SINGAPORE - Go ahead and call Paul Klein, frontman of American trio Lany, a mama's boy - he does not mind.

In fact, the 32-year-old welcomes it and has named the band's newest and third album Mama's Boy.

"There's a sensitive and emotional kind of attachment to that phrase you know," he says in a recent Zoom interview. "If you're a mama's boy you're often pretty in touch with your emotions. You know, you're pretty good at articulating your feelings."

It is not a new approach, as Klein says that he was transparent and vulnerable when writing songs in the band's previous album, Malibu Nights (2018).

"I just did it 10 times more," he says of the new songs. "They're just not necessarily about break-ups. It's about real life, day-to-day experiences and emotions and growing up."

While the band's name is made up of the acronym of the two most popular cities in the United States - Los Angeles and New York - Klein says that the band were intent on getting in touch with their roots in middle America.

"None of us are actually from LA. We live in LA, but we're from the middle of nowhere and I thought that's really important." Multi-instrumentalists Charles "Les" Priest and Jake Goss make up the rest of the band.

Formed in 2014, LANY are known for hit songs ILYSB (2015), Malibu Nights (2018) and collaborative 2019 singles Okay, with Julia Michaels and Mean It, with Lauv.

Klein describes the latest single from the new album, Cowboy In LA, as "a really fun, kind of quirky take" on their childhood in the states of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, where they grew up wearing cowboy hats, and their eventual relocation to LA.

The band expanded on their sound - an amalgam of pop, alternative rock, indie pop and synth-pop - on the 14-song album.

"There's a lot of flavours on this album. We're doing some things that we've never done before.

"We've never had acoustic guitar on a single song ever, which is almost hilarious to say, but now we have acoustic guitar and you know all throughout the album."

Because of the restrictions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, the band took longer than usual to finish the recordings.

The album was three quarters done before lockdown started.

"Things take so much longer via e-mail. So for a couple months, we were trying to finish the album via e-mail, which is just super difficult.

"Finally, we were able to get back into the studio just one of us at a time. And what we were able to get done in eight hours together in the studio, would take, I'm not kidding, probably four weeks."

He misses playing physical concerts, something the band used to do about 120 times a year.

"It's really tough because it's when you go and play live that you really feel like this whole thing is worth it. Because you see how much it means to people, how much people are really connecting with it on a personal level. That's a sense of validation that I've missed."

Releasing music online does not have the same effect, he adds.

"Right now, it's like you work so hard, you throw a song on the Internet, and you're like, "Alright, hope you like it. See you later."

Still, the time spent under lockdown has allowed Klein to spend more time working on the band's merchandise: he has designed clothes centred around the new album's singles.

"I love clothes, I always have. I love design and you know I've been very involved in the design and the merch that we do in this band. And I just do it because I love it."