Jenny and Johnny

Glasgow Guy Meets L.A. Girl
Jenny and Johnny Embrace Their Contrasts on New Album
By Andrew Clayman
Published (with edits) in The Cleveland Scene, September 2010

During their five-year courtship, singer/songwriters Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice have collaborated on each other's solo albums, supported one another on tour, and shacked up together in one of Laurel Canyon's standard issue, rock n' roll bungalows. The next step was inevitable. On August 31, Lewis and Rice finally tied the knot—- musically, that is—- with the release of I’m Having Fun Now; their official debut as "Jenny and Johnny."

"Yeah, we’re one of the ‘and bands’ now," says Rice, referring to indie rock’s current crop of boy/girl duos like She & Him and Matt & Kim.

“But we don’t have an ampersand,” chimes Lewis.

“Ah true,” Rice concurs. “Make sure not to use one when you write about us, man. No ampersands for Jenny and Johnny.”

Conjunctions aside, it’s the equal billing that really matters for Rice. While Jenny Lewis has enjoyed a rabid following for years both as a solo artist and front woman for Rilo Kiley, the Scotland-born Rice has toiled mostly under the radar. Just a year ago, he was touring with Lewis as part of her backing band—anonymous to most, but leaving some lasting impressions.

“We started covering the song ‘Love Hurts’ in our set on that tour,” Jenny says, “and that was one of the first times that Johnathan and I really sang together like that. It always got a really great reaction from our friends and the people out in the crowd, and I think that sparked something that we didn’t even realize at the time. Singing in harmony, you really create this whole new character.”

By the time the tour wrapped up, Lewis and Rice knew it was time to try collaborating as a true tandem.

“Well, I threatened to go on strike if I wasn’t promoted,” Rice quips.

For Lewis, the new project had an added personal significance. “I’m actually the daughter of a musical duo,” she says. “My parents were in a lounge act in Las Vegas in the early ‘70s, and they were initially called Linda and Eddie, so it comes naturally to me.”

Johnny: “I would say, though, that this particular project is not retro leaning in any way. It’s very much a rock n’ roll band that’s for right now.”

Jenny: “Unless you consider the ‘90s retro leaning.”

Johnny: “Yeah, people keep telling us it sounds ‘90s inspired. But you know, we were both very much alive during the ‘90s.”

Jenny: “Some of us more than others.”

In case you missed the code language there, Jenny is seven years Johnny’s senior (34 to 27). But that age gap, along with the peculiar combination of a Glasgow guy and an L.A. girl, only seems to add to the intrigue on I’m Having Fun Now—a record that seamlessly shifts from top-down, West Coast power pop (“Scissor Runner,” “Big Wave”) to sparse, sad-bastard balladry (“Switchblade,” “Animal”).

“I think that a lot of Johnathan’s melodies come from these old Irish folk songs that he learned as a kid, or these Scottish football chants,” Lewis says. “And so I think he’s just pulling from a different pool of melodies than I am. You know, I grew up on show tunes and hip-hop.”

Rice chuckles. “Right. When I was listening to some old folk song in church, Jenny was listening to The Chronic.”

In the end, it’s the fusing of their somewhat disparate influences that gives Jenny and Johnny a wholly distinct sound, even with Rilo Kiley’s rhythm section and longtime producer Mike Mogis contributing to the record.

“In the past, we distanced ourselves more from each other’s material,” Rice explains. “And in this one, quite the opposite. So like, if Jenny had an idea about one of my songs, she wasn’t shy at all about saying, ‘hey dude, you need to change that!’ The involvement was just much more prominent.”

“And in some cases, Johnathan would write the bulk of the song, and I’d just come in and write the bridge,” says Lewis. “Or he would write a chorus on something I was working on. It was all very open.”

As they take their new act on the road, Rice is hopeful that Lewis’s fans will embrace his work as she has. But he also understands where their allegiances lie.

“Sometimes we’ll be walking down the street and someone will come up to Jenny and get very emotional and say, ‘you’ve changed my life!’ And I think that’s a wonderful thing. But it’s hard for me to get my head around.”

“It’s incredibly flattering,” says Lewis. “It isn’t the reason I started playing music, but it’s one of the reasons I continued playing music. When you meet people who are truly affected by the things you’ve written, it’s like one of those five-hour energy drinks.”

“Honestly, I often come up to her weeping, too” Rice deadpans. “You really changed my life, Jenny.”

(See Also: Jenny Lewis article from Phoenix New Times, 2009)

Jenny Lewis

Jenny Lewis Comes Alive
From Child Star to Indie Queen to the Cover of Every Magazine
By Andrew Clayman
Published in The Phoenix New Times, July 2009



It’s been over a decade since Jenny Lewis quit her acting career to pursue music full-time. Nonetheless, the sultry redhead’s child-star past has remained an endless topic of curiosity for fans and critics alike—first as a credibility obstacle for her band Rilo Kiley, and now as a comparison point for the fame she’s reached as a solo artist.

Lewis’s second solo effort, Acid Tongue, hit shelves last September, promptly followed by a torrent of magazine features, TV appearances, and sold-out shows. The ambitious album was a Fleetwood Mac caliber study in painting personal portraits with broad strokes, and it came complete with star-powered cameos from the likes of Elvis Costello, Chris Robinson, and Zooey Deschanel. If Rilo Kiley’s ultra slick 2007 album Under the Blacklight hadn’t already established Lewis as a mainstream pop star, Acid Tongue clearly has.

In contrast to most indie-rock crossover artists, though, Lewis has been down this road before—sort of. Twenty years ago, she was the precocious star of two popular Hollywood films, Troop Beverly Hills and the Fred Savage/Nintendo vehicle The Wizard. At just 13 years of age, she was getting her introduction to celebrity status—an experience that has scarred its share of youngsters in the past, but in Lewis’s case, only seems to have helped her develop into a more astute and confident performer.

When the movie roles came harder to come by in the late 90s (Angelina Jolie aficionados might at least remember Lewis in 1996’s less-than-classic Foxfire), Lewis formed Rilo Kiley with another former child actor, Boy Meets World’s Blake Sennett. In retrospect, Rilo Kiley’s 1999 debut EP now looks like the key pivot point of Lewis’s bizarre career— smack dab between the celebrated bookends of The Wizard and Acid Tongue, and essential to her expertly handled evolution from actress to singer, kid to adult (it should be noted, her low-hanging bangs have been the one constant).

By wisely putting Hollywood behind her entirely, Lewis was more quickly accepted by the notoriously cynical indie community, and Rilo Kiley became one of indie-pop’s more celebrated bands of the past decade, helping to establish the reputations of labels like Barsuk and Saddle Creek. Much like Liz Phair before her, though, Lewis never made any proclamations of devotion to the so-called “indie aesthetic.” Even as her unique combination of charm, smarts, and sex appeal made her the focus of the indie scene’s lust and admiration, Lewis’s music wasn’t exactly too nichey for a broader audience to understand. If anything, it was just a matter of time before her undeniable talents caught the attention of a public that had watched her grow up.

That sea change began in 2004, when Rilo Kiley’s third full-length album and Warner Brothers debut, More Adventurous, generated some radio play with the perfect pop singles “Portions for Foxes” and “It’s a Hit.” Once Jenny’s trademark short skirt and come-hither stare started showing up on MTV, the band’s fan demographic immediately expanded, and predictably, the innerband turmoil began.

Lewis’s off-stage relationship with Sennett soon ended, and when her solo debut Rabbit Fur Coat made more money than More Adventurous, Rilo Kiley appeared to be in trouble. The band eventually reconvened to make the commercially successful Under the Blacklight, but even amongst diehard Rilo fans, there’s little denying where Jenny Lewis’s heart seems to be these days.

Acid Tongue was written and recorded with her current boyfriend, Scottish singer/songwriter Jonathan Rice, and to pardon the pun, it proved to be a much more adventurous record than the disappointing Blacklight. Interestingly, Lewis has recently begun playing the Rilo Kiley song “Silver Lining” as the start of her solo shows—an indication that the line between the two projects is fading, and further proof that Jenny Lewis is ready to be a household name, rather than just a dorm room one.

Conor Oberst with Jenny Lewis

Conor Oberst w/ Jenny Lewis
@ The Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, September 22
by Andrew Clayman
Published in The Metro Pulse, September 2008



Shy girls with glasses have been jotting down their lyrics for years, so it only makes sense that two of indie rock’s most seductive smarties would appease their overlapping audiences with a nice co-headlining tour. In the blue corner is Conor “Bright Eyes” Oberst, this generation’s rejected nominee for the “new Dylan,” but a highly skilled and successful singer/songwriter, nonetheless. And in the red corner is Jenny Lewis, the Rilo Kiley siren who took a tip from Oberst and spread her wings as a solo artist to great acclaim in 2006. Now, as their paths cross again, Oberst and Lewis find themselves at an amusingly similar point in their careers—flirting with mainstream stardom and pretending it’s the 1970s.

In the most recent developments, Oberst dropped his Bright Eyes moniker and Lewis picked up a cool hat. Released in August, Oberst’s latest album is simply titled Conor Oberst, and was recorded in Mexico with his new group of retro country-rockers the Mystic Valley Band. Hot on Conor’s heels, Lewis just released her second solo effort, Acid Tongue—a far more Fleetwood Macian affair than her folky debut Rabbit Fur Coat. Considering the considerable success of the latter record and last year’s overtly radio friendly Rilo Kiley album Under the Blacklight, Lewis seems ready to say so long to her indie-pop princess past once and for all. Acid Tongue is heavy on R&B grit and guest stars (Elvis Costello, Chris Robinson, Zooey Deschanel, and Lewis’ current boyfriend Jonathan Rice), and it’s an iPod commercial away from making the limitlessly talented Lewis a household name, rather than a dorm room one.

Rilo Kiley

Rilo Kiley
Pictures of Success
By Andrew Clayman
Published in Chicago Innerview, May 2008



Like the inevitable twist in an M. Night Shyamalan film, Rilo Kiley’s recent commercial breakthrough should have come as no surprise to anyone who’d been paying close attention. As far back as the band’s 2001 debut Take Offs and Landings, singer Jenny Lewis was already seeing herself in “Pictures of Success,” and rightfully so. This is a true Hollywood band, after all, fronted by two former child actors (Lewis and guitarist Blake Sennett), and based out of the same Silver Lake neighborhood as alternative titans like Beck, Eels, and Elliott Smith. If they’d wanted to, Rilo Kiley probably could have skated into the mainstream on savvy and sex appeal alone. But thankfully, they chose to become one of the finest pop bands on the planet first.

“It’s still exciting,” says Pierre de Reeder. The longtime Rilo Kiley bassist is strolling along a pier in San Francisco, one day after kicking off the latest tour in support of the group’s fourth album, Under the Blacklight. “The nerves are still there, too, especially when we jump into a first show like last night here in San Francisco, in front of one of the biggest crowds we’ve ever played to. A first night always has that excitement and energy. It’s never old hat.”

Of course, playing in front of a rapidly growing fan base is always a helpful way to maintain one’s enthusiasm. Over the past year, the success of Under the Blacklight (not to mention Lewis’ equally popular 2006 solo album Rabbit Fur Coat) has opened up an entirely new chapter in the Rilo Kiley story—one which has seen them follow former Barsuk labelmates Death Cab For Cutie on the path from indie cult status to major label super-stardom.

“Well, certainly it’s been a huge difference,” De Reeder says. “When we first toured for Take Offs and Landings, we were playing shows for literally 20 to 30 people—which is fun, too. But clearly, with larger crowds and the size of the venues, there are big changes.”

When Rilo Kiley signed to Warner Brothers and started nabbing bigger gigs, De Reeder admits he was concerned that the band might lose a lot of the personal connection it had with its audiences.

“You know, at the smaller clubs, we used to be there, walking around and mingling, manning the merch table, that kind of stuff,” he says. “And you do lose some of that to a certain extent. But, it’s exciting that, in a lot of ways, we’ve been able to bring a lot of that energy and intimacy of the smaller clubs with us to the bigger places.”

On stage, De Reeder, Lewis, Sennett, and drummer Jason Boesel haven’t changed their approach too drastically, despite the bigger crowds and bigger budget. On the current tour, in particular, De Reeder says the band is having fun digging into the back catalog, playing the old tunes “pretty true to form” to the way they always have.

Such news would seem to undercut the arguments of those who claim that the “new” Rilo Kiley has abandoned its classic, indie-country-pop leanings in favor of the funkier, considerably slicker sound of Under the Blacklight.

“We have a strong drive not to repeat ourselves, while still letting ourselves be… ourselves,” De Reeder says. “I think that’s manifested itself in a lot of our career— with the label hopping and the songs staying eclectic, and even with people exercising their musical diversity and doing their own thing.”

To clarify, De Reeder thinks that the success of Lewis’ solo work and Sennett’s side project The Elected is actually good for the health of Rilo Kiley. Without those outlets, the tension that emerged after Lewis and Sennett’s much-publicized breakup may have led to the band’s demise, as well. Instead, the beat goes on, with Sennett churning out some of his strongest riffs, and Lewis’ sweet and sultry voice sounding more assured than ever before.

“The future is unknown as always,” De Reeder warns. “But that’s kind of a cool thing about this band. You just never know what’s next.”