Jenny Lewis on touring with Harry Styles, a new album and Rilo Kiley reunion rumours: “I’ve got a lot on my plate!”

Jenny Lewis is sitting on the floor of her Nashville home, showing NME on Zoom a room that she calls “the shoppe”. It’s essentially a large closet filled with western shirts that hang on the wall, racks of colourful outfits, an enviable shoe collection and custom-made spray-painted shirts which bear the name of her new solo record, ‘Joy’All’.

Lewis bought her Nashville house in 2020 after leaving Los Angeles’ Studio City, marking the second time in recent years that she’d made a fresh start. She initially moved to New York City in 2016 shortly after ending her 12-year relationship with Scottish-American musician Johnathan Rice, and ended up sharing an East Village apartment with Annie Clark (AKA St. Vincent) and forming the indie supergroup NAF (Nice As Fuck) with Au Revoir Simone’s Erika Forster and The Like’s Tennessee Thomas. During her time in New York, she began dating someone who had a property in Tennessee. “I went down for Christmas, and on Christmas Eve I met my friend Saint Nick [Soft Junk Records founder Nicholas Schurman], who was dressed as Santa,” Lewis recalls. “I learned how to two-step from a 70-year-old guy, and I was in love [with Nashville]. It just felt like the universe led me here on Christmas.”

Ending up in LA alone during lockdown at the height of the pandemic, though, Lewis took time to work on herself before eventually deciding that part of her healing process required seeking happiness away from the city. Though LA remains a large part of the lore of both Lewis and her former band Rilo Kiley, Nashville, she tells NME, is the first place she feels like she truly belongs: “I’m finally among my people — I’ve always felt like an outsider everywhere I go.”

‘Joy’All’’s 2019 predecessor ‘On The Line’ found Lewis contemplating solitude: a year after breaking up with Rice, she lost her mother Linda to liver cancer. Four years on, though, Lewis is now more focused on prioritising her own happiness. Not only is that clear from the title of her latest solo album, but ‘Joy’All’ depicts an independent-minded Lewis wrestling with her desires while craving romance and sex.

“I was thinking last night, ‘Do I have any regrets, aside from selling my ’64 Malibu and trading it in for the band van?’” she says. “And [I realised], not really — except for wishing that I would’ve had more eroticism throughout my 20s and 30s. I feel like I was so busy on the road that [my sexual desires] are something that I am [now] looking forward to exploring further into my 40s.”

‘Joy’All’ is the Lewis solo record that’s most reminiscent of her songwriting for Rilo Kiley, with songs like ‘Psychos’, ‘Apples and Oranges’ and ‘Giddy Up’ about ill-fated romances and bad decisions blinded by lust. When NME jokes that, nearly 25 years on, she’s still in the “‘Glendora’ mentality” — a Rilo Kiley classic about being stuck in a toxic cycle with a sexual partner — Lewis replies: “I’ll always be in the ‘’Glendora’ mentality’.”

Unlike her 20-something self in ‘Glendora’ who wasted her time on a man who didn’t respect her, Lewis now values herself more at 47 and is waiting for the right person to come along instead of expending her energy on a mismatched partner.

“I am truly trying to be in the ‘be here now-ness’ of it and do my work, take care of my dog, take care of my houses — which is a full-time job,” she explains. “It’s crazy: I’ve got a lot on my plate. However, I’m sure once I get out into the world [on tour], I will encounter some interesting people. We’ll see what happens.”

These days, the only individual Lewis is focused on besides herself is her dog, Bobby Rhubarb. In early 2021, Chicago-based rapper and ‘Unblu’ collaborator Serengeti offered her a cockapoo puppy. Lewis, who wasn’t “in the greatest spot” emotionally at the time, made the impulsive decision to adopt her that ultimately inspired ‘Puppy And A Truck’, the first single of Lewis’ ‘Joy’All’ era. The song feels like Lewis’ version of Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Margaritaville’ given its similar blissed-out sound, though ‘Puppy And A Truck’ is bluntly about finding solace in a furry companion and a new car after becoming an “orphan” following the passing of her parents.

While ‘On The Line’ took inspiration from ’70s glam rock, ‘Joy’All’ hones in on Lewis’ ’70s country and tropical rock influences, thanks largely to the guidance of multiple Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb. While writing the record during the pandemic, Lewis took part in Beck’s songwriting workshop and ended up penning songs that, she notes, weren’t particularly country or Americana, including ‘Chain Of Tears’ and ‘Love Feel’. After linking up with Cobb, Lewis initially wanted to make a Tracy Chapman-inspired record in the vein of the latter’s 1988 single ‘Fast Car’, along with a rhythm section that would contain elements of R&B and soul. With Cobb, though, Lewis was able to infuse the record with her Nashville inspirations, adding country staples like pedal steel guitar to the mix.

In terms of length, Lewis’ music career has now overtaken her stint as an actress, during which she had starring roles in films like Troop Beverly Hills and The Wizard. She recalls that when she formed Rilo Kiley with fellow former actor Blake Sennett, who starred in the TV series Salute Your Shorts and Boy Meets World, they initially struggled to be taken seriously as musicians.

“When we first started playing shows, people in the audience would yell “Salute Your Shorts!” or “Troop Beverly Hills!” We really had to prove ourselves: we didn’t take any shortcuts,” she recalls. “We could hear hipsters shit-talking me in the fucking crowd because of my child actor past. We didn’t want to talk about it when we first started the band because it was embarrassing, and people made fun of us.”

Lewis remembers another irksome moment at Coachella 2005. While travelling across the festival site in a golf buggy, she crossed paths with a fellow performer in a different buggy who was “talking shit” about her switch from acting to music. “I didn’t say anything,” Lewis says, noting that she doesn’t remember what band he was in. “I think we were embarrassed.”

Thankfully, these days both Lewis and Rilo Kiley’s legacies are getting their well-deserved flowers. The likes of Waxahatchee, Charly Bliss’ Eva Hendricks and Speedy Ortiz’s Sadie Dupuis all consider Lewis to be a major inspiration, while Taylor Swift, who has included Rilo Kiley songs on a number of her public playlists, is also a fan. When informed of this latter fact by NME, Lewis’ jaw drops: “Wow. I’m flattered.”

Lewis then decides that now is the time to once and for all clear up the rumours that Swift was unhappy about Lewis being Jake Gyllenhaal’s date to the 2011 Golden Globes. “There was this rumour about me and Jake Gyllenhaal around the time they broke up, because I went with Jake as his friend-date,” Lewis explains. “[Gylenhaal] asked Johnathan [Rice] for permission to take me because they were friends as well.” At the ceremony, someone tapped her on the shoulder. “[They said,] ‘Jenny Lewis, I really like your music’. I was like, ‘Oh my God, Ryan Gosling?! This is insane’.”

Another notable Lewis fan is Harry Styles, who took her on tour with him in 2021. She likens Styles’ shows to the Deadheads and Phish fan communities where there’s “so much love in the room”. She was perplexed, though, by the star’s decision to include her in his arena tour: “Every time I saw Harry, I’d be like, ‘Why did you pick me? Why me?’ And he’d be like, ‘What do you mean?’”

In addition to her upcoming solo tour in support of ‘Joy’All’, Lewis is gearing up to reunite with Ben Gibbard for The Postal Service’s anniversary tour in September. Lewis and Gibbard first became friends when the Death Cab For Cutie bandleader was looking for a female vocalist to appear on The Postal Service’s 2003 album ‘Give Up’. A big fan of Rilo Kiley’s 2001 debut studio album ‘Take Offs and Landings’, Gibbard decided to cold-email Lewis and ask her to be part of the band with producer Jimmy Tamborello.

“Our friendship has been a very important constant for me,” Gibbard tells NME over the phone. He recalls how Lewis was one of the first people to hear Death Cab For Cutie’s Grammy-nominated 2005 record ‘Plans’, while she in turn showed him her 2006 collaborative LP ‘Rabbit Fur Coat’.

“I thought, ‘Fuck, this is so much better than [‘Plans’],” Gibbard says. “We’ve always been very supportive of each other creatively and very honest when one of us thought the other was straying from their path, be it as a human being or as an artist. It’s the kind of friendship where we might not talk every day or every week, but we pick up like no time has passed. I have a sister, but [Lewis] is a sister-like presence in my life.”

While it’s thrilling that The Postal Service are reuniting (Lewis agrees that “it’s such a joy to play those [Postal Service] songs again”), Rilo Kiley fans are remaining hopeful that Lewis will revive the group, who disbanded in 2014. To that, Lewis plays coy: “We’re not talking about it, but it’s not off the table.” She is, however, in a nostalgic mood about Rilo Kiley’s legacy, noting that a particular seminal album of theirs impacted her recent solo material. “‘The Execution Of All Things’ set the tone for my solo work in a way, which is weird because it’s my favourite of our records that we made as a band,” she says, adding that recording ‘Joy’All’ songs ‘Cherry Baby’ and ‘Giddy Up’ in particular took her back mentally to the Rilo Kiley era.

Though she’s currently focused on being a solo artist and bringing ‘Joy’All’ to the world, Lewis still makes sure to include some Rilo Kiley songs in her live sets and doesn’t mind that the band still has a fervent fanbase. There’s an evident glint in her eye as she notes: “I’m always so surprised and honoured when people pay attention to the past.”

Jenny Lewis’ new album ‘Joy’All’ is out now

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