Jack Goes Shoplifting
Noah Klein doesn’t know why you want to hear his music. "I didn’t promote it at all, I didn’t think anyone would listen to it," the 21-year-old New School senior says about the airy, haunting electro songs he records and performs under the moniker Philip Seymour Hoffman. "I don’t consider myself a musician, I just like arranging sounds."
But if Klein, a Los Angeles native, doesn’t consider himself a musician, he might be the only one. Klein has played all over Brooklyn’s DIY spaces and at places like the Mercury Lounge with bands like Truman Peyote, Emily Reo, Birthdays and Alaskas, and his second show ever was opening for summertime darling Best Coast—although he claims to have ruined it. Klein had stayed up all night helping friends clean up the performance space where the gig was to take place, only to promptly pass out onstage when he started his set.
But there’s not much that seems to get Klein down. He gives off an aw shucks vibe, like a badass Michael Cera, which makes him incredibly likeable. For example, as we walk through the Bowery Whole Foods, chatting about his music, Klein begins to explain his preferred methods of shoplifting.
"Our last tour in California was about a week long, and we were broke at the start," he says. "So we got good at going to grocery stores and noticing security camera angles and security agents." This time we both pay for our Indian buffet items.
Klein’s light persona is in complete contradiction to his music, which is creepy, haunting and monotonous. When I ask if it comes from a dark place, he says, "When I’m not smiling, people tend to get worried." Later on, he will describe making music as cathartic.
Klein has the tendency to sound like a mad scientist when discussing his music. He’s been in bands since high school, but really got reenergized when he realized he could form a band on his own. Still, he claims not to know what he’s doing.
"I don’t know how to play most of the instruments I record with, but it makes me happy," he says. Most of Klein’s recording is done between midnight and 7 a.m., when he’s stoned out of his mind. This used to be especially true when he worked as a delivery boy for Insomnia Cookies, and would spend all night delivering cookies to stoned kids, then get off work, get stoned himself and make music.
"All the songs are more about specific memories I want to keep, or look back at later," he adds, and while it could sound pretentious coming from most, from Klein it seems genuine. He adds that all his songs are recorded spontaneously
"I have no idea what I’m about to do when I sit down and record," he says. "Everything is recorded out of this need to externalize sounds."
Klein’s "sounds" are everything from animal noises to things he picks up on the street. He has a personal recorder on him at all times and a room full of old Casio keyboards and children’s toys.
His own live show is much different and wilder than his recordings. (Philip Seymour Hoffman released a tape in October and has another dropping soon.) He brings instruments—shakers, tambourines—for everyone in the crowd to play, saying that he likes to make it an interactive, immersive experience and that he’d be creeped out if it was just him playing to a room. "They fuck up, but I fuck up, so it’s all good," he says of the audience participation.
Still, Klein is genuinely excited that he’s allowed to make music, and that people actually listen to it. He sees no reason why everyone can’t start his own band. "It’s difficult to realize everyone can do it," he says. "Everyone makes amazing shit, and one man’s trash is another man’s treasure."
>>Philip Seymour Hoffman
March 4, Diamond Mouth Surprise Series,
30 Maujer St. (betw. Lorimer St. & Union Ave.), Brooklyn, no phone; 8, Free.