The Living Tombstone

Biography

The Living Tombstone (TLT) is a Los Angeles-based electronic rock group and YouTube channel, founded as a solo project by Israeli-American producer Yoav Landau (Hebrew: יואב לנדאו) in 2011, and becoming a musical duo with American singer Sam Haft in 2016. The group is notable for their songs based on video games and pop culture media, such as the My Little Pony, Five Nights at Freddy's, and Overwatch series as well as original music. Signed to Warner Music, they have released two studio albums, Zero One (2020) and Rust (2025).
Several of their songs have garnered online popularity, and they have been credited with spawning various internet memes. In addition to their music videos, they have created music for the video games In Sound Mind, Beat Saber, and have created the video game AudioClash: Battle of the Bands. Music publication NME has referred to them as "the internet's biggest gaming band".

Background

Yoav Landau (born April 4, 1992) founded the Living Tombstone in 2011 as both a YouTube channel and a musical project. Landau, originally from Tel Aviv, was involved in the online fan community of the media franchise My Little Pony, where he created remixes of the songs featured on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. After one of his remixes garnered several thousand views, Landau created more songs of the franchise before eventually shifting his focus to various video game communities, creating songs based on video games.
Five years after forming the Living Tombstone, Landau moved to the United States where he met vocalist Sam Haft (born 1990). Haft had previously been involved with other musical projects in the past, such as the comedic music group Sam & Bill. Landau and Haft sent each other their songs before eventually collaborating on music, with Haft becoming an official member of the Living Tombstone. The pair wrote songs such as a remix of Super Mario Odyssey's "Jump Up Superstar" in which Haft contributed backing vocals, and the original track "My Ordinary Life×My Ordinary Life23 November 2017 · ReleaseSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1My Ordinary Life4:05" which was cited by LA Weekly as their most popular song. Both Landau and Haft worked on the worldbuilding for the Living Tombstone, including the characters, story, and lore surrounding the group's music and videos. The attention their music received online caused Warner Music to notice the band, and the record label signed the Living Tombstone.

Content and musical style

The Living Tombstone's content consists of both original music and homages to various video games and pop culture media, several of which became popular online. One of the group's first video game-related videos was a trilogy of songs for the first three games in the Five Nights at Freddy's series. The trilogy went viral on YouTube with each song accumulating hundreds of millions of views; the first video in the series reached over 68 million views by 2016 and over 372 million views by 2024. Houston Press listed the trilogy as one of the best songs based on the horror game. The trilogy's success led the band to develop a cult following amongst the game's fandom. Rolling Stone credited the band with launching a subgenre of Five Nights at Freddy's themed music inspired by hyper-pop. The first song was later used for the 2023 film adaptation in the credits, likewise for the second song with 2025's sequel. Shortly before the film's release, the band released a gothic remix of the first song. After the film's release, the song reached the top 5 of Billboard's Dance/Electronic Songs chart, peaking at #4, previously only charting on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart.
In 2018, the Living Tombstone's song based on the hero shooter game Overwatch, "No Mercy×No Mercy12 January 2017 · SingleSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 2 tracks1No Mercy2:342No Mercy (instrumental)2:34", went viral on social media. Originally released as an animated video from YouTube channel Mashed in January 2017, the song describes two players on the same team arguing about their choice of characters and its contributions to the team's repeated losses, mainly due to the lack of a support character in the team. The song features the refrain "I'm Already Tracer," which became the subject of numerous videos made on social media platform TikTok in which users recorded themselves lip-synching to the song. The meme attracted negative attention as it was the subject of various "cringe" compilations on social media. Outlets such as Kotaku, Polygon and The Daily Dot noted that such compilations soon became rooted in misogyny, with comments disparaging those who created such videos miming to the song alongside mocking women who play video games in general. Gita Jackson of Kotaku also offered criticism for the song's production and vocals; however, she noted its catchy melody and relatable lyrics.
Other songs of theirs that have become viral include their remix of various My Little Pony songs and a remix of "Spooky, Scary Skeletons". In 2012, the Living Tombstone remixed the song "Discord" from the Eurobeat producer Odyssey/Eurobeat Brony, which accumulated over 40 million views on YouTube and was used in over 500,000 videos on TikTok in 2021. In 2013, Landau made a remix of Andrew Gold's 1996 song "Spooky, Scary Skeletons," which garnered over 90 million views on YouTube. The remix was also listed by The Daily Dot as one of the most popular songs of 2019 on TikTok, and as one of the best Halloween songs by USA Today. The band also created another remix of Gold's "Witches, Witches, Witches" song in 2023, which was released on a new vinyl pressing of Gold's album Halloween Howls: Fun & Scary Music.
The group's music has been labeled as electronic rock, alternative rock and pop rock, with influences from EDM and Middle Eastern folk music. Landau has also stated that genres such as complextro, dubstep, drum 'n bass and electroswing have inspired the band's musical style. The band has been regarded as an audiovisual project. Their music and aesthetics have been compared to Gorillaz and Daft Punk, along with Lindsey Stirling's videos.
The group has two studio albums; Zero One, released on September×September5 November 2011 · SingleSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1September3:03 4, 2020, and Rust, released on May 30, 2025. For Zero One, music videos were released for the three singles that supported the album, including a CG-based music video for their song "Chosen×Chosen13 August 2020 · SingleSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1Chosen3:22" created by animation studio The-Artery during the COVID-19 pandemic. On January 31, 2025, the band announced their sophomore album's lead single "Be Alone×Be Alone7 February 2025 · SingleSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1Be Alone2:29" would release on February 7. While initially being announced for a 2024 release, Rust was released on May 30, 2025.

Game development

The Living Tombstone has also contributed music for video games. In 2021, the band created the soundtrack for the indie horror game In Sound Mind from Israeli game studio We Create Stuff. Their contributions to the soundtrack were praised alongside the game, with several outlets noting that the poignant and reserved compositions added to the dark atmosphere of the game. The same year, the Living Tombstone collaborated with game studio Big Boat Interactive to create the music-based strategy game AudioClash: Battle of the Bands. Described as an amalgam of various rhythm games, the role-playing games Pokémon and Dota and the Scott Pilgrim comics, the gameplay consists of assembling a group of musician characters to compete against rival bands. The game was released on Steam in early access in late 2021. The group has also contributed DLC tracks to the 2019 rhythm game Beat Saber, as well as some music for the 2010 Half-Life 2 Mod Nightmare House 2 and the soundtrack for its upcoming standalone remake.