A Jenny For Your Thoughts

Jenny Lewis is talking hot-pants – specifically the gold lamé pair she sported several years ago at Electric Picnic, causing the heart of many an indie boy in the audience to rattle like an out of control freight train.

“Are you kidding me! I’m from Vegas. Of course I’m gonna dress up. You should see the costumes my mother wore when she was pregnant with me,” she laughs. “Also, it helps me get into character. I should tell you, I don’t dress that way when I’m walking around Laurel Canyon.”
Right now Lewis is soberly attired and reposing in a hotel in Portugal, on the first day of a European tour with her boyfriend/songwriting partner Jonathan Rice. As Jenny and Johnny, the pair follow in the proud tradition of dysfunctional (on record at least) she and him duos – with gauzy, bittersweet songs chronicling love, betrayal, nasty sex and occasional violence, there’s more than a whiff of Lee and Nancy, in particular, in their debut album I’m Having Fun Now. How much of the record amounts to the airing of dirty laundry in public?
“Well, it’s a fine line between truth and fiction, isn’t it?” muses Jenny. “There are no rules when it comes to storytelling and songwriting. You have to be able to be free to express what’s on your mind. Sometimes it gets a little ugly. But that’s okay.”
The circumstances of Jenny and Johnny’s first meeting are straight from Curb Your Enthusiasm. It was 2003 and Lewis had driven from LA to Omaha, Nebraska, with her band Rilo Kiley, to start on their next album at Conor Oberst’s Saddle Creak studio. Already in situ, Rice, an American singer-songwriter of Scottish extraction, had no intention of finishing his sessions early so as to facilitate the barbarians in reception.
“We were coming in to make More Adventurous,” she remembers. “Jonathan was kind of running behind. We basically bullied him out the front-door.”
Not a case of love at first sight then? She laughs.
“We became friends over the years. When you’re a touring musician you don’t get to see your friends at home. So you see your musician friends on the road.”
The first most people heard of Rice was when he had a small part as Roy Orbison in the 2006 Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line. A former child actress – if you’re sufficiently ancient, you might remember her in The Wizard – Lewis was just the person to coach her boyfriend in the delicate art of wooing a casting director.
“I have to be completely honest with you – Jonathan is not an actor, never wanted to be an actor. And he gets a part in a movie which is nominated for an Oscar! Of all the work I did as a kid – and it’s been a long time – none of it was at that level. Anyway, my best friend, Morgan, and I... we coached him for his audition.”
Received wisdom tells us that child actors grow into emotionally scarred adults. Does Lewis feel bruised by her tweenage stint in Hollywood?
“It definitely influences me as a songwriter. I have a very unique perspective. A lot of my experiences were incredibly positive. My mentors were Lucille Ball and (seventies TV actor ) Robert Blake, and countless other truly amazing people, who helped me on my path as an artist. The negative stuff? Really, I don’t think it outweighs the positive. I think there are crooks in both music and movies. With the entertainment industry in general, you have to tread very carefully and keep your eyes open.”
Lewis has a history of making music with romantic partners. In Rilo Kiley, she wrote with ex-boyfriend Blake Sennett, their back-story imbuing the likes of ‘Breakin’ Up’ with a deliciously barbed quality. This is probably in the blood: her parents performed a variety act out of Las Vegas in the 70s. After a decade of Rilo Kiley, how would she compare working with Jonathan?
“I love collaborating, period. I never went to college so this has been my school. I sang on the Postal Service record and was the touring guitarist. I learned so much from [PS founder] Ben [Gibbard]. With Rilo Kiley... that was possibly the best education a girl could have in terms of how to play and sing. It continued with this project. I learned a lot about being a player, about not being afraid to express what I wanted. I think I learned to articulate a little better.”
Between her own projects, she also found time to write and contribute vocals to Brandon Flowers’ ‘Who Needs The Killers, anyway?’ ego monolith, Flamingo. They don’t go back very far but, as natives of Las Vegas, there was a natural connection.
“I’m a product of casinos and lounges,” Jenny says. “I mean that quite literally. My mother went into labour with me on the stage of Sam’s Hotel. So my experience is all craps tables and embroidered carpets and free White Russians. I don’t really know normal living anywhere. I think Brandon wanted to have me there to keep it authentic, Vegas-style.”
Based in Los Angeles and with a retro boy/girl sound, it was perhaps inevitable Jenny and Johnny should be likened to She And Him’s Zooey Deschanel and Matt Ward. Do the comparisons sting?
“Well, we didn’t even want to call ourselves Jenny and Johnny,” she laughs. “All the band names we came up with were already taken. We were mastering the record and the guy asked, ‘what’s your band name’? I just blurted out [adopts breathless, baby-doll accent] Jenny and Johnny ‘What’s your album called?’ I’m Having Fun Now.”
Did Jonathan take umbrage at being relegated to second place? She laughs. “He was cool with that... ladies first and everything.

I’m Having Fun Now is out on Warner Records.