After originally making their mark on the scene with their breakthrough debut LP 'Brittle Grins' in 2021, Austin-based project One Last Job are back once again to deliver their shimmering new studio album 'Been Here Ever Since'.
Bringing back more of that fresh and lively indie-folk aesthetic they have been building for themselves since their earliest beginnings, this new twelve-track collection makes for a brilliant bright and inventive listen. Jam-packed with dynamic energy, a shining atmosphere, and killer hooks throughout, 'Been Here Ever Since' sees them continues their vibrant ascent in stellar form from start to finish.
So with the new album available to stream now, we sat down with bandleader Travis Klein to find out more about his origins and what has been inspiring him most over the years.
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What was the first instrument you fell in love with?
Probably the harp. I've never gotten to use one in a song, but it's such a lovely sound. Delicate yet mature. Compassionate and wise. It sounds like knowing, companionate love. I'm kind of shocked there aren't more people trying to emulate Joanna Newsom.
What kind of music did you love when you were younger?
All kinds of stuff, but at the beginning of my 'musically active' period it was mostly classic folk/indie stuff. Iron & Wine, Bright Eyes, Bon Iver, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Mountain Goats, etc. A mix of chill and angsty. You always have different music for different moods, but when I was like 14-15 and just starting to take music seriously, my favorite vibes were either 'scented candle and jasmine-green tea' or 'screaming my fear and helplessness away in the car'. Surprisingly, I didn't have a Tumblr.
What was the first album you remember owning?
After plumbing the depths of my camera roll, my first vinyl appears to be a simultaneous purchase of "Around the Well" by Iron & Wine and "Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground" by Bright Eyes. Can I get a goddamn timpani roll?
What is the one song you wished you could have written yourself?
So many, but my first thought—and this is relatively recent—was "Garden Song" by Phoebe Bridgers. I can't get enough of the imagery in that song, and that muted, throbbing arrangement just drives me crazy. I can't listen to it less than like six times in a row haha.
Do you have any habits or rituals you go through when trying to write new music?
Most important ritual is recording an iPhone voice memo of the song after getting the lyrics to a solid first draft. Pretty much every song I've ever written has been recorded this way, so my Voice Memos app is basically a perfect time capsule of my whole musical career, dating back to when my left hand was barely strong enough to make an F chord on the guitar.
Who are your favourite artists you have found yourself listening to at the moment?
At the moment, I actually don't listen to that much lyrical music—at least one culturally aware friend of mine is aghast at this, but ~80% of my soundtrack for the last year has been the "Lofi Girl - beats to study/relax to" playlist on Spotify haha. But then that also means I'm more sensitive to the 'real' music I do listen to. My kinda most important song last year (though it came out earlier) was "U (Man Like)" by Bon Iver, and the song I'm unequivocally most psyched about when it comes up on shuffle is "757" by 100 gecs.
If you could open a show for anyone in the world, who would it be?
The Mountain Goats. And then I come back on stage during the encore and sing backup for "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton."
What do you find is the most rewarding part about being a musician?
Having a creative outlet to resolve my thoughts. I tend to be an overthinker, and when a question is bothering me I can spend indefinite amounts of time in Kafka-like mazes of questioning my assumptions, examining the context and motives of the question, re-re-reframing, etc.—i.e., getting nowhere and being maddened in the process—if left to bounce around my own skull. Music helps immensely in getting to the point, and I love the feeling of getting to sit back at the end of the recording process and smile that I got something valuable (to me, at least) out of my head.
And what is the most frustrating part?
Often the writing process itself. Usually when I write a song I'll get a bolt of inspiration that gives me the first few lines, but very rarely does the rest of the song come easily. There almost inevitably comes a point in the middle of the writing session when I think the song sucks and want to drop it, but over time I've learned to recognize that feeling as the homeostatic forces in my mind resisting the "inner work" and intense vulnerability that often come in the later parts of a song (after initially establishing the conflict). But while I've learned to identify what's happening—and thus the impulse prevails less frequently now—it's still often quite uncomfortable getting through it. I'm reminded of the Hemingway quote that in order to write, "[a]ll you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed" haha.
And what is the best piece of advice you have received as a musician?
I think most of the good advice here sounds cliche, though maybe there's also good advice there about taking cliches seriously. In any event, what I try to keep in mind when writing is to make what you want to listen to—what moves you, the artist, specifically—even if it means making an odd or apparently illegible creative choice. Not to be the "I'll defer to David Foster Wallace here" guy, but to briefly speculate what that guy *might* point to: "[Great artists are] entirely themselves, they've got their own vision, they have their own way of fracturing reality, and if it's authentic and true, you will feel it in your nerve endings."
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One Last Job's new album 'Been Here Ever Since' is available to stream now. Check it out in the player below.