John Elliott:

You just got back from a world tour, how are you doing right now?

Paul Klein:

I’m good, I feel like I’ve caught my breath, and gotten some rest. We’re right in the middle of it. I think we’ve played 47 shows for this year, with about 30 more to go. We’re getting close to 700 total.

John:

What do you do mentally? What’s a day like for you, when you’re going to be performing?

Paul:

It’s just like any other day. I definitely think there’s a switch that goes off in my brain, like 10 seconds before I go on stage. Then 10 seconds after, I’m back to this, you know?

I know what it’s like to not be in this band, and I know what it’s like to feel like the dream is almost dead, because I’ve had that moment so many times before this ever happened.

John:

You grew up in Tulsa. Can you paint a picture of what you were like as a kid, and what it was like to grow up there?

Paul:

I think I was a pretty good kid. My Mom ran a tight ship, so I didn’t really have a choice. My whole life was centered around piano, so I feel like I had a pretty regimented upbringing, with lessons every week. I did play a lot of sports, up until high school when everyone started to get a lot bigger, and stronger, and I didn’t. That’s when I dove even deeper into music because I realized I wasn’t going to be in the NBA.

John:

I can relate, brother.

Paul:

I never felt like I fit in. I really liked clothes, growing up. I mean, I worked on a ranch [in Tulsa] and guys growing up weren’t thinking about what they were wearing. It wasn’t valued.

Honestly, you’ve played a massive role in bringing menswear to the forefront in America, I recognize that. It’s just right now that you’re seeing kids who play high school football, they also have a fit page on TikTok. This never would have happened before. In fact, if I wore skinny jeans [back then] I got absolutely ridiculed. I think I just always felt like, I never thought I was going to live and die in Oklahoma, and I never thought that I was going to look like anybody else in my life. I still don’t feel that way, even now that I’m in LA.

John:

You started music in high school. So, being in Nashville [for college] What was that experience like for you?

Paul:

Because of the [size of] the town I grew up in, I felt like I was pretty good in my field of piano. I was classically trained. So when I went to Nashville, it was pretty refreshing, being surrounded by so many people who were exponentially better than me. But I did see, you know, during my time there, that I didn’t fit in. And, ultimately, that’s kind of how LANY was birthed. It was kind of a rebellion towards how people did things in Nashville.

John:

If I have the story correctly, you essentially rented, or hooked up a U-Haul to your car, and drove out to LA.

Paul:

Yea, I had a 2008 Honda Element that doesn’t come with a stock hitch. So, I had to get a hitch put on that. I can’t explain it, other than it was this gut feeling that told me to go to LA. I had no reason to move here, I didn’t know anybody. I had no friends, no job, no opportunity. To be honest, I had a moment that was like, “This probably isn’t going to work.” I had, I think about four hundred dollars in my Bank of America checking account. I found an apartment–932 Wilcox on Craigslist–That’s where I drove to. It took me three days from Oklahoma, I think.

John:

The first song you ever wrote was for your high school prom date?

Paul:

Yes, it was. It was probably terrible, but, she said yes. That was actually my first kiss.

John:

That was your first kiss? Was at prom?

Paul:

Well, it was on this little lookout, after prom. I had a little late first kiss...Junior year of high school. I was shy though, man. I didn’t have rizz. Still don’t.

John:

Before LANY took off, you were into modeling, for fashion. That’s how we met back in 2014. Can you tell us about that?

Paul:

You know when you’re a kid and you have to start picking between sports because a couple of them are in the same season? So, when I moved to [Los Angeles], LANY wasn’t even a thing. It was just kind of a dream in my heart. I got basically picked up off the street downtown, to model. I had never modeled in my life. Somebody said, “You have the right proportions to try clothes on and take photos for the internet.” I went to my first casting, and I booked it. I thought to myself: I’ve been working so hard at music my whole life, and I can’t get anyone to give me a shot...Then I’m walking downtown, and I book a Levi’s campaign. Or, I’m doing shoots with John Elliott. Is the universe trying to show me something? Music isn’t for you Paul.

I did have that thought. I wasn’t sure. But, I didn’t give up. We wrote, and recorded our first two songs. That’s when it started just going nuts.

Paul:

I would do modeling, I would hold the door at Celine for fifteen dollars an hour, if I wasn’t shooting with you or something. Then I would go to this church thing on Wednesday nights, and I wound up playing one song, this old hymn. There was this guy there in the front row. His name’s Rupert Lincoln, and he’s my manager now. He had me come in to William-Morris. I remember holding up my phone, and showing him the songs, and he said, “Let me know when you drop them.” So, we put them on Soundcloud.

Maybe two weeks later–Six or seven days–I checked the [LANY] email account, and we had all these emails from record labels–Polydor, Parlophone–And I was like, is this a joke? The only person in the world that I knew who might know if this was real or not was Rupert. I [got on the phone] and was like, “We put the songs on the internet and I’m getting emails” and he said, “Go ahead and forward those to me right now.” So, he got on a plane the next day, and took a meeting with all of them, in London. He’s still our manager to this day.

John:

Just a question, out of curiosity. No one could even see what you looked like, so it was just based off the sound?

Paul:

100%, and that was even on purpose. At the time, our band profile photo was of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan from the Dream Team. Sitting on a couch, with the USA jerseys on, just laughing. I just slapped LANY over the top of it.

In the beginning when we started, we were signed to Polydor, making music on a Dell computer, in a bedroom. That was a little bit before everyone else started doing it that way. That was still in the time people were spending, like, a half a million dollars on recording studios. I feel like we were helpful, or pioneered the “bedroom pop” movement.

We played about 135 shows in 2017, that’s when we dropped our debut album. The rooms just kept getting bigger and bigger, and the dream in my heart started to grow bigger, and the sound started to get bigger.

This new album we put out, honestly i’d call it new-wave soft rock. I feel like people smirk or laugh at soft rock. But, if I ask 100 people what their favorite song is of all time, I’d say 80 out of 100 people would name a song that falls into the soft rock genre. Who knows what we’ll do on the next album, I’m not sure, but our whole goal is to never make the same album twice.

John:

Speaking of recording, how does that process work for you?

Paul:

The first album was like, whatever songs we have written, they’re going on it. I remember when that album came out thinking, “Some of these aren’t great.” But, I was ok with that. There’s room for improvement. And, I thought...I know how we can improve.

This last album, I think I wrote about 27 songs, and there’s 13 on it. There’s that moment when I feel like, I’ve expressed whatever I want to express, and then Jake and I will sit down with whoever we’re making the album with, and we’ll listen. We’ll privately make notes about each song. After we’re done, we compare our notes, and we decide which one we really want to spend more time on. That’s kind of how it works.

I think everything so far, I’m here because I trust my gut. I trusted my gut to pack up my Honda Element, and put a U-Haul on it. I trusted my gut when I wrote a song called “I Love You So Bad’ (ILYSB). I’m just always trying to follow my heart. It hasn’t lead me astray yet.