O solo mio

Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett chart new musical directions, on their own.

By Jimmy Draper

a&eletters@sfbg.com

Fret not, Rilo Kiley fans. Just because Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett have gone their own ways – last month, she released her solo debut, and he put out an album by his side project, the Elected – doesn't mean the Southern California band is calling it quits. Rather, the phenomenally adored quartet, which will continue intermittent work on its fourth album throughout 2006, is simply letting its members' creativity flow freely. "There are always underlying fears when people branch out," Lewis says. "But that's kind of what we do in Rilo Kiley – we play in other bands too. It's all under the same musical umbrella, and there's only good that comes from it."

Lewis and Sennett each bring some of that goodness to San Francisco this month.

YUMMY FUR: JENNY LEWIS

Jenny Lewis has reason to feel overwhelmed.

In January, just months after Rilo Kiley completed a four-week tour opening for Coldplay, the 30-year-old singer and multi-instrumentalist issued her first solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat (Team Love). Despite being one of 2006's most anticipated indie releases, the album is far from a safe bet. Forgoing Rilo Kiley's alt-pop for soulful, gospel-inflected country music, Lewis knows she runs the risk of alienating part of her band's fan base. But instead of stressing out, she's confident the album will find an appreciative audience.

"People are expecting different things from this record, definitely," Lewis says by cell phone from Los Angeles. "But I personally think there's no reason to sound like Rilo Kiley unless I'm actually playing with Rilo Kiley. I wanted to do something different. I'm sure some people won't like it, but I also think that some people who don't necessarily understand Rilo Kiley will understand this record a little bit better."

To be fair to anyone hesitant about her new direction, Rabbit Fur Coat, at least as an initial concept, also took Lewis some time to get used to. When first approached by Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst to make a solo album in late 2003 for release on his Team Love label, she dismissed the idea outright. "It didn't seem possible," she says. "At the time I was so busy with Rilo Kiley, and it just didn't even cross my mind."

But when Rilo Kiley completed its third album, More Adventurous (Brute/Beaute), the following year, and Lewis realized she'd written a bunch of material her band wouldn't be able to record for quite some time, a solo album suddenly made sense. "When the songs started accumulating, I remembered that Conor had asked me – which is a nice thing to have someone you admire who is also your friend say, 'Hey, I think you can do this.' I began to think, 'Maybe I can actually record this.'<\!q>"

Unsure where she wanted to take the album's sound, however, Lewis looked to Laura Nyro and LaBelle's 1971 classic Gonna Take a Miracle for inspiration. "I wanted to pay homage to that record, which I grew up listening to, so I decided to sort of use it as a template," she says. In the studio she began calling on friends – including Oberst, M. Ward, members of Maroon 5, Rilo Kiley's Jason Boesel, the Watson Twins, and her Postal Service comrade Ben Gibbard – and Rabbit Fur Coat, in all its gorgeous, gospel-fueled glory, slowly took shape.

Throughout the album's stripped-down hymns and soulful country numbers, Lewis continues the character-driven songwriting she began on More Adventurous. Spinning devastating, depths-of-despair tales, she sings with the poignancy and grace of someone hitting rock bottom, grappling with matters of the heart, and unsuccessfully attempting to improve their downtrodden lives. Given the depressing nature of the narratives, it's not entirely surprising that Rabbit Fur Coat's heaviest theme, emerging in nearly every song, turns out to be the struggle with, and search for, religious faith.

"I was kind of surprised after making the record, like, 'Wow, there are a lot of god references here!' I didn't realize I was thinking about that so much," Lewis says before pointing out the album isn't without uplift. "There are a lot of cynical elements to these songs, and there's sort of the expression of dissatisfaction – but not without hope at the end. It's about putting all that aside and having a little bit of faith."

VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN: THE ELECTED'S BLAKE SENNETT

"One of the things that make me want to play music is that I've always been a big road-trip guy, and touring is a way to go on a road trip with your friends and get paid for it," Rilo Kiley guitarist and occasional vocalist Sennett says. "But there's a flip side. Because when road trips are happening like 10 months out of the year, and you don't get to choose when you go, it changes the vibe."

Calling from his home in Los Angeles's Echo Park neighborhood, the Elected's 29-year-old singer-guitarist is explaining how travel became the central, deeply conflicted theme of his alt-country quartet's second Sub Pop album, Sun, Sun, Sun. "When I'm touring, I'll think that I want to be home. But then I get home and I think, 'I want to tour again, "he continues. "Like, [the song] 'Not Going Home' is about me thinking, 'God, I got to get home!' but then realizing wherever you are is home."

He pauses, adding, "Maybe it sounds kind of trite saying that."

It's a testament to Sennett's increasingly sophisticated skills as a songwriter that he made such a lovely album out of country music's most tired and, yes, trite trope. Written and recorded primarily while on the road with Rilo Kiley throughout late 2004 and 2005, Sun's twangy, '70s-inflected California pop captures both the promise and disappointment of setting out for new horizons. "We had some love and some hope, a full tank of gas and a wide open road," Sennett sings in "It Was Love," a far more pleasant portrait of road-tripping than, say, the soulful, lonesome lament "Did Me Good."

Given the drawn-out, less than desirable conditions under which Sun was made, it makes sense that Sennett portrays travel as both an escape and a trap.

"Making this album wasn't easy, like, 'Hey, man, want to record? It'll be fun!' It was more like," he says, taking a deep breath, "OK, dude, let's go.'" He recorded the full-length in hotels and on the tour bus with multi-instrumentalist Mike Bloom. "It definitely took motivating, because part of being on the road is having fun, but we just couldn't afford ourselves any. Recording can be fun, but not as fun as going to, like, Magic Mountain."

The self-discipline resulted in a more traditionally country-sounding album than the Elected's 2004 debut, Me First. Whereas the group fleshed out that release with beats and sequences, this album, with its ornate analog production, nods more directly to Gram Parsons and the Band.

"This time I wanted to make something less lo-fi and more '70s hi-fi," Sennett explains. "I wanted to try saxophone sections, which I love on a lot of old records, but I don't really hear much anymore, especially in indie rock. I also wanted to make a bigger sound with more harmonies – I spent so much time layering and adorning these songs."

The songs' elaborate construction, Sennett says, won't hinder his ability to translate them into a live setting. In fact, one reason he didn't incorporate electronic flourishes on this album is because they had posed complications on previous tours. Still, given Sun's conflicted look at travel, how does Sennett feel about actually getting back on the road?

"On Elected tours we try to keep it chill," he says. "On the last tour, we parasailed and camped. We had a day where we went to a Dallas Mavericks basketball game."

It's his way of, uh, electing to find fun whenever he can. "I've found that if you build in different little activities, then you keep it fun and can transcend the monotony and the grind. So I'm thinking I'll like touring this time."

SFBG

JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Fri/3, 8 p.m. Swedish American Hall, 2170 Market, SF $15 (415) 861-5016 Also March 4, 9 p.m. Bimbo's 365 Club 1025 Columbus, SF $18 (415) 474-0365 THE ELECTED Feb. 10, 9 p.m. The Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF $20 (415) 346-6000