Young artists like Landyn Zane are why I continue to show up for SONIQLOOX. A self-taught songwriter, producer, and sonic auteur building cinematic soundscapes entirely on his own terms. This is exactly the kind of artist worth amplifying. Landyn doesn’t just make music. He writes it, produces it, mixes it, masters it, and designs every visual that surrounds it. There is nothing artificial about what he does, there is nothing careless about it, and that kind of passion has a sound, and it’s unmistakable.
— Danny
Landyn Zane grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, teaching himself seven instruments, production, mixing, mastering, and visual design along the way. After years of writing through instability and cross-country moves, Landyn arrives with Strange Love, the second single from his upcoming fifth EP, as an artist fully and unapologetically himself.
SNQLX: You grew up in Iowa and ended up in LA making music that sounds rooted in the ’70s and ’80s. How did you get from there to here?
LANDYN: I grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and since kindergarten, writing has been my life. From then on, all I’ve wanted to do is be a writer and entertainer. Because I grew up feeling so far away from the life I imagined, I spent most of my time creating worlds in my head. For a long time, that made me want to become a screenwriter and film director. But in high school, I saw La La Land, discovered Billy Joel, and found Elton John, who changed my life forever. I started songwriting, and was hooked immediately. In the time it took to write a script, I could write dozens of songs. And finishing one was euphoria that screenwriting never brought. So I taught myself guitar and piano, started producing in GarageBand, and in 2022 I released my first single, a cover of Elton John’s Harmony. But the real turning point came in the fall of 2023. I was lost and felt like the vision I had for my life had faded completely. So I dropped out of college, packed up my car, and moved to LA in January of 2024. It was nothing like the movies though. I spent a lot of that time broke, isolated, and trying to make it to the next week. I had so little money I was splitting meals across days, all in the pursuit of my dreams. Eventually, I moved back to Iowa to save money and triple down on music. As difficult as my journey has been, it’s proven to me that this is what I’m meant to do. Because every morning I wake up and I still want to write songs, make music, and put more joy into the world with everything I do.
SNQLX: Growing up somewhere without a music scene — what did you do with that? Does it still show up in how you write?
LANDYN: Growing up in the Midwest, you’re raised to believe that being creative is something you do on the side while you get a “real job.” So I spent my upbringing believing that if I didn’t know how to do it, it wasn’t going to get done. That mindset became the core of my creative identity. It’s the reason I learned to write, produce, mix, and master my own music. It’s the reason I taught myself seven instruments and why I design the outfits and visuals for all my cover art and photoshoots. It felt like if I couldn’t learn how to do something, it wasn’t going to happen, which is why I’ve been able to become so prolific, despite my struggles. It still shows up in how I write too. My songs come from a very internal and reflective place, because that’s how I came up in the world. Growing up without a scene around me made me less focused on trends and more interested in building a world completely my own.
SNQLX: Song titles like Open Wound, Kill Me Slowly, Whatever Remains — that’s unguarded language. Is that directness something you have to reach for, or does it just come out?
LANDYN: That directness is something I’ve learned to reach for over years of practice. You can explore the human experience in great detail, compared to tiptoeing around clichés like, “I’m sad,” and “I love you.” Admittedly, it’s very hard for me to do that though. I tend to sugarcoat things when it comes to being vulnerable. So to force myself to be open when I write, I make the foundation of the song so bare (title, hook, themes, etc.) that I have no option but to pour my heart on the page. That’s why I have so many songs that view life through the extreme like Whatever Remains, or through the more mundane, like Black Coffee.
SNQLX: You released a lot in a short stretch between 2023 and 2024. What were you working through during that period?
LANDYN: From mid-2023 to the end of 2024, a lot of my life was rooted in some level of change or instability. I moved back to Iowa from Frisco, Texas in the summer of 2023, and didn’t really know what my next steps in life were. I enrolled at the University of Iowa to study Psychology, but was severely depressed the entire time. Because of that, I spent a lot of my time writing and working on music. Both reflecting on my situation and trying to write a world outside of it. Much of 2024 was similar. It was the year I moved to LA and I spent an overwhelming amount of it broke and alone. I was so desperate to prove I had made the right decision moving there, that music became my life and I became obsessed with bringing my dream into reality. Both 2023 and 2024 were two of the most formative years of my life. Which is why I released so much music during that period, despite all of the tumult.
SNQLX: A Cliche Teenage Romance as a title feels like naming the thing before anyone else can. Is that self-awareness built into how you write?
LANDYN: Absolutely it is. I think a lot of that has to do with years of therapy and reflection. Even in the pits of despair, it’s very difficult for me to write without some level of self-awareness. I never want to present myself as someone who knows the right answer to whatever topic the lyric may be reflecting on. So much of how I write is steeped in irony, sarcasm, and an awareness of my own lack of life experience, because when people listen to my music I want them to understand something: “I don’t know what the hell is going on and I’m just trying to figure it out like everyone else.” Which is why I’ll say something slightly pretentious in one line, then undercut myself with a joke in the next.
SNQLX: You hosted For The Record for a while. Did talking about music that openly change how you made it?
LANDYN: I started For The Record a couple months into living in Los Angeles. I was working so much, I’d regularly go 2 to 3 weeks without having a full face-to-face conversation, so I started the podcast as a way to document my journey in LA and to help me deal with my loneliness. It gave me something to look forward to and forced me to verbalize what I was going through, both musically and personally. Similar to how teachers must boil down complex concepts into simple ideas, talking about music helped me reveal my real strengths and weaknesses around it. Because I was forced to explain my process in ways I never had before, I learned what I truly understood at the time and what I didn’t. Which has changed how I make music to this day.
SNQLX: What’s different about where you are now compared to where that earlier run of music came from?
LANDYN: Put simply, I’m significantly more confident in myself now as an artist. So much of my music, especially 2022 through most of 2024, was me trying on different musical styles, eras, and songwriting techniques and seeing what worked for me. Now I’ve gotten to the point where all of my influences and experiments have come together into something wholly me. For years I was scared to take risks and try all the ideas I had in my head. And because of that, I robbed myself of the chance to truly express myself. But after things fell apart for me in LA, I felt defeated, and a big part of what pulled me out of that was the idea that I wasn’t going to hold myself back anymore. I had gone through so much to keep making music up to that point. And I realized that in order to honor that hardship, I had to stop suppressing myself creatively. Ever since then I’ve tried to do exactly that. I’m not clairvoyant and I’ll never be able to predict whether other people will like my stuff or not. But I’m at a place now where I love everything I’m making because it feels truly “me.” It may have taken me years to get there, but I’m so grateful to be here now.
SNQLX: Iowa and LA are two pretty different worlds to hold at once. Does that tension show up in the new material?
LANDYN: I think it’d be impossible for it not to. Iowa and LA are a study in opposites on so many different levels. Iowa is plains for as far as the eye can see and its weather can be punishing for a significant amount of the year. But the people are warm and there’s a down-to-earth quality almost everyone there has. Which is why so many people choose to stay. LA is full of beautiful people, decades of entertainment history, and the sun seeps into your bones. But the city can feel self-obsessed and the cost of living is soul crushing for many. I’ve always prided myself on walking the line between extremes. Living on both sides of the coin but never fully settling in one place. Being an Iowa-native allows me to write about the lifestyles and absurdities of LA differently than someone who’s spent their entire life there. And because I’ve spent much of my adult life outside of Iowa, I think I can write about it with a different perspective than most. A lot of that tension has been in my writing lately. Some of it found its way onto the new EP, but it’s become a defining factor of the writing I’m doing for my debut album.
SNQLX: What’s the version of this career you’re actually trying to build — not the dream version, the real one?
LANDYN: It’s pretty simple actually: One based on love and freedom. I want a career where I can push the boundaries of pop music and songwriting as much as possible. One where I can dye my skin blue or shave my head in the name of art. And one where I’m surrounded by people who hold me up, but push me to do better than before. I don’t want to be an artist that puts an album out and disappears for three or four years before releasing another. I want to follow in the footsteps of Elton John and Prince by releasing an album or two every year, and follow in Bowie’s footsteps by challenging the ideas of what pop stars look and dress like. I want to take my fans, known as Zaniacs, with me along this entire journey and show them how much their love and support truly means to me. I’ve been mailing signed postcards to all of my fans across the globe for the release of Strange Love, and I’ll spend the rest of my career trying to do right by them, like they’ve done for me. Even more than the art itself, I want to be remembered for how much love and light I put into the world. That I used my platform to spread kindness and raise awareness for mental health. I’m going to prove that even a scared kid from Iowa can push through and become a prolific songwriter and boundary breaking pop star.
SNQLX: Is there something you’ve written but haven’t released yet that feels like the truest thing you’ve made?
LANDYN: In the past 6 months I feel I’ve really hit my stride as a songwriter, and because of that I’ve written what I’d consider my best work in a very short amount of time. Without giving too much away, I’ve been reflecting a lot on my adolescence, journey into adulthood, and the passage of time. A lot of that writing has found its way onto my debut album. But one song in particular, a meditation on youthful nostalgia and how that affects us as we grow older, is the last song on my next EP. And it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written.
Landyn covered a lot of ground in his written answers — the work ethic, the writing process, and where he sees this all going. The video conversation is more of the same honesty, just in real time. Pull up a chair.
Direct to You.
