Formed out of a period of creative momentum and personal transition, Burden’s Landing is a Washington, DC–based band that pulls equally from punk urgency, melodic introspection, and the raw electricity of a live room.
Since coming together in 2023, the band has quickly embedded itself in the DMV scene, releasing a DIY debut EP, playing dozens of shows, and recently capturing their sound in its most immediate form with Live in West Philly. Dive into this conversation with Noah Mullinax to talk about the project’s origins, the meaning behind the name, the value of live performance, and what’s coming next.
1. For anyone just discovering Burden’s Landing, who are you as a band and how did the project come together in Washington, DC?
I wrote some songs back in 2022 that I just thought were better and more interesting than songs I had written before, so I decided to form a band around them.
I was also listening to tons of music all the time; bands I have listened to forever and a lot of bands
I was hearing for the first time. At the time, I had just moved from New York City back to Virginia, and was living up on a mountain. I moved to DC in 2023, met some other musicians, showed them my songs, and started practicing.
Since then we have played dozens of shows, self-recorded an EP, and now are celebrating the release of more music. DC has an amazing music scene, with so many great bands, people, and venues.
The music history here is legendary and inspiring and I am really grateful to make music here. Now I just can’t stop.
2. How did you come up with the name “Burden’s Landing”?
Burden’s Landing is a reference to the 1946 novel All the King’s Men. In addition to being one of my favourite books ever, I was introduced to the novel by a loved one
who died a few years ago.
The first few songs I wrote after their death became the first Burden’s Landing songs. The band’s name is my way of memorializing them and is a reminder to myself about why I make music.
3. You debuted in 2024 with your DIY 5-track EP ‘Could This Be Portal’ and quickly started playing shows across the DMV. How did that early run of live performances shape your chemistry as a band?
Playing shows makes bands better and allows us to start forming relationships with other artists, promoters, recording engineers, and venues.
A healthy music scene has a wide ecosystem and shows are the way we all get to enjoy, share, and create music together.
Playing in front of a crowd also change the songs; after playing a song at a show and seeing how it feels, I might be like “hey, let’s change this melody,” “ let’s add an outro” or I might be like “actually, the bridge felt out of place, let’s scrap it and try another.”
Performing induces such a visceral feeling that I find very valuable to my song-writing process.
4. What made you decide to follow up your debut with a live release, and why was capturing this moment in your live sound important to you?
For two reasons really; I thought a live album would capture our sound. We are a band that jams and our sound relies on each musician listening deeply to what everyone else is doing.
We also did not have much of a budget to book hours in a studio to record the traditional way. I had these songs, I thought they were good, and I wanted to record them, so recording live was both economical and captured the essence of the songs.
5. Take us back to that Autumn afternoon in West Philly, what stands out most from the recording session at Cart Studios?
I was super nervous. Not only were we recording live, but it was the first time Christian, Jorge and I had recorded together.
The Live in West Philly session was only the sixth time we had played music together. But once we got set up, it felt like just another practice. It was such a beautiful day and I can remember going into the first few takes just feeling really grateful to take part in writing and recording music.
The studio was minimal and perfect, the sun was setting, my guitar tone sounded good almost as soon as I plugged in, Christian’s drums sounded really cool and Jorge’s rickenbacker was groovin.
We had all been pretty excited about how the songs were sounding during practice, but I think this session really captured us locking in together as musicians.
The songs were “old ” to me–I had written them both more than a year ago, but this was the first time they were being recorded. I am really happy Matais was the one to record them, he has an ear for the sound I wanted and is a really talented engineer.
6. What was it like recording live and what drew you to that approach and what do you think it captured that a studio-polished recording might not have?
I love a fully-polished studio album as much as anyone else (I listen to them all the time), but there was something really exciting about doing a live session.
I was just hoping I wouldn’t suck so I tried to practice a lot. Recording live caught the rawness of my songs and the essence of what makes a band sound good.
I think anyone could listen to those recordings and know for sure if they dig Burden’s Landing or not.
7. Two of the three tracks on Live in West Philly are new songs. How did the song-writing process for these tracks differ from the material on your debut EP?
‘April Again’ is a song I worked on for about a year and changed a lot. At one point, it had this long drone section, which later transformed into the instrumental outro that got recorded.
It’s a song that felt like a natural next step for our sound and really came together during rehearsals after jamming on it for a long time. Christian laid down a great drum loop, Jorge put together a great bassline, and we just kept jamming on it until it was time to record.
‘Never Comin’ Back’ was the opposite in a lot of ways. For previous songs, I would spend a lot of time working out details, workshopping parts, exploring ideas. But I wrote ‘Never Comin’ Back’ in one sitting.
I wanted to see what it would be like to have an idea, capture it, and not change it. The song has a simplicity to it that I really like. It’s a straightforward rock song I wrote about quitting this job I really hated. I wrote it just after I quit, while the feelings were fresh.
8. Your sound has been described as a blend of grunge, shoegaze, and indie rock, ranging from laid-back to in-your-face. How do you balance those influences when writing and performing live?
There are so many bands and artists that inspire and influence my songwriting. I could talk for a long time about Green Day, Nirvana, Fuagzi and the 90s punk wave that produced tons of amazing music.
I could also talk for a long time about John Prine, Andrianne Lenker and Sun Ra. As a teenager, I grew up going to see bands like Title Fight, Balance & Composure, and Into It. Over It.
All of those artists have had a huge impact on me. Burden’s Landing is not a band that will have one sound, I wanted this project to openly pull from a variety of influences. I have a lot more fun when I’m able to be creative and approaching songs from a position of exploration.
9. What can we expect next from Burden’s Landing?
We are actively writing new songs, playing shows, and sharing our music. We have almost enough material for a full-length album.
Depending on how things go, it may be singles, it may be an EP, it may be an LP. I don’t know exactly what will come next but I am excited for it.
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