A Better Daughter

Rilo Kiley: What A Scoop!

Fahrenheit San Diego Independent Weekly
August 13th, 2003--->>>Issue #14

by Joan Hiller

Los Angeles does funny things to people. It corrupts, it inspires, it feeds ideologies predicated on belief systems built on dreams and rainbows only to send the followers of its star maps back from whence they came, broke and brokenhearted. LA is sprawling, smoggy, vibrant and vital, a city bursting at the seams with unbelievably talented people with little opportunity, unbelievably opportunistic people with little talent, and the few for whom the glow glows and the magic cards fall into place. Of course, there's plenty of room between those cards for error, organic growth and natural progression. And it's easy for any town, even LA, to sink into becoming a comfortable home, particularly for those who've spent all their lives loving the heat of a California Day.
_ "I think when I'm in LA that I'm pretty much isolated," says red-haired bombshell Jenny Lewis. "I lock myself in; I'm not necessarily affected by my surroundings. I've written a ton of stuff while being a total recluse."
_ In the last year, Lewis has appeared in the pages of Spin sitting opposite Conor Oberst, on the cover of Medium, on MTV2 and in countless other glossies and weekly rags like this one. Lewis isn't only unafraid of the spotlight due to her past as an actress in her early years (she dominated several sitcoms and cult '80s movies like The Wizard and Troop Beverly Hills) -- it seems, to an outsider, that she attracts it magnetically. There's just something about being witness to her charisma; y'wanna tell people about her; make sure they can see it, too. It's just that charisma that continues to draw attention to the fact that, through her LA-based countrified rock outfit Rilo Kiley, Jenny Lewis has quietly and quickly become one of the most talented lyricists and dynamic performers in independent rock.
_ "We don't feel like we really fit in in Silver Lake; like we're too dorky or something," she continues. "I think that lots of people, obviously, are capable of making wonderful music in total seclusion. It's nice to get outside of LA because we're just removed from our daily stuff. You know, wives and kids and Blake (Sennett, guitarist extrordinaire for Rilo) has a wiley dog, and, you know."
_ Lewis' "daily stuff" is cherry-topped with different things than most people's "daily stuff," but her total-bro demeanor and warm Californian voice don't hint at anything of the sort. Lewis' parents were traveling musicians, something that gave her a "new kind of respect for performance," and as often happens when adults grow into themselves, Lewis finds herself doing much of the same sort of work as the couple that birthed her did decades ago. Rilo Kiley's newest album, The Execution of all Things, is thick with references to childhood memories brought to technicolor apex through brilliant wordplay and touches of nostalgic instrumentation like Casio beats, warm Western slide guitar and twinkling bells. Lewis' own vocals, smoky and lazy-crisp as a Rodeo barbeque on a Sunday afternoon, are pushed back to dreamland on tracks like the stellar opener "The Good That Won't Come Out" as they're filtered through various telephone-ey effects, echoing in the background like memories that are just out of reach but are too real not to nag. "I do this thing where I think I'm real sick/But I won't go to the doctor to find out about it/'Cause they make you stay rill still/In a rill small space," she confesses only minutes into the album, setting the stage to tale-tell about how all of us are filled with unlimited possibilities that may or may not ever be realized. The urgency in Lewis' own voice is all too apparent, and the resulting magnetism is breathtaking. "It's all the good/That won't come out of us/And how eventually our hands will just turn to dust," she continues atop a steady and subdued electronic backbeat, tumbleweed slides and delicate guitar twinkles that explode into climax as bells simultaneously toll. She's singing her own spaghetti western, just like in the movies.
_ Lewis' lyrics make her curse and twang, and it gets her comparisons to Liz Phair as much as it does to an indie Patsy Cline, neither of whom she sounds much like. How does she decide what stories to tell and how to tell them, especially within the hustle and bustle of the environment in which she lives? "Most times it starts with a thought or feeling," Lewis explains. "It's an addictive process. I don't keep a journal or anything--I can't imagine just sitting down and having something completely form. You have to have a really great memory or something for that." As for the careful birth of the songs themselves, Rilo Kiley does "a lot of collaborative writing. Sometimes, like in Nebraska, I changed vocal passages right before I sang them. Sometimes later, I'd look back and go, 'Shit! I wish I would've changed that!' Things get tweaked."
_ Oh yeah, NEBRASKA. Before the release of The Execution of all Things, Rilo Kiley called Washington's Barsuk Records home, releasing the less cohesive but still engaging Take Offs and Landings. It wasn't until Rilo toured on that album that they befriended Tim Kasher of Cursive who then introduced the band to the Saddle Creek empire. Before long, the band found themselves on the label and in Omaha at Presto! Studios recording a new full-length that was to be glossed with the same kind of melancholic plains-feel as Bright Eyes' Fevers and Mirrors. When the accordions, french horns and sounds of the wide-open-plains met Kiley's naturally-occurring West Coast sheen, the resulting concoction felt as natural as it did grandiose.
_ "Things definitely became informed by that space," Lewis comments on the recording environment. "It's such a wonderful community of people out there. We were all staying in this crazy communal space that I found online, and it was really great just to be removed from everything." It's clear that Lewis loves being on the label, even poking fun as she references the experience on her album. "We'll go to Omaha and/Work and exploit the booming music scene," she croons.
_ The band is currently on an extensive US tour that's been one of their most successful to date. (Another thing? Lewis is a road dog. She's spent much of this year touring the United States and Europe with the Postal Service, saying, "I think for me personally being on tour is a really good time for writing. I like the changing landscape.") This November, they're headed back to Omaha to record a new album in Elliot Smith's studio.
_ "You know how it goes," she sighs. "It's just making something then finishing it out then making something again." It sounds like she's talking about donuts, not some of the most lush and electric rock to come out of Cali in years.