Music And Photography Bloom In Landon Speers’ New Work, Wild Rose

Once calling someone a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ implied that they really weren’t good at much at all. Today, multi-hyphenates are the go-to for complex jobs. How do you thinking having multiple skill-sets across genres of work helps your creative vision?

I guess there are two sides to that coin—one being a commodified ‘all-in’ package that can be offered, and another that adheres more to a personal vision outside of commercial consumption. Having only recently ventured into combining them, I’ve yet to determine how that manifests in the long run. I think it helps to be able to create a complete world wherein all aspects seem deliberate though. A sort of a curatorial approach that can offer up something a bit more rounded in vision and scope. Especially in a time where words like ‘mood’ and ‘vibe’ are so often thrown around so much. I also realize I could be completely just talking out of my ass too.

Is Wild Rose the first time that you have combined music and photography?

No, but it is the first time I’ve done so with the intention of making two portions of a whole in tandem. I’ve always done my own visuals—from album artwork to videos and performances—but I mostly kept the two sides separate (by using pseudonyms and also physical barriers). I’d always recognized that as a visual artist I had another angle to approach presentation of music, but the implications of that ‘jack-of-all-trades’ aspect you mentioned earlier made me hesitant to combine them for years.

I’ve also always disliked performing live so I’ve often crafted ways to avoid being seen during shows. This has included playing in total darkness, or in rooms full of fog or even hiding behind a curtain. There was a period of time where I’d hang a sheer sheet in front of me on stage and back project two 35mm slide projectors onto. Sometimes I’d combine doubles of scenes and mirror them to make these surreal landscapes that paced the set. Other times I’d use collages wherein one ‘straight’ image would be overlaid by another slide that had been selectively varnished, bleached and altered to allow for these projected scenes to flow into one another and create warped imaginary landscapes. Those performances were just a big collection of what I was working on in general at the time rather than a composed set of visuals made for that specific show though.