Lany: Souls in Transit

“We’re in rehearsals right now. We’re learning a bunch of songs from the album that we haven’t played live yet,” says Paul Jason Klein, Lany’s chief songwriter and frontman, over the phone. The band is back in Los Angeles but are called back on the road to tour North America and Europe. Looking back at their roots, Lany has come a long way since they formed the band three years ago. “When we first started, our goals were pretty small. We clearly had no idea what to expect. We were just happy that we got to play in SXSW, which was our biggest dream,” explains Paul. Lany’s songs capture relatable to those who fall in love and fall out of love—their tunes shaped by an ample amount of the synthesized turmoil of their youth, married to prominent beats are danceable most of the time, but lines like “A text, a call, another fight. I’m always first to apologize,” from their song “Tampa” seeps in to your head while pulling those heartstrings. The Los Angeles-based trio composed of Paul, Les Priest, and Jake Goss, just released their self-titled debut album middle this year under Polydor Records. For the past years, they have produced a total of four EPs and Paul shared that as much as possible, they were very careful not to change anything that drastic with their process and did the same way to come up with their 16-tracked debut release, which took 16 months for them to complete. “Since we played a lot of shows and being on the road, it’s been difficult to make an album. What we would do is after we play a show, we would come home, and sit down and write immediately before we go back out and play another string of shows. It took us a little while from start to finish to write, record, and mix,” he explains. But all the sacrifices and wait were evidently worth it as they’re sowing the seeds of their hard work—from fronting musicians like Troye Sivan, Halsey, and Ellie Goulding, mid last year, they embarked on their first headlining tour in the US and they have been jumping from one airport to another ever since.

You’ve been traveling all over the world. How has that been so far? What’s your most favorite thing about touring?

Paul: There have been so many flights, airplanes, and airports but it’s been good. It’s been exhausting but eventually your body becomes acclimated to all the traveling and you get used to getting not enough sleep. My favorite thing about touring is knowing how important it is. We are what we are today because of how many shows we’ve played and what it does for us and the family that we’re building and the band that we’re trying to become.

Your recent Asian tour was a hit. How did it feel getting that kind of reception from different Asian countries?

P: It was amazing; it was better than what we expected. It was such an important part of the world for us, obviously. We can’t wait to go back and hopefully, we’d be able to work on our lighting and stage production and put on even better shows and give people more of a better Lany experience.

Can you tell us a bit about your writing process?

P: I would say that 90% of the time that it would start with a groove that Jake and Les have come up with and I’ll get the thought in, as well as the chords and melody around it. Usually lyrics always come last because I’d like to spend quite a bit of time on those. I have notes in my phone, and if there’s a really good concept in my head, I’d always write it down. I write a lot of times when I’m heartbroken, or when things go wrong. Humans have the tendency to deal with pain a lot of times by making art out of it, but I just don’t want to be dependent on that. I work during the day; I don’t wait ’til two in the morning and light all the candles in the room, get the mood right, and find an inspiration.  Being creative is my job.

“We are what we are today because of how many shows we’ve played and what it does for us and the family that we’re building and the band that we’re trying to become.”

Who conceptualized your music video “Super Far” and seeing that it’s a continuous shot, how long did it take you guys to do it?

P: We worked with Isaac Ravishankara, who directed the music video. I’ve been meaning to dance in our music videos for a while but there would always have different narrative that would come up. With this one, I didn’t want to make another video about love or try to depict what the song was about, I just wanted to make a video that was really visually pleasing, interesting, and fun to watch. After our tour, we went back to the studio and had a three-day dance rehearsal. It was fun and it was also exhausting; dancing is such a workout. It took us three days to learn and memorize the choreography and then the next day, we shot it. Basically the whole day we’re doing blocking on set. It’s one continuous shot but the camera is obviously moving also at the same time. For a while, we weren’t even filming, we were just practicing and getting our marks right. And then we shot it close to 10 to 12 times.

What can your fans expect from Lany in the following months?

P: Just a lot of shows and hopefully growing quite a bit. We would love to keep growing as a band and reaching more people.

Published in statusmagonline.com, October 2017

Illustration by Sheila Gomez