- Hi everyone, we're Lany
and we're gonna be talking about our firsts.
(mellow electronic music)
- First time you all met each other.
- I met Jake at the YMCA
in Green Hills, Nashville, Tennessee.
Jake was living in a house with Les
and I think the first time I came over I met
you at the house.
- Jake played drums for a couple brothers
that were in a band and I lived with those brothers.
Jake would come over and crash on the futon.
- So we would hang out quite a bit.
Never talked about being in a band together.
I moved to L.A.
Somewhere in that process, these two started making music
as a band called Wrlds, without the O
and they were kinda getting some cool steam online
with some blogs and I
was getting no steam.
(laughs)
And I was in L.A. and I called Jake, I was like,
"Whatever you're doing is obviously working.
"Can I come to Nashville and just write a few songs
"with you guys and see what happens?"
I flew to Nashville March of 2014.
We had four days together.
Wrote and recorded our first two songs.
- Had our first band fight.
- Yeah had--
within the first day. (laughs)
- [Jake] There you go.
- No, we wrote one song called "Hot Lights,"
we all loved it then I started writing this one
called "Walk Away" and Les was like,
"Ugh, I can't do this."
- I was like,
"I don't know where this is going."
- Yeah, and then Jake was--
Jake came home 'cause he was like
in the studio working on another project.
(laughs)
And then he's like,
"Let me just play some drums over top,"
and I think
it all came together. - It made so much sense.
- Yeah.
Anyways, we put our first two songs on the internet
April 22nd, 2014 and now we're here at Buzzfeed
five years later.
- First Lany show.
- Ooh.
- Our very first was...
- Down in San Diego.
- San Diego, yeah. - But it was like
a secret show.
We didn't even put our name on the bill.
We wanted to go by Outback Steakhouse.
- Just something so silly.
- Because we'd never played a show and we
wanted to have three practice shows before our first show
at the Sayers Club, which was like the first week
of February in 2015.
But we went down to San Diego, name wasn't even on the bill
and fans showed up.
And we were like,
"Oh, no."
(laughs)
We had five songs so the show was about
12 minutes long.
I used to have the shakes so bad.
Like, my knees just like,
you know, so nervous.
But that was a really, really cool show.
We started with "Hot Lights" and I sang the first verse
in the wrong key 'cause I was so nervous and...
But we ended great.
- First kiss.
Ashley Painter, fourth grade, what's up?
Just kissed 'cause we got 100 on a quiz maybe.
- I think I was eighth or ninth grade.
I kissed a sweet girl named Tina Mooningham.
- My junior prom.
This girl named Lauren Morris.
I'd known her since second grade.
Actually, this is a pretty good story if we've got time.
Freshman year of high school and there's this big hill
where I'm from in Tulsa and my buddy took me there.
And I was like,
"I'm gonna bring Lauren here one of these days
"and I'm gonna kiss her and she's gonna be
"the first girl I ever kiss."
Fast forward two years later, took her to prom,
then I was like,
"Hey, I wanna take you somewhere."
Put on a blindfold, curated a playlist,
drove her to this hill, carried her to the spot,
and I was like,
"Two years ago, Lauren Morris,
"I said I was gonna bring you here and kiss you,"
and then bam, kissed her.
First song you wrote.
This is--
this comes back to Lauren Morris every time.
It was literally to ask Lauren to prom.
That was my first song I ever wrote.
- The first song I wrote was
a song that I actually wrote with my dad.
- Oh!
- My dad wrote some lyrics about his dad, actually,
about growing up, yeah.
- So when I was younger, I went to a camp
in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and we all got to make CDs.
And my CD was called Goose's Hip Hop
and I had a song called "Cookie Dough" because I was huge
and I loved eating sweets.
First time someone recognized you in public.
- This is just now starting to happen, by the way.
Well, we went to London and I don't think
we'd even played a show, we were just were like,
there to take some meetings or something like that.
It was just the three of us and our manager.
And within like 15 minutes of walking down the street,
these two girls ran up to us and were like,
"Oh my God, are you Lany?"
That was really early.
First time you heard one of your songs in public.
I think--
well the first time we heard one of our songs
on the radio, which has only happened like,
10 times ever, we were in Phoenix, Arizona and
that was a really cool moment.
- That was awesome.
- It sounds different on the radio, you know?
- It does. - There's something about it,
there's like a--
- I don't know the science, but it's definitely like
they like squash the audio in some way to
send it further and it's got a quality to it.
- Yeah, that was a really cool moment.
- First album you ever bought.
A Boston CD.
Classic rock.
- Mine was "Room for Squares," John Mayer.
- I think mine
was "Californication" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
- First song you wrote as a group.
"Hot Lights."
I don't know, I was like obsessed with
"Nothing Was the Same" by Drake.
So, Les and I sat there and he has this--
what do you call it?
Acorg--
- Corgelectribe, yeah.
- Yeah, it was a bunch of like samples and
we just started kind of building drum sounds
inspired by that.
- First celebrity crush.
- Brad Pitt.
- I was about to say is it Brad or?
(laughter)
- I don't know if it's Brad or Leo.
- Brad or Leo.
Jessica Alba. - Nice.
Probably the Olsen twins.
- I'm just gonna go Brad Pitt.
First crazy fan interaction.
- I signed a girl's forehead one time
in Milwaukee, which is just like, I was like,
"Do you really want me to do this?"
She's like,
"Please sign my forehead."
I'm like,
"Yeah, okay."
(laughs)
- I think that's definitely the craziest.
- That's pretty crazy. - That's pretty weird.
- There was a bunch of fans at the airport
waiting for us and a kid gave me a potato
and so it's just like,
"Cool, man, thank you so much for this potato."
First musical inspiration.
- Michael Jackson.
- Yeah, it would have to be like, John Mayer for me.
- I'd say Chili Peppers.
- Yeah, we played seven arenas with John Mayer in 2017.
I got this tattoo for the seven shows we played with him.
- Same.
- Yeah.
Now we text sometimes.
- [Les] Buds. - So crazy.
- I miss you, love you.
- And then Chili Peppers, the drummer Chad Smith
was at Amoeba Music one time and Les was there
when we all lived together and he'd sent me a text.
I forget where I was but he was like,
"Hey, Chad Smith's at Amoeba Music right now,
you should come."
And I got on my bike and I sprinted to Amoeba Music
and I went in and he was looking at like,
a John Coltrane record so I thought that was amazing
and I just like, tapped him and I was like,
"Just wanted to say you're like my biggest inspiration
"behind a kit,"
and he's like,
"Oh, thanks so much, man."
And he touched my shoulder.
- Touched my shoulder.
- Hasn't taken a shower since. - Haven't showered since.
(laughter)
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