Paul Jesse and Deegan Poores return with Hello Paul Jesse Pt. III at the Bottleneck this Friday

Paul Jesse and Deegan Poores. // image courtesy the artist

On a gorgeous fall day in early October, we sat down with musicians Paul Jesse and Deegan Poores to discuss their work together, including their latest release Hello Paul Jesse, Pt. III.

Seeking refuge from the lawn mowers furiously at work and the din of the monthly tornado warning drill, we settled in under the pavilion east of the Rose Garden at Loose Park in Kansas City. The juxtaposition of chaos and beauty set the perfect stage for our lengthy conversation.

The Pitch: Both of you grew up in musical households, yes?

Paul Jesse: Both my parents are musically driven. My mom is a talented vocalist and pianist, and she taught me to harmonize at a very young age. My dad is a recording artist (and also a music, entertainment, and media attorney who founded Rock N’ Roll Law), and his tastes and musical aspirations definitely rubbed off on me. I remember him spinning me around in his office chair when I was young playing me his favorite Dylan cut, Springsteen, all of that. I would always go around the house singing melodies, and my grandmother would regularly tell me, “You have to join the choir.” My parents were very open sharing their creativity with me and my brother Sean.

I really never had taken music or my creativity seriously until I developed that bond with my (three years) older brother. We started our band Night Class when I was at Free State high school in Lawrence, and I had a lot of early live local musical experiences at Farmer’s Ball, the Granada, Live At KJHK, and recording an album.

Deegan Poores: I’ve been making music since the 3^rd grade when I started my first little band, and we played the talent show each year. We got our name “The Meltdowns” during band practice, as somebody would always be having some sort of emotional turmoil. Like Paul, my dad is a musician too, and he was my first introduction to music (Mercury Records ’90s band Outhouse, current drummer for the ’80s tribute band The Zeros, and owner of S.E.C.T. Theater Supplies). He gave me some early lessons, and I took formal percussion lessons with Go-Go Ray through high school. My mom is a big music appreciator–my name Deegan came from my mom as she is a huge Trip Shakespeare fan, and “Deegan” is in a line from the song “Pearl.”

Wow. Sounds like from a very young age you both had some musical influences and inspirations, as well as some exposure to actually playing instruments, whether that be formal training like Deegan, or just beating on things around the house like Paul.

Paul, talk a bit about Night Class.

Paul: Night Class had its phases – starting in my parents’ basement with me and my brother. We were definitely inspired by alternative rock, 2015 Buzz era, The Strokes, Tame Impala, Arctic Monkeys, etc. The name came from my brother skipping his college class so he could attend band practice.

The original single “Wakarusa” came out in 2018 and the band consisted of me, my brother, Lane Hornback (Virga), and Grant Lewis. A couple of single releases led to the full-length “Dusk To Dawn” album. One of the first songs I wrote was “PM,” and I took lead vocals on that one as Sean usually wrote the songs and was the real front man. There weren’t too many barriers to creating, and my early experiences with my brother showed me what good collaboration looks like.

By 2019’s “Noise Of The Whirlwind,” it was just down to the two of us again, messing around with sounds, and much more experimental.

You guys released five albums and a slew of singles in just three years. Incredibly prolific, but what impressed me the most was how much ground you covered between “Wakarusa” and your last release “Pink Water (Rose Water Remix)” in 2020. Deegan, all this time, had your paths crossed yet? What were you doing at that time?

Deegan: We hadn’t really met, but I was aware of Night Class in 2020 when I was serving as the programming director at KJHK in Lawrence. I had played in a few bands (Snow Day In May) in high school at Shawnee Mission East in Kansas City. Punky, classic rock kind of stuff, but also getting more into alternative stuff which wasn’t meshing with the guys I was playing with at the time. Then I started recording rap music and I put out a mixtape, Admission Is Free, my junior year, and that’s what I focused on my senior year.

In college, I recorded some demos my freshman and sophomore years, and then junior year I recorded an entire album with Remy Styrk called The Vanishing Album.

When did you two first actually meet?

Paul: In August of 2021, I had one of my first solo shows as Paul Jesse at The Bottleneck after releasing my first singles “I’m Okay” and “Gone.”

Deegan: That’s how I first heard Paul’s music as Lane had posted about it on his story and I thought “Lane knows good music,” and I was like, “This guy does vocals?”

The single “Gone” got a nice little number of streams there. The Stuck This Way EP came out that November of 2021, so you two met before the EP came out?

Deegan: I wanted to go and catch him at The Bottleneck, just because we hadn’t met yet and I wanted to introduce myself. I had just made the beat for “Your Sunshine” a few days earlier, and I thought Paul would do really well with this and wanted to get him on this song in some capacity.

Paul: Making that song came so effortlessly, and it’s one of the best things we’ve made. It was a great start to our relationship and friendship. I remember just sitting in my old house and the sun was literally shining through my window which led to the first line (Paul sings “sun is shining, through the window, all I need is this light…”). It was one of those songs where the melody comes to me, and then the words only make sense within that melody. After that, moving back to Lawrence from KC, we would meet (said in unison) at least once a week.

To me, that song really typifies what I am hearing, which is blue-eyed soul, a fancy way to say a white dude sounding like he’s not white. For example, Hall and Oates, Michael McDonald, or Paul Carrack from Squeeze and Ace. The term can be heard as derogatory like “Yacht Rock,” but the difference here is the incorporation of trip-hop.

Deegan: Absolutely. The guitar was very Princey, but also kind of Doobie Brothers. I was consciously trying to take that trip-hop influence and combine it with something more upbeat, smooth, and joyful sounding without trying to overthink it. The video came out a couple months ago, filmed at Clinton Lake and produced by our friends Simon and Jack who have been creating all of the Flooding videos.

Paul: Not too long after we had gotten the demo done for “Your Sunshine,” my girlfriend Julia and I moved back to Lawrence from KC. Moving back home was a creative explosion with Deegan as I had shown him some older ideas which eventually became Hello Paul Jesse, Pt. I. We started recording with “Your Sunshine,” but we actually placed it towards the end of the project on Pt. III.

Deegan: To me, that song is the heart of the whole album.

Pt. III is markedly different than the first two installments.

Paul: Pt. I is very anxious, sad, gloomy, more negative thoughts, and me dealing with some past traumas and sadness. Insulated.

Deegan: Around that point, we had a conversation with Julia about having me produce a full album. I said I would love to, and that’s what I honestly wanted to do originally.

Paul: Julia has helped me write lyrics and is a big part of my life. She has definitely encouraged me to follow my heart, and none of this would have happened without her.

Deegan: At that point, I would either make beats or Paul would send me a beat from someone to see what I could create. The second song we really worked on was “Remedy” (first single off Pt. II). A lot of songs came from us just playing together and doing weird little things. For example, “Gold” from Pt. III was the one song where we sat down and Paul said he wanted to do an acoustic song, so I started playing guitar and literally in one sitting we wrote 90% of the song.

Paul: The melody usually hits me first, and then I think what the song is about or what I am feeling in the moment and shape the words within that melody. When we come together, it’s so natural and easy to make a whole song with both of our strengths.

Paul, I mentioned on the phone that I wanted to be clear about how to title the project or your different roles. I simply see two collaborators at work here.

Paul: Deegan shaped this album. I was sitting in front of a mic and expressing how I feel through my art, and he turned it into this whole experience.

Deegan: There is the narrative aspect of it with Pt. I being insular and dark. Pt. II is making realizations about the world and the transition from a little romantic anxiety to starting to see the bright sides of things. Pt. III moves on to healthier forms of self-love and love within relationships with others.

At this time, we are joined by a group of 40 folks for some kind of luncheon under the pavilion.

As you were recording, did you have discussions about needing certain types of songs (heavier or lighter) to fit the EPs, or was it more that you had recorded all of this stuff and now you needed to fit it together?

Paul: Towards the end of it, when we got to Pt. III, we kind of saw it was a self-reflection story.

Deegan: We had a lot of darker songs earlier on. We consciously, but unconsciously worked to get to where all of the songs would work together.

Paul: Deegan had the idea to release the songs in three parts, and really extend the excitement and exposure to everyone. They really work together as separate bodies, but hopefully people can also see the full scope and progression.

The closing track on Pt. III “Understanding (Goodbye)” is the most naked, raw, vulnerable, and soul-baring of the bunch.

Paul: I recorded that song alone in my parents’ living room. Deegan had sent the instrumental and said this has got to be the outro. I was just belting it out.

Contrast that with the opening track on Pt. I “Intro (Hello).” It’s an instrumental that sets a really interesting atmospheric tone with some subdued house music interspersed with muffled underwater dialogue between different voices saying, and even screaming, “Hello Paul Jesse!” Orchestral harmonies lead to the words “Don’t care” becoming clearer until a final piano chord is struck, which then rolls into the second song “You Don’t Care” with a more barrelhouse piano chord leading the charge. Seemingly deep connections that I am not sure if the casual listener would pick up on. Speak a bit more about the dialogue component.

Paul: That was a fun thing. We had this idea from the very beginning that everyone involved in the project, whether that be the visuals or guest features, would do a voice recording from them saying “Hello Paul Jesse.”

Deegan: It’s supposed to sound like being asleep and having a rising nightmare. There’s an alarm clock ringing buried in the mix towards the climax, a la Pink Floyd’s “Time.” I was trying to construct an audio collage that told the story of Paul’s nightmare and awakening to exercise his demons.

The last song on Pt. I is “Not Perfect” with Indiglow. At the end, the instruments drop out and we hear a voicemail with people saying things like “We don’t like you at all, Paul. We want to punch you in real life. You never call us.”

Paul: That’s a message from my close friend Dorian in 2015. It’s a little piece of my adolescence.

You saved that? How old were you? Was it serious or in jest?

Paul: I was 15. He was just messing with me. There were moments when maybe I wasn’t answering my phone, didn’t want to hang out, etc. Deegan and I liked it because it was kind of joking and being hard on me, but at the same time you have people here who care for you and love you. It was a great end for Pt. I.

Pt. II really gets the collabs and features going. Are all of these people from Lawrence?

Paul: arkko is originally from Ohio, but lives in Chicago now. I met him on a road trip with friends to Denver in 2021 to do some recording. That was a big moment in learning how to collaborate. iies lives in Denver. It’s a community affair.

Deegan: Pirli is the producer for American Terrorist. There are something like 8 guests on “La La” alone. Hannah Davis. Drury Lane.

Deegan Poores and Paul Jesse. // image courtesy the artist

What do you want to tell us about Pt. III?

Paul: It’s a more clear-minded understanding of myself and what I should value in life, realizing what’s important. These songs mean a lot to me and my relationships. Love is a universal thing.

Deegan: Much more live instrumentation, for example, on “Gold” we have keys, violin, guitar, slide guitar, mandolin, ukulele, bass, shaker, hand claps, and harmonica.

Lyrically, what’s your process like?

Paul: Sometimes I am more intentional with what I want to say, but a lot of the time, I hate to sound cliché, but it just comes to me. I know a lot of people talk about creativity and artists being an antenna, so when the signal comes, it comes. Don’t try to beat yourself up when it’s not coming through strong, but when it does, try to capture it.

I feel like Deegan gave me this canvas to paint on with his lush production and live instrumentation, and I just had a creative explosion. I think we both did. The album is this spectrum of sounds and genres.

Deegan: The album is very eclectic, but I wanted it to also feel universal to Paul, and nothing that would have sounded too far out from the Stuck This Way EP.

We turned up the beginning of “Gold” on our portable speaker and listened for a few minutes. Heads turning and forks dropping were early market research indications of a hit. We followed that up with “Understanding (Goodbye)” to equally delighted listeners under the pavilion.

Any last thoughts on Pt. III and the album as a whole?

Deegan: It was a very conscious decision on my part to make sure Paul’s vocals were the highlight of everything. The production dives into creating a developed environment where Paul’s voice can shine.

Paul: It couldn’t have happened if one of us wasn’t part of the equation. I couldn’t have done it without Deegan or anybody around me. This album is like a timestamp of my life. One of the most fun times of my life where I came back home meeting so many creatives and friends. I’m grateful how they uplifted me to be able to do what I love doing.

What’s next?

Paul: We have our first headline show at The Bottleneck on 12/8. We also have a deluxe version of the album that will include three remixes and a bonus track for a total of 16 songs. It’s kind of like an extension of the record. Aiming for an early 2024 release.

Deegan: We’d love to tour in 2024, but we both also have a ton of other music we have been working on. We both have solo projects that will probably be intertwined, plus other projects like Virga and additional collaborations.

The release show for Paul Jesse & Deegan Poores’ Hello Paul Jesse Pt. III is at The Bottleneck on Friday, December 8 with special guests Virga, Dalima Kapten, DONTCALLTHEPOLICE, and Moondawgie. Details on that show here.