Today we’d like to introduce you to Rick Landers.
Hi Rick, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’ve always been drawn to music, even as a six-year old I sang on the radio in Florida. Later, I’d learn guitar after being mesmerized by the music and the look of The Beatles and other British groups…and, of course, The Beach Boys and The Ventures. My first guitar was an acoustic from Sears that was returned because the strings were too far off the fretboard. In its place my parents bought me a black Bobcat Silvertone from the same store in 1964. I joined friends in a garage band in Ecorse, Michigan. Mostly, I learned British Invasion songs by The Animals, The Stones, as well as Venture’s instrumentals and American bands like Paul Revere and The Raiders. I didn’t play much in college, but later after studying in England, I got a job in Washington, D.C. with the federal government, bought an acoustic Guild D-25 and busked on M. Street in Georgetown, as well as sang in a few clubs in the Adams-Morgan area. For decades I’d only play and sing to my cats and dogs, girlfriends and eventually my wife. Years later, after becoming an avid bicyclist I went to an open mic where I sang a song I’d written and recited a poem about a robotic cat that I wrote that later became my children’s book, “The Adventures of Digit & Tess”. A guy came up and introduced himself saying, “We need to talk.” It turned out his name was Ron Goad and he’d won seven Washington Area Music Awards as D.C.’s best supporter of D.C. music. He urged me to perform songs I’d written and helped get me gigs and suggested I join the Reston-Herndon Folk Club. I did and found it a welcoming and supportive group where novices perform to a warm community of fellow songwriters and folk music enthusiasts. About a year later, I started a band with a fella named Jim Nagle who played dobro, then John Werntz on bass, and Ron on percussion. And, I found inspiration when my songs were well-received, so I kept on writing. The band has expanded with a second percussionist, Irwin Anolik who typically plays a djembe, and Bruce McDonald, a talented and driven keyboard player. We’ve performed in some fashion, sometimes just me solo, at the National Cherry Blossom Festival five times, the Herndon Festival, the W&OD Trail Family Fun Festival, and more. I also have had some wonderful opportunities where I played at the Republic of South Africa Embassy, as well as a gathering of descendants of deceased coal miners who were killed in coal mining disasters in 1913 and 1923. That was in Dawson, New Mexico, and the night before I played at a veterans’ club in Raton, New Mexico. I’d written a song about the tragedies called, “1913: Stag Canon #2” that honored the miners. At this point, I’ve gathered up four songwriter awards from the Songwriters Association of Washington, and presented a songwriting workshop at the Washington Folk Festival, with Jim Nagle who accompanied me on dobro. I’ve started a Songwriters Circle of talented songwriters, established two websites (https://www.ricklanders.com and https://www.guitarinternational.com), and will release “Randomness” my group’s debut album this month. Our group, Rick Landers and Heartland, have been fortunate to perform at some of the top venues in the area. We only perform my originals and we’ve been pleased to get a lot of repeat gigs. My Guitar International magazine has been around since 2004 and has interviews with legends such as: Les Paul, Arl0 Guthrie, Jimmy Webb, Judy Collins, Buddy Guy, Roger McGuinn, Slash, as well as with many icons of the music business. At this point and my age, I’m living the life! I love and get great satisfaction writing songs and performing in front of appreciative audiences. Some of the local hot spots have had us perform often, JV’s, Mackenzie’s, Earp’s in Northern Virginia, and we’ve begun to make inroads in Central Virginia, including Bald Top Brewing in the beautiful Piedmont area of the Shenandoah mountains.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
So far, so good. Surprisingly, we’ve been able to get repeat gigs only playing original songs. Like most musicians know, loading in and out can be a pain. But once on stage, well, for me that’s where the fun begins. My main goal has been to earn my place as a credible songwriter, so the songwriting awards have helped feed that interest. I have taken a couple of songwriting workshops from folk artists I admire, John McCutcheon and Rod MacDonald. I suppose the struggle, if you wanna call it that, that challenges me most is finding musicians who have the motivation and skill sets to learn original songs. And there are good reasons that can be tough; some have solo ambitions of their own to realize, others have too many life diversions or responsibilities to commit to getting prepared to join us on stage. Not that they aren’t talented, but it can be a steep learning curve to learn songs that new musicians have never heard, unlike classic songs that may be much more intuitive to learn. It does become apparent pretty quickly that the ingredients aren’t there to get to the magic of performing together as a solid group. For me, we aren’t paid to play around, we are paid to perform and we need to be prepared to present ourselves as a fun group, but also as professionals, musically and as business partners. The folks in the band at the moment are terrific, we’re all now friends and the founding members are still here five years later. We have our debut “Randomness” album to be released on Apple, Amazon, and other platforms. Pulling that off was a bit of a learning curve, a little struggle, but we’re very pleased with the result.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I retired after being a strategic business planner, an international logistician, an acquisition training instructor, and an executive staffer at a Congressional Liaison office with the federal government. Once unburdened by a full-time job, my focus was on home stuff and bicycling, so I had some great cycling adventures, like the well-known RAGBRAI, rolling from Pittsburgh to the DC area on a solo ride, and several 100-mile century rides. But, since I began performing as a soloist that led to fronting Rick Landers & Heartland, I’ve had a great time singing my original songs to hundreds of people. Based on those experiences, I seem to be known for having catchy originals and many are drawn to my vocals, saying I have a unique voice…in a good way! I can’t say I feel proud, as much as feel satisfied and happy that my original songs are enjoyed by others, and a few have received songwriting awards. I also served as a judge for the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest of the Songwriters Association of Washington, so that was quite an honor that I took very seriously. and with a sense of fairness. What sets me apart? I think my songs are very good, worth listening to more than once, and my voice gets mentioned a lot as a highlight of Heartland’s “sound”. That said, the D.C. area has an amazing history of music that seems unknown with artists like Tim Buckley, Roberta Flack, Danny Gatton, Eva Cassidy, Gil Scott-Heron, Roy Buchanan, Les Thompson, Linwood Taylor, and Jim Morrison; all hailing from the area in one way or another. Our local recording studio, BIAS Studios, has a history of recording legends, such as Tony Rice, the Seldom Scene, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jerry Douglas and more, and for us to record there with owners, Bob and Gloria Dawson and an excellent engineer, Nick Jones, was thrilling, if only just to be associated with such talented professionals in our own humble way.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I grew up around the country, as my Dad was a career Navy man, so we moved around. I adored my parents and I was a good kid, never in any trouble. Even as a teen I figured I could learn from them. I moved from school to school, always the new kid and as you can imagine, that’s not all that easy. You leave friends and then you know nobody. So, I think military kids tend to be very resilient. I was well liked, having been the president of my 7th grade class in Washington State and later as president of my senior class in Southgate, Michigan. I went to college to study communications, then was in the U.K. as a foreign exchange student, then later I was hired as a staff assistant with the English college’s American Studies Department where I researched Black American history and the Vietnam Conflict. I’m still growing up, so today my interests are all over the map, music, history, writing, travel, but probably primarily experiential learning, doing things that challenge me. When I was younger I sought out new experiences, so studied and competed in Tae Kwon Do, was a skydiver, hitchhiked in the States and in England and Europe. I’ve been lucky to get some great travel opportunities, so made it to as far away as the islands of Guam and Madagascar. At the moment, I’m working on two bikes, a vintage English Carlton and a high-end Pinarello. Today, I mostly enjoy hanging out with friends, performing with my Heartland bandmates: Ron Goad, John Werntz, Jim Nagle, Irwin Anolik, and Bruce McDonald, although I’m inherently a bit of a loner at heart.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ricklanders.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Guitarinternational
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jnsbFPVBhY
- Other: https://guitarinternational.com/
