pieces” plays]
That would blow my mind.
Exactly. It blew my mind, too, right away. And the song got played like 20,000 times in a day or something. It was unbelievable. I had no idea why it was happening, because I had no understanding about Discover Weekly. I had no understanding about any of the playlists. And so yeah, it was that. And we're like, "All right, well, let's do another song. I guess there's people out there that want to hear it."
So yeah, that's as simple as it was. It was literally because of that. And it feels so funny to have that be the reasoning behind it. When you hear all these artists do interviews, and it's like, "I had this crazy thing happen in my life. I just felt like I needed to get it out." And I feel like my origin story is very “it worked, so we just tried it again."
As a person who hosts a radio show and receives a lot of DIY and a lot of submissions from people who are newer to the scene — finding a groove in production is really difficult. And you have managed to be masterful at mixing and producing. Tell me about that process of being in the studio. I also know that you work with a lot of really talented musicians and surround yourself with them.
The way I do things has always been a little backwards. And every time I start a new project, I feel like I need to reinvent my process, because it's just not what I wish it was, which is a weird thing to say. But for context, an artist I really look up to is Samia … She's one of those artists where you can tell that she spends a lot of time, literally, just pen and paper songwriting, because the words are so — they're just dripping with meaning and things like that. And I've always wished that I was a more poetic person. And that's something I think I idealize a little bit — the songwriter. “I've got mountains of journals. I am very introspective.” I do all this stuff, you know? And that's never been the case for me.
I have always started with the music first. I'll make a little production loop, and then, literally, just like mumble words and melodies. And when I first started, we would literally get the song almost done, like, progressions, production. When we'd do melodies, and then after all was said and done, we would twist the words to fit the song. And it was like a backwards process than you would normally do. Because, normally, you start with the words, maybe, and the melodies. And then you do the production after. But yeah, it's always been that way for me, and I don't know why. I think something I'm interested in trying in 2025 is that other way of sitting with the words first.
But as far as getting into a studio, it's always been: “I'm interested in making this kind of song right now.” Okay, here's how the guitar would sound, here's how the drums would sound. Let's figure out the melodies next.
Oh, interesting. You find inspiration from something –
Yeah, I usually come in with a reference of some sort.
Where you're like, "This caught my ear."
Yeah, I remember when I was making this EP called I'm Alive, So It's Fine, and there's this band I had just found. They're a New Zealand band called the Beths, and I think actually maybe found them on The Current. But a super cool rock band. And it's fun when you have something like that to take from, like a context that you can at least start with. Because then it's like you just have things to inform decisions.
All art is derived from something that piques an artist's interest. So that makes a lot of sense. I mentioned you work with a lot of great musicians, and Ber is a big one that we play on The Current. And I would definitely call you a contemporary of her. And I know you two are friends. Tell me about your connection with Ber.
It started in a funny way, as she was my boss. She hired me to be her music director for a run of shows with this artist Sigrid, who's a Norwegian pop artist and was doing a U.S. tour. And so I jumped in. Really didn't know anything about Ber. Then, I thought she was from the U.K., and she's actually not. She's from here. But I first met her, I was like, “Oh, she lived in Leeds and went to school there." I remember going to Dogwood for coffee to talk about what the show is gonna look like. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, she's this pop star." She had just had this insane song go explosion mode on TikTok — like massive.
Oh yeah, "Meant to Be."
Yeah, and this is right as that's happening. And I just remember being like, "Oh my gosh, I'm this little baby artist. I'm so stoked to be around this person." And I meet her, and she's, like, the most normal, kind, caring, Bemidji Midwestern person of all time. And I was like, “Oh, wait. She's dope!”
She's a sweetheart.
And so I got to spend a month straight with her and the tour manager, photographer Ally. And we were all in a van, and we did the U.S. tour. And then we got to do three or four shows in the U.K. too. So just like an incredible way to start a friendship with this wild experience. But has since become a really trusted friend and writer. And I think it's really important for musicians to have people who understand the weirdly niche struggles that you go through.
To be able to relate to someone and be able to say, "Oh my gosh, I went through this." And to have someone to be able to just understand that right away.
Yeah ... I got a degree in software engineering, so all my college friends are in software engineering jobs. Not that they don't know how to be kind and listen to me. But they don't exactly know what it's like to deal with a label issue. And Ber was going through a bunch of stuff with her label. I was newly signing to a label, and was wondering what that was all about. And so it's always been amazing to have her as someone who I can talk to about things that are weird like that, because it's just not something that a lot of people go through. And so it's amazing to have support like that.
[Clip of “Funeral Home” plays]
I mentioned how wrong you were to be like, "I don't think I have anything interesting to say." Because I'm watching the videos of you in front of audiences, everyone's singing along like crazy, so obviously they're connecting with it. And I love how interactive you are with fans with your social media. Tell me about this element of engaging with your fans in this way.
I think that is the number one thing ... If there's something that I'm lying in bed at night thinking about how to improve on, it's that. Because, by most benchmarks, I've never had success on social media. Really, people are always like, "Why do you have so many listeners on Spotify and so few followers? I'm like, "Well, it's not my strong suit." … TikTok, Instagram — I've never had, as they call, a social media moment. And so I've always been like, "Man, how do I engage with the fans that I do have?" …
This is a story I've told before, but I was in L.A. writing with some friends, and my manager brought me to a show at the Echo, which is a legendary spot in Silver Lake. And there's a band called FIDLAR. They're a Southern California surf-punk band — as extreme of a surf punk band as you can be, like, crazy, crazy shows. I'd never heard of them, and the experience was so incredible, because it was a secret show. They announced it the day of, and it sold out immediately. And I remember looking them up on Spotify. I was like, Who are these guys? And they had, like, 300,000 monthly listeners. And at the time, I'm like, “How are these people who have less numbers on the internet than I am — how are they selling out a huge show, like 500 tickets? And I was so bewildered by it, because they don't really have an online presence or anything. And I just came to find out that they have been touring for a long time. They've got this cult following. Their fans love them so much, and it inspired me so much. Because I was just in the midst of an L.A. trip, which are always stressful. And there are always people beating you over the head of -- you need to be on Instagram. You need to be on TikTok.
Oh, you need to post every day — stream, stream.
Yes, three posts a day … all this stuff. That's what they say. And it's so dumb. And I finally felt like I had something to look at of — that's actually what I'm interested in. These people are making music, and it's like they can have it all. As in, they're making the music, and they just are good people. I guess I can't speak to what FIDLAR is like in their personal lives. I have no idea, but the show is amazing. The fans were so passionate. And it was like, this is my new goal. I just want a grassroots, strong fan base. And so I want to take every opportunity I can to talk with people at the merch booth, respond to their comments, respond to their DMs. On something stupid, like wrap day, as weird of a day as that is, if you can go through and respond to the 60-80 people that mention you in their story, it's like, go and say, "Thank you for listening." It takes 20 minutes.
