The Next Step 'Means Getting In A Room With People That're Better Than Us'

It's Super Bowl Sunday in Santa Monica and LANY leader Paul Klein has just bumped back interviews by five hours so he can watch the tackle-football. "I'm from Oklahoma, where high-school football and college football are a borderline religion," the 30 year old explains. "I didn't play it when I was a kid, personally. I was such a little runt that I didn't stand a chance. I fucking loved basketball, though. Michael Jordan was my everything. Growing up, I thought I was going to be in the NBA. Which was crazy. Understand, when I was 15 years old, I was five-foot-two. That's the time when everyone else started getting big, getting muscles, getting armpit hair. I didn't get armpit hair 'til I was 18 years old. I didn't really have a growth spurt 'til college. I was such a late bloomer."

But being a late bloomer, Klein considers, gave him a chip on his shoulder and helped him on his current path. "It made me want to work really hard, dedicate myself to music," he considers. "That's all I had. I wasn't tall, wasn't cool, didn't have a tonne of friends, definitely didn't have a girlfriend... All the guys who used to throw me against the lockers - like the guy who, when I was playing basketball as a freshman, threw my shoes in the bin - all those guys, now, are in jail, or they're addicted to muscle relaxers, or they've been divorced four times, or, even better, they're asking me for tickets to come to my shows. It's fascinating, man, how things turn around and shift."

Klein rarely goes home these days ("I'd much rather be playing a show in Australia than jumping on a plane to Oklahoma"). He missed his ten-year high-school reunion this past year ("I'm not on Facebook, so I don't get the updates"), but doubted he could've made it anyway. With the release of LANY's self-titled LP, the trio spent most of 2017 on the road. "We played 135 shows last year," Klein offers. "I think Rolling Stone had us in the Top 5 Hardest Working Bands last year. From the end of March to the end the year, I slept in my bed one time. We played and we played and we played and we played and we played. I think we went around the world twice."

All that touring included two trips to Australia and, within a year, LANY are back for a third time. This tour features their first all-ages shows - "a lot of our fans are young, they were pretty pissed off that the shows [in 2017] were 18 and up" - and doesn't come, this time, amid a blur of touring but rather as a break from recording. Klein has "buried [him]self completely" in the making of a new record; spending "every single day" in the studio through January and February, writing countless songs and experimenting on loads of sounds. "I pledged that in 2018 I'd be open to everything and [would] try everything, even if some of it wouldn't work," he offers.

After LANY's self-titled set "was made in a kitchen on a Dell computer", this time Klein has grander ambitions. "We want it to be some sort of obvious evolution as a band. That means getting in a room with people that're better than us," he says. "[We] just spent three days in the studio with Malay, who produced Channel Orange and Blonde for Frank Ocean. And Frank Ocean, to me, is like the top of the tops. So, to be in a room with someone who helped make those albums is a dream. But for Malay to be a fan of the band, to want to work with us, that's ridiculous!

"Tomorrow I'm booked into the studio with Frank Dukes, who produced the entire Camila album [by Camila Cabello], did Real Friends with Kanye, shit with Drake - you name it. I'm scared out of my fucking mind. We're just going to show up, be in the same room, see what we can come up with. It's like being thrown into deep waters, forced to tread water, trying to stay alive. It's been amazing to take some chances, to feel scared. To say, 'We've taken [it] as far as we can on our own, let's see how we can grow'."