Paul Klein Leads With Love

Paul wears full look by THOM BROWNE.

Fresh from the release of their fifth studio album, A Beautiful Blur, in September, the American alt-rock duo has been captivating audiences on their international tour. We caught up with Paul on Zoom, delving into his insights on the deliberate intention behind every show and release — a master plan to provide audiences with an escape, a moment to let it all go.

Left: Paul wears pants, jacket and coat BRIONI, shoes CAMPERLAB, sunglasses CELINE, jewelry TALENTS OWN. Right: Paul wears top, pants and bag DSQUARED2, sunglasses TOM FORD, earrings and bracelets MARTINE ALI.

Colleen Rodgers— Hey, how's your day going? 

Paul Klein— Good! I went to this place called Olive Atelier, and it's all stuff that's 90–100 years old from India, Turkey and Indonesia. It was my first time going, but I've seen it online for a while and just had to check it out. I got these benches to place around the house. I'm never home so when I am, I'm like, I need to go buy stuff.

CR— I feel like you also have to be patient when curating your place. I'd love to learn more about when you were just getting into music, what were you listening to growing up?

PK— I mean, I liked music where I knew what they were talking about. I remember falling in love with John Mayer pretty young and being like, man, “Slow dancing in a burning room” is the craziest metaphor I've ever heard, and the song is so incredible. It makes me feel like I know exactly what he's talking about, but he sang it in such a different and unique way, and I loved the musicality of it all. I started studying classical piano when I was five years old, when I was in middle school, I started studying jazz. My granny was in a nursing home and I would go and visit her; they would pay me $35 to $55 an hour if I would play some jazz standards.

CR— What a gig.

PK— Yeah. Right off the bat I saw an opportunity, so I would go and play all the time. I'd do a little nursing home tour in Oklahoma, but I loved the jazz part of it, and that's why I got into John Mayer growing up. I was also doing classical piano competitions on weekends, which is not very cool in high school, and that's when I fell in love with Coldplay because Chris Martin made the piano seem cool to me. I saw a bunch of people play guitar, and everyone looked so cool playing guitar, but no one looked very cool playing piano, so it was a big deal for me to see him do that. I kind of locked in from that moment.

CR— How long did you do the nursing home gig for?

PK— Oh, probably just a couple of years. I grew out of it, but my mom would always just drop me off at a nurse home down the street, pick me up in an hour and I'd have 50 bucks.

Left: Paul wears full look by GIVENCHY. Right: Paul wears top, shirt and pants MAISON MARGIELA MM6, sunglasses CELINE, bracelets and earrings MARTINE ALI.

CR— Do you think about love a lot?

PK— I do. I mean, it's interesting because we also have quite a bit of songs that aren't about love, but LANY's kind of known for the ones that are, and I don't think that'll ever stop. I try not to have a lot of hate in my heart, so I kind of view every song as a sort of love song, but I think life is incredibly nuanced. I mean, there's milestones: turning 16, graduating high school, falling in love for the first time, getting your heart broken, getting married, having kids, but there's so much that happens in between that I think are worth exploring. I always get asked, "What else would you write about?" And I don't know. There's so much going on in the world, and I'd rather be people's escape from that, so when they come to us they can let it all go for a minute. 

CR— Lead your life with love, everywhere. 

PK— Yeah, exactly.

CR— Are you seeing anyone currently?

PK— [Laughs] I'm going to leave that between me and God. 

CR— [Laughs] I respect that. How does truth come into play when you're singing about what some may consider vulnerable topics?

PK– I guess “truth" has become so subjective these days; it's almost impossible to define what is actually true, everyone's got a different interpretation of the same series of events. This band is what I dedicate my life to at the end of the day, I write and I make t-shirts and I don't know if I can change the world, but I know that I can make people feel a little less alone in what they're going through, and that's reason enough to get up every day and do what I do.

It sounds silly, but everything that we do in LANY is service oriented. It's part self-fulfillment, part responsibility. Everything Jake and I do is centered around how we can serve our audience. For the last month and a half we've been figuring out how to create an environment at a LANY show that makes people feel like they've gotten their money's worth and leave enriched and better so when they go back to their community of five, say ten people, it potentially rubs off on them.

It's really important that I continue to be vulnerable without numbing myself or becoming jaded and entitled so that I can continue to articulate the human experience so that people find community and feel inspired.

CR— I love that. It's hard to come by, it feels like everyone's preaching vulnerability these days, but you can tell when an artist is faking it. You're always engaging with your audience, reaching out into the crowd, giving high fives, people probably read that energy and connect with you.

PK— It's such an interesting time in music, it's honestly weird. It's almost like people have misinterpreted vulnerability with chaotic and super hyper-specific lyrics, but it doesn't always feel real. Now you've got people writing a song chorus and posting a video of it to [TikTok] to research and develop that section of the song. It's really interesting, because it feeds into the fake-vulnerable hyper-specificity that actually feels disingenuine. It's an interesting climate in music right now, I think I'm just trying to maybe keep my head down and avoid all that.

CR– So you and Jake formed LANY in Nashville right? Why did you decide to move to LA?

PK–  So I met Jake in Nashville, but we didn't really start LANY until I moved to LA. I felt like my time in Nashville had come to an end and it wasn't really serving my purpose anymore, so I went to LA and LANY wasn't a thing at all at first. There’s a few times in my life when I've heard that "small voice" telling me to do something for no real reason than to follow that gut instinct. I had no friends, no job, no opportunities in LA; it took me three months to find an apartment that I could afford. I had no money, but I had a dream and the boldness to go for it. Then I finally found a spot to live and got a hitch put on the back of my 2008 Honda Element so I could put my belongings in a U-Haul.

Left: Paul wears coat and bag LUAR, earring MARTINE ALI. Right: Paul wears full look by THOM BROWNE.

CR— Making that jump to move is probably the scariest part.

PK— A lot of people don't make that jump and it's why most of the people I grew up with are still back home. It's honestly really fucking scary, and if you don't have this almost delusional desire you won't make it happen. There has to be something inside of you aching for more, for something different than where you were born.

CR— How would you compare LA to New York?

PK— Apples and oranges, it's impossible. They're both goated in their own respects. They're incomparable, just different flavors and both the best at what they do.

CR— Do people recognize you more in LA?

PK— I think what's really cool about where we're at right now is that if anyone stops or recognizes me, it's because they fucking love the music, and that is the best. I'VE got all the time in the world for that. I think that'S the biggest compliment, and it happens everywhere, not more somewhere than another place. 

We were in Europe just about a month and a half ago, played Cologne, Germany, and we got stopped so many times. It's a moment where you're like, We're playing to 850 people here tonight; this is in Germany. I always go up to people that I love and respect. I was getting on a flight maybe a year or so ago, and Miles Teller was sitting in the second seat, and I was just like, “Dude, you're sick”. That's all I said. “You're sick," and I just think that's cool. People are amazing, and it always feels good to be shown some sort respect for what you've made.

CR— How do you feel about paparazzi?

PK— Unless I'm dating somebody who's calling them or who is super famous, I don't get paparazzied. I didn't even know that you could call the paparazzi until recently. I always thought it was for real. I was like, Oh, damn, they're really getting followed everywhere.

CR— Are you camera shy?

PK— No, I honestly can't be camera shy. When we play a show and everyone has their phones out. I know that everything is being recorded all the time, and I don't know, I'm kind of one of those artists that thinks every phone is a compliment. I've kind of said that from the very beginning. People like to be of edgy or they think that they're edgy by telling people to put their phones away, I'm like, Dude, get your fucking phones out. This is awesome. Think about how many people can see a LANY show that maybe can't be here tonight for whatever reason. It's 2023.

CR— It's unavoidable.

PK— Yeah exactly. We're not putting our fucking phones away.

Left: Paul wears top and pants DSQUARED2, sunglasses TOM FORD, shoes DR MARTENS, earrings and bracelets MARTINE ALI. Right: Paul wears coat, shirt and bag LUAR, shoes CAMPERLAB, earring MARTINE ALI.

CR— Do you like dancing?

PK— Yes, absolutely.

CR— What's your go-to?

PK— I feel like I'm a pretty silly dancer so anything. I still dance in front of the mirror, I thought I'd grow out of that by now.

CR– Oh for sure, it's important to do that at least once every day. 

PK— [Laughs] Yes exactly.

CR— Is there a LANY song that makes you want to dance?

PK— Hmm, let me think. I mean, recently I've been busting it down to “13” just for fun. In the past when we've played “Hurts”, I've gotten into it; I did this kind of signature body rolll everytime we played that song. 

CR— Did you practice that?

PK— No it's honestly just innate, really. [Laughs] I was just born with the body roll, but yeah, those two are always fun. Obviously “Dancing in the Kitchen” and we have this song called “Saturday Night 3:22 AM” which is a pretty different flavor off the new album It's more of a house or deep house kind of vibe, and that's been fun to play and see how it takes shape live.

CR— How do you feel about fashion?

PK— So much so, I don't say it's important from a business standpoint, but to us personally. It's not the easiest, but it's one of the easier and more kind of effortless parts of your day and one of the most fun ways to express yourself. I think that's another thing that people can get really disingenuine with quickly too though, people just wear stuff that they don't even really like and don't even know why they're wearing it. They just create Pinterest boards of what they think people think is cool in place of actual style or taste.

For Jake and I, it's just always been a thing and kind of a problem. We love clothes way too much, but yeah, fashion, is amazing. It can change the way that you carry yourself and eventually the decisions that you make and how you feel about yourself. It's crazy that clothes can do that.