Band Interview: Landmvrks

The 25th of May 2022 marked the final date of a mammoth tour that has seen Landmvrks, ten56., Resolve and Glassbone delight audiences all over Europe. Each, an example of young and modern bands creating an important connection with their fanbase, as well as delivering fantastic alternative, hardcore/deathcore/metalcore-infused heavy music.

It was a show that we loved (even if Glassbone were unable to get over to the UK due to logistical reasons), you can read our review here.

The headliners, Landmvrks took the time to speak with us before they took to the stage and what follows is a transcript of our conversation with vocalist Florent Salfati.

Considering this is the last day of this incredible, phenomenal tour, how are you feeling?

I’m feeling good. Very, very good, and especially because we’re in the UK right now, and it’s a country we didn’t play that much. And the last time we play in London was with While She Sleeps three years ago. We played so early, just a few people in front of us, and we had some technical problems and stuff. We were kind of disappointed in our performance. So tonight, I’ll take my revenge on London. So I’m extremely happy to be here and that the tour has been a fucking mind blowing experience.

The experience of the tour, the images that have popped up on social media and just how it looks like every city you’ve been to, every venue, every fan has been in love with, everything that’s been going on. Have you felt that?

Yeah. I don’t know. I think there’s many explanations of that, but one of them is the end, kind of the end of COVID. So, people were so happy to go get back to a metal show. And since the last album did pretty well, they were like, this is the perfect show to have fun. It was just a lot of fun, I saw some people smiling, crying, jumping around. I saw everything!

It’s spectacular to hear because you’ve said it already. COVID, the last few years have been almost indescribable. Regardless of what country you’ve been in, particularly for the music industry grinding to a halt. How have you guys got through this period?

To be honest, we’re kind of lucky that we had to write an album during this period of time, COVID or not. And I’m not saying that in a good way. I mean, I’m not happy that COVID exists, but COVID exists. It allowed us to write a good album, because if no COVID, we probably will be on tour the whole of 2019, 20 and 21. And we were wondering, how are we going to write this record? You know what I mean? So suddenly, COVID is shitty. But we were like, hey, this is the perfect time. Let’s write this record right now.

So we focused on the record. We focused on doing the most we can. We spent our time doing music. It wasn’t a good time, a very anxious period. But we managed to do even more music than usual. So I guess it saved us from it.

You said it yourself, it wasn’t a good time. But to take any positive out of a universally negative period is always great to hear. You are not alone in the sense that almost every band we’ve spoken to over the past two years, has kind of said the same thing in regards to making music and having more time to perfect it. Was that the case for you guys?

Yeah, exactly. And I think that the album isn’t the same if we wrote that on tour or whatever. We have a recording studio in Marseille, and we’re allowed to go to that studio even during the lockdown and stuff, not all the time, because some lockdown were more locked than others, but we were allowed to do that. Most of the songs were recorded in our bedrooms.

There is a song, for example, called Paralysed and when it came out, everyone was like, this is the perfect COVID song, you know what I mean? And when I wrote that song, it was not the topic. I was just inspired and I wrote those lyrics like I did all the time. I’m more about sensations and feelings and words that inspire me. And then boom, it makes a whole song. So I wrote that song, and then everyone told me, it’s a great analogy. But it wasn’t on purpose.

Do you think Landmvrks have come out of this period stronger now than you were before?

Yeah, a lot stronger. The only thing that we have to relearn, if that makes sense, is to be on the road. It was tough at the beginning. And still right now, this whole tour is like basically a two-month tour. It’s the biggest one we ever did. And right now, we’re like, hold on, we need one or two weeks break. It’s a lot. After the beginning of the tour though, we’re like, all right, we we’re into it. It was automatism.

What does London have to do tonight to top Manchester and Birmingham?

It’s bigger than Birmingham and it’s almost sold out, so I expect people to be as crazy as before. Yesterday was Manchester. It was a very cool place. The thing that is crazy, I expected and I got it. It was that I expected people to sing louder than all the other countries because this is their native language. So I expected fans to sing very loud and to know the lyrics, basically more than many other countries.

In France, for example, we don’t speak English that well. So even though there are 600 people or more in the venue, sometimes it’s hard to make them sing your lyrics. So, what I want is all the people singing the choruses and stuff, and it was the case yesterday. It was sick.

So, I expect people to sing louder tonight.

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