Ask Landon Pigg about his formative years and he’ll be the first to
tell you he escaped from the clutches of normalcy. He tends to get a nosebleed
more often than most, but he likes it when life happens naturally, and for
him, it has seemed to flow that way from his very first day – August
6th, 1983. Born in Nashville, TN, he moved to Chicago as a child and it
was there he learned to appreciate that flow; to read and write and ride
a bike, and eventually, to have that bike stolen by a gang of ruffians from
the city along with other typical childhood setbacks and milestones.
Soon, back to Nashville it was, where Landon applied himself to more
benign interests such as Algebra and Chemistry and – lucky for everyone
who has heard his debut RCA album, LP – Music - learning to make
his own sounds as he began to rifle through the wonders of his dad’s
record collection.
It was Landon’s father, a studio veteran himself, who encouraged
Landon’s musical curiosity, as Landon recalls ‘Ray Stevens being
the first CD I ever owned.’ Pretty soon Landon was unearthing his
own musical breadcrumb trail – David Mead and Rufus Wainwright who
showed him the beauty of a melody; Bands like Radiohead helping to etch
a deeper emotion into his songwriting; Masterworks from groups such as
Led Zeppelin and the Beatles imbuing in him both the love of a creative
turn of phrase and a knack for writing indelible hooks. And there’s
no denying the upper register of Harry Nilsson floating around somewhere
amid Landon’s creations, completing a patchwork topography of the
singer/songwriter’s musical exoskeleton that pop writer Nick Hornby
would be proud of.
Landon also credits his mother for nurturing his poetic side. For the
record, she still sends him words of wisdom meant to buoy one’s strength
on those days where the setbacks seem to outnumber the milestones. ‘And’
– laughs Landon, ‘she still cuts my hair.’
With all these threads in hand, Landon Pigg has fastened together his
own mercurial outlook on life which he effortlessly and magically captures
on his debut album. Yet, he’ll also be the first to tell you it does
no good to equate all these disparate strands with ‘figuring him
out.’ Those who try to solve him like a puzzle end up confused. He
likes to keep his thoughts to himself. Likes to keep even ‘himself’
guessing. Fortunately, a faithful listen to his new CD reveals he’s
really not that different from any of us. The songs, which Landon says
are ‘about things like losing love and finding hope – about
how life will start to make sense and then stop again,’- reflect
an uncanny ability to cobble his own confusion into unforgettable music.
Guided by a host of maverick producers, he fuses his own raw edges into
subtle and rollicking pop gems, like the plaintive ‘Sailed On,’
or the sparse but scrappy ‘Last Stop,’ which brandishes ripe
examples of what can only be described as musical Pigg-speak – ‘I
pick up all the pieces of the chords I didn’t use…’.
The hint we’ve been waiting for about solving at least part of the
musical puzzle?
‘Maybe there is a naiveté in my approach,’ he says.
‘I never had a guitar lesson when I started out. I’ve always
felt that when you don’t learn all the rules you’re much more
inclined to break them with a smile.’ Which dovetails nicely into
another inclination of his: You might not always get to hear Landon speak
his mind – but you’ll always hear him sing it.
Buy Landon
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