Interview with Paul Klein

Only 16 months into their formation the members that make up Lany - Paul Klein, Les Priest and Jake Goss - have taken the internet waves by storm. Although Lany as a band is relatively new, the members have been friends for years. Originally meeting in Nashville, they now reside in Los Angeles.

In Nashville Les and Jake were living in a house with three other guys and Paul was living down the street, which at the time they were all working on music independently. Paul then moved to Los Angeles to try his hand in the solo artist thing.

With his solo gig not quit panning out and knowing that Jake and Les were making music just for fun, he flew back out to Nashville and stayed with them to see what they could work on together. In just four days they wrote their first two songs, "Hot Lights" and "Walk Away," and decided to put them online last April.

They created a Soundcloud account and uploaded their work to zero followers. After uploading their first few tracks to Soundcloud they started gaining attraction by labels. Within a few weeks, they started getting emails from record labels in the UK, thinking they were getting spammed. After finding out these were legit offers they hired a manger to field the requests.

Two of the four tracks on their EP ‘I Loved You’ were written last October while Paul was living in New York. Since also working as a fashion model for brands Paul spent time living in New York City last year while continuing to work on the band’s music from afar. Which is how the band name came into play, the abbreviations of Los Angeles and New York.

Their debut EP I Loved You was released on June 9, 2015.

BECOMING INVLOVED IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY My mom got me started in piano when I was 5. I was classically trained for 13 years - all the way thru high school -

and I started studying jazz and improv in 8th grade. In high school up until my junior year, I wanted to be an

orthodontist. Then, I wrote my first song and sang it to this girl I really liked. I guess nothing’s been the same ever

since.

WHERE THEY GREW UP / WHERE THEY NOW LIVE IMPATING CREATIVITY I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I know Oklahoma doesn’t sound like the most creative place in the world, but you’d

be surprised at the artistic talent that comes out of Tulsa. I wouldn’t say that I grew up in a “creative” household or

family. Both my parents have been in sales for 30+ years. But my mom had me in enrolled in every extracurricular

activity known to man - athletically and artistically. I mention athletics because I actually believe there’s a massive

link to physical activity and creative output. Anyways… Now, I live in Los Angeles, and I do think that “enhances”

my creative vision. It at least influences it. And, being in a town like LA, gives you a bigger and more accessible

platform to present your art, which - in turn drives you to make more and be better.

THE START OF WRITING MUSIC

I remember watching Alicia Keys unplugged on MTV. It was in the summer. I must have been in 6th grade. There

was something about her performance. Before that, piano - to me - was something I practiced 5 days a week for

my mom. It was notes I read out of a lesson book. But, after watching her, I ran to the piano and started acting like

I was having my own unplugged session. I guess, on that day, music went from being something I had to do to

being my greatest discovery.

BAND FORMATION – MET IN NASHVILLE WHILE DOING SOLO PROJECTS, MOVED TO L.A I moved to Los Angeles October 20, 2013. On December 7th, I played the House of Blues in West Hollywood as

“Paul Klein.” I’ll never forget it. I had a moment in the middle of my set where I realized I don’t ever wanna play

another show as a solo artist. And I never have. Jake and Les had started this thing called “WRLDS.” They were

writing and recording songs just for fun on Les’ computer in the front room of their house. Later in December, I

called Jake. I was so nervous. I wanted to be in a band with him and Les so bad. I really wasn’t sure if they’d go for

it. I can’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but I know that by the end of December we were already

trying to find a band name. We hadn’t even written a song together yet. I flew to Nashville in March for 4 days.

During my time there, we wrote and recorded our first 2 songs - “Hot Lights” and “Walk Away.” The rest is history.

LANY OFFICALLY STARTED ON APRIL 22, 2014 - PRESSURE TO KEEP CREATING CONTENT & GET IT RELEASED FASTER Yea, we did then and we do now. But isn’t that how it goes? Isn’t that what you want? It’s gotta be a good sign. If you sucked, no one would be asking for more. But you mentioned something about releasing things faster. One of my desires for LANY, is to be one of the quickest moving and fastest growing bands in the world. And I don’t think people realize that we’ve released 10 original songs and 2 remixes in just a little over a year… in our first year as a band on top of that.

RECREATING SONGS LIVE We love playing live. We don’t wanna be just another internet band, so we take the way we sound pretty seriously. If we’re not on the road, then we’re home rehearsing. There’s no substitute for touring. No matter how big the shoutout, how respected the write up, how favorable the review… nothing builds fans like getting out there and playing for as many people as possible. Of course, thru rehearsals and shows, songs begin to take a new shape. It’s really cool. I might sing a different melody, we’ve added new intros and outros, but we also keep the songs relatively familiar so people can feel what they’ve been listening to.

LYRICS –WHERE, TIMPERIOD & PHYSICALLY, THEY WERE THOUGHT UP Lyrics are always last! It’s very important to me that we’re telling our own stories and not just regurgitating cliché

themes. I’ll use “youarefire” as an example. We wrote and recorded every piece of instrumentation before even

trying to come up with melodic ideas or lyrical concepts. For the next 3 weeks, I would go on drives back and forth

from Hollywood to Santa Monica and I probably smoked 4 packs of cigarettes. I don’t even really smoke cigarettes.

I would listen to what we had recorded and walk circles around our neighborhood until 2am. Then, one night, I sat

down and literally every word just poured out of me in probably a 25 minute time frame. I wrote it all down and

then tracked the vocals for it the next day. It doesn’t always take 3 weeks, but it never takes just a few hours.

LYRICS – INTENTIONALLY SITTING DOWN TO WRITE VS HAVING IDEAS IN YOUR HEAD AND THEN THEY COMES SPILLING OUT

Writing a song is always a decision. I’ve never just been driving and broken into song out of nowhere. (I feel like I

kinda answer part of this question in my answer for question 10.)

REVISION PROCESS OF LYRICS Jake and Les really help me with writing lyrics by telling me what not write. I’ll come to them with different verses

or different lines in choruses, and they’ll help me decide which route to take or what idea to run with.

THEIR ARTWORK – CONTRIBUTE IDEAS OR REMAIN HANDS OFF I work on everything we do visually with my dear friend, Zedek Chan. He’s like a brother to me. And he’s a genius. Z

and I shot the album art back in January. I think it was the second time he had every used a real camera with

studio lighting. We went to a flower shop on Melrose and picked out an assortment of flowers and headed to this

upstairs photo studio above the place Z works during the week. It started out as me just holding each flower in

front of a white background. Then, we switched up the background. Then, I went to the bathroom and saw “the

sink.” We threw the flowers in the sink and that’s that. The read receipt was the one thing we kept revising. We

played around with different times, and then I remember that “143” means I love you. So, we went with 1:53am

for I loved you. Z had actually designed this amazing digital booklet that had our lyrics in text bubbles and b-roll

footage of flower images. It looked absolutely incredible. Then, his hard drive crashed. We lost everything.

THEIR ARTWORK – AESTHETICALLY COOL PACKAGE VS COVERSATION BETWEEN LYRICS AND ART

It’s insanely important! But there’s this fine line that sits between being intentional and taking yourself way too

seriously. There doesn’t always have to be this heavy, hidden meaning in everything you release. I think the best

thing to do is take a step back and ask yourself what you’re trying to accomplish with your design. For LANY, I’m

not depending on our album art to do the talking for us. If that was the case, then why the hell would we record

music? There’d be no point. But, if your songs are great and there’s this over-arching theme to them, then an

intentional piece of album art can really drive your point home or enhance the experience you’re trying to give

your listener. And then there’s design for tour announcements and little promo pieces. We don’t take that stuff

lightly either, but there’s usually not an idealogical message we’re trying to relay with that information. This is

where Z and I have fun. We wanna present an overall vibe with our visuals, but sometimes we just try to push our

creativity and see how quirky or clever we can get with typing out tour dates.

DYNAMICS WHEN MAKING MUSIC – COLLECTION OF INFLUENCES It’s a really even, collective effort. We’ve never set out to write a track with a specific genre in mind. Usually, we’ll

be half way thru recording a song, and be like, “Yo! This feels so ____.” and fill in the blank.

MENTORS I love this question, because I hate my answer so much. The answer is no, which is such a shame… and so

indicative of society today. Nobody has time for anyone other than themselves! How are you supposed to get

better if you’re spending your time making someone else better?! That’s the way the world thinks. But I think

they’ve got it wrong. How are you supposed to receive more or get something new if you never empty yourself

out? A sponge can only hold so much water. I’m starving for a “musical” mentor. I’d do anything to have someone

in my life that I respected musically that would be tough on me and push me and make me better. It’d be the

coolest thing in the world to send your songs to someone who’s been in the game for a while and could tell you,

“Hey, I like what you did there. But here… I’m not really into it. You lost me. I don’t believe you. Go back and work

on that.” How insane would that be? I can’t wait to be that kind of mentor for some kid in the future.

SONGS THAT REPRESENT THEM / HOW THAT’S CHANGED SINCE THE RELEASE OF THEIR EP It’s really hard for me to separate our songs like that. There’s not one that’s more “LANY” than the others. I’m

really proud of every single track we released. Obviously, some are more “popular” than others. But there isn’t one

that’s more important.