Rilo Kiley and Rock's New Era

The unofficial white elephant in the room when talking about Rilo Kiley is the sloppy thrall so many indie fanboys find themselves in when the faintest mention of Jenny Lewis is made. A former child actress (a topic well past its sell-by date in interviews), Lewis has been described as everything from that hip babysitter you fell in love with as an eight-year-old to a red-dress siren with piercing eyes and an angel voice. In person, Lewis has a casual coolness but also a quiet tenacity—looking straight ahead, concentrating on questions and giving direct, thought-out answers with the focus of an eager young overacheiver doing long division. While her songs have plainly stated sinews of sex and interpersonal intrigue that more frequently feel like universalist storytelling than necessary confessions, what’s mysterious about Jenny Lewis is how she contains unusual talent within the frame of an otherwise accessible personality. You can see scenarios race in her head while she barely cracks a smile—she casually quizzes me on what would happen if, for instance, the band refused my request to tape-record the interview. Lewis is one of those people whose essential restraint, stretched tight over clear inner complexity, makes her a sensation. You’ll probably never see her in a leather catsuit and high heels playing rock star, but don’t be surprised if she ultimately becomes known as an indie-rock Mona Lisa.

Co-writer and kindred spirit Blake Sennett is a more ethereal cat, thinking through his responses as he talks them out, exploring the space with a quizzical honesty that half feels like he might be putting you on until you look back at him and he gives you a nod to punctuate what he’s just said. He’s the more stereotypical songwriter of the two, the quiet kid who appears to be doodling in the margins on a pad in a train station—but when you step closer and glance over his shoulder, it turns out the sketch is a dazzlingly complex cityscape that pours over pages and could well be framed if it were ever deemed complete. In a light moment, with mock bravado and a chuckle, Blake describes his guitar style as “wiry lightning,” but there’s an honest, earned boast underneath. On Under the Blacklight there are scads of loopy funk-guitar gestures wrapped in wistful gauze. There’s a road-weary ambient openness to Sennett’s playing that feels like classic early-’70s California rock stretched through the space-age strainer of ’80s dream pop and distilled into tight little studio-polished crystals which are scattered constellation-like through the band’s songs without scuffing the surface glaze created by the creamy flow of Lewis’ singing. Still, in person, Sennett gazes and talks like a curious, arty child, even if he plays like an old soul.

For their part, Boesel and de Reeder have the easy patience and abundant humor of supporting players who might frequently be called upon to be voices of reason or clear second opinions. While Lewis admits to frequently writing on bass these days and playing the instrument live on occasion to allow de Reeder more time on the guitar, the versatility and punch of Rilo Kiley’s rhythm section is a marked feature of the new record, particularly on slinky surprise jam “The Moneymaker” (written by Lewis on bass) or the lightly Latin “Dejalo.”

Collectively, the band members’ demeanor is warm and congenial, as they alternate playing straight man to one another’s goofier asides. Over a late lunch in the concrete warrens of the fringes of West L.A., the banter is easy and open. Considering the politics of artistic evolution as they relate to fan expectations, Lewis earnestly but with gentle force says, “It’s great to allow a band that you like to grow and change. And I am relieved that we didn’t make The Execution of All Things over and over again: That’s impossible to do because we’re in a completely different place. But why? Why would you possibly want to keep making the same record over and over again?”

“Why, God, why?” wails Blake with a smirk.

Calmly ignoring the theatrics, Lewis completes the thought. “And we’re fully aware of what we’re doing, so there’s no puppetmaster.”

“Except maybe James Hetfield,” quips Jason Boesel.

So are Rilo Kiley quiet metalheads? “Primus is as close as I got,” admits Sennett, whose turntable these days instead features Guitars of the Golden Triangle V.2, the Ethiopiques series, Panda Bear, the Tom Tom Club and even the Grease soundtrack.

Musically, while they may shy from devil-horn gestures, Rilo Kiley intriguingly careens across the stylistic map. The country-caked ramble of Jenny’s solo work makes an appearance in spirit if not really instrumentation on certain songs from Rilo Kiley’s new album, but Under the Blacklight also contains dashes of Memphis soul (“15”), Swingin’ London ascot-pop (“Smoke Detector”) and Talking Heads pan-synthery anthem-for-the-suddenly-single (“Breakin’ Up”), as well as dashes of funk and unvarnished modern rock.