Christian Langdon: Give us Rock and Roll

By Amanda Brumfield
Pop- Rock Candy Mountain

Christian Langdon is a former member of the band Arckid, the youngest of the Langdon clan, and an amazing musician in his own right. He is currently working on his solo material, which you must hear and is pondering the approach he wants to take with his music.

Pop- Rock Candy Mountain spoke with Christian in a conversation that, with his thick Northern English accent and my heavy Southern drawl, sounded a lot like two drunks in a bar trying to hear one another over some very loud .38 Special song.

“Yur whut?”

“Me broothers.”

“Whut?”.

“You know, me broothers!”.

“Oh. Yur bruuuuthers!”.

“What?”.

And so forth…

Despite the accent barrier, Pop- Rock Candy Mountain found Langdon to be quite charming, hysterically sarcastic, and very down to earth.

Pop- Rock Candy Mountain (PRCM) You come from an extremely musically inclined family. Where did you interest in music develop?

Christian Langdon (CL) I think that it probably came from my brothers and my mum. My mum was in amateur dramatics as a child. My dad’s about as musically inclined as a duck. He’s good at cricket though. I’m also very good a cricket. My brothers were my inspiration as a child.

They used to listen to Queen and ABBA a lot and I’d listen with them. There’s a 12 year difference there, so they’re past it now and I’m in the prime of my youth.

PRCM: Is Queen one of the artists that you’ve been most influenced by?

CL: Yeah, especially when I was younger. Now I like Muse a lot. There are so many bands right now and I’m so out of the loop. If I said the name of a band right now it would probably be really uncool and probably not even fashionable anymore, like that’s so last week. So I’m not going to say anything about David Bowie.

PRCM: Where in England are you from? You have a bit of a Scottish accent, no?

CL: I’m from Leeds which is in the north of England (which is the new New York or so I’ve heard), so yeah there’s a bit of Scotland in there. Some people think I sound like I’m from Australia which is weird.

PRCM: Do you think there is a lot of difference in the music scenes in Britain and America right now?

CL: Well, I’m sort of out of the loop in England, I’ve been over here for four years now. Things do seem to move a lot faster over there though, it’s a lot more “sceney”. You can get very famous very quickly but not for very long. People can get famous for moving in the wrong direction. Which I actually did once, don’t know if you remember me, I’m that guy that moved in the wrong direction.

PRCM: Oh, you’re THAT guy.

CL: Yeah, that guy. Very young and good looking. Fashionable.

I really like the music here in America better, it seems more authentic a lot of times. I’d better be quiet about that.

PRCM: British performers seem more comfortable being flamboyant on stage and in their personas that American musicians do…

CL: You mean that we’re more homosexual?

PRCM: No, just more comfortable with your sexuality. Over here when music is sexy it’s often because it’s being played by a tattooed, burly, hard rock guy…

CL: I’m absolutely comfortable with my sexuality, yes. I know what you’re saying, it’s a sort of asexuality. Sensuality in America does seem to be a bit more about the “rock”, which is cool I mean I enjoy hard rock. But the reason I wanted to be in a band to begin with was the performance end of it. It’s a lot safer to do that than to be addicted to crack. You can be whoever or however you want to be up there.

PRCM: Tell us about your solo work.

CL: Right now I’m trying to work out what I want to do with my solo material. Last year I was in Arckid and I left the band in October. I was going to go solo but now I’m trying to work out whether or not I want to start a band. I’ve been doing a writing over the past six months.

When I was younger I was very controlling in a band situation but now that I’m older I really want to collaborate with other musicians and bounce my ideas off of them.

PRCM: Where can we buy your MP3’s?

CL: You can’t buy them, I’m giving them away for free. That’s what you have to do these days right? You’re not to make any money from music. It’s purely about the art. (laughs)

It’s a whole different thing now. Recorded music is more like an advertisement for the whole package. The days of driving Rolls Royce’s into swimming pools, of dwarfs and cocaine and hookers are unfortunately over. Because I did them all.

I guess it’s getting back to the music. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the “rock and roll” lifestyle, which I did and then you forget about the ultimate goal which is the music. I don’t want to think about my music in terms of, “Is this going to be a hit or not”. So I’ve taken myself out of it for a bit to change my thinking.

PRCM: Well, we’re glad you are putting your music out there for people to hear. There is a very sad lack of real rock and roll today and we need people like you to continue making music.

CL: Yeah, I think just putting it out there is a good thing right now. That’s the good thing about MySpace I suppose, although every motherfucker has a MySpace page. Everyone is in a band. Everyone plays guitar. It’s not even that impressive anymore. I mean, when I was younger if you said you played guitar you would instantly get laid. It’s like if you say you are a musician you won’t get laid at all. Now I tell everybody I’m a waiter and I get laid all the time.

PRCM: Are you concerned about the future of the music industry?

CL: No I’m not concerned. Ultimately the music industry will find a way to function in a new world. There will be a revolution and I’ll be out front waving the flag. There’s always change and right now everyone’s freaking out. It will find a niche for itself. Now we just have to find new ways of doing the same old thing.

I think it all got fucked up in the 70’s, everybody got to believe in their own fucking genius. There was loads of money flying around and then ego gets involved and it’s all fucked. Now we’re having to pick up the pieces.

PRCM: In the 70’s and even the 80’s rock stars were like gods…

CL: Exactly, have you seen “The Destruction of Rock and Roll”? It was made by this woman who was a groupie in the 80’s and it’s basically about how it went from Black Sabbath to Extreme and everything in between and basically how all of those bands fucked it up by wearing too much make up and driving around in Fararis. It’s like “whatever man, you’re just in a fucking band.”.

Christian at MySpace