Jenny Lewis walks us through her new album

This is an audio transcript of the FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘Jenny Lewis walks us through her new album’

Lilah Raptopoulos
I’m with the musician Jenny Lewis in a green room at a hotel in Manhattan. She just walked in and I need to test the microphone levels to make sure we’re ready to roll. So to do that, I asked her to talk into the mic. Just tell me what she had for breakfast.

Jenny Lewis
One weed gummy. (Laughter) I had one weed gummy for breakfast, and a nice cup of coffee.

Lilah Raptopoulos
How did it taste?

Jenny Lewis
Well, sort of fruit punchy.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Nice.

Jenny Lewis
I just had it. So it hasn’t. You know, it hasn’t done its thing yet.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, great. OK, so we’re going to see what happens.

Jenny Lewis
Yes. It might get, yeah, wild in about 32 minutes.

Lilah Raptopoulos
(Chuckles) OK, great.

I’ve been listening to Jenny Lewis for decades. They call her, like, a musical godmother or maybe a musical big sister to millennial women that are in their feelings. She was the lead singer in the early 2000s band Rilo Kiley, which was one of the only indie bands at that time to have a frontwoman. She was in Postal Service, a band with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie. In 2006 she decided to try to go solo, and she’s come out with five solo albums since. Now she’s 47 and she’s still doing it. She just came out with a new album, Joy’All, and a single on it recently hit number one on the Billboard Alternative Music Charts. It’s called “Psychos”.

[‘PSYCHOS’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING].

Jenny Lewis
Number one song? 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Number one. I know.

Jenny Lewis
What? This song? 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Are you surprised it’s this song? .

Jenny Lewis
Yeah.

[‘PSYCHOS’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

I don’t pay attention to a lot of stats or any of that stuff because I think that gets in the way.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Creatively?

Jenny Lewis
Yes, of the muse and just following the thing. So I think having the luxury of being a little bit under the radar for so many years has allowed just for some experimentation.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, yeah.

Jenny Lewis
Lyrically and otherwise. And I’m really grateful for that.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
Today we sit down with Jenny Lewis. She’s going to walk us through how she writes a song and tell us what it’s been like to make music for her entire adult life.

This is FT Weekend. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
Jenny Lewis, welcome to FT Weekend. It’s such a pleasure to have you.

Jenny Lewis
Thank you for having me.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I would love to just set the scene for our listeners before we start or as we start. We are in the Roxy Hotel, in a green room. You’re performing tomorrow night at Pier 17 in Manhattan. You just came from New Haven and you’re in the middle of your kind of cross-country tour for this album, Joy’All.

Jenny Lewis
That is correct. And may I also say that this green room is not green, but white marble.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes.

Jenny Lewis
But there’s a cup full of green pencils that have yet to be sharpened. And we’ve both taken one for later.

Lilah Raptopoulos
There is also a bowlful of green apples, and I might take one.

Jenny Lewis
I know. I think they’re here for the taking. I hope they’re not wax apples. Are they? No, they’re real.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
Jenny’s sitting in front of me, and she looks as indie rock as I imagined. She’s got tiny black hot pants on and a vintage Elvis T-shirt. She has white sneakers on, with tube socks pulled really high, with flames on them. She has these signature bangs or fringe, that sort of curtain her face. And she’s well known for those bangs. If you go to a hair salon in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, so many people show the hairdressers photos of Jenny Lewis that now they just call that look, the Jenny. Anyway, Jenny’s excited because the tour she put together is going great.

Jenny Lewis
So for every tour, I have to assemble a new band and a new crew and we all live on a bus together, 12 of us.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I think people know that, but they don’t really think about what that is like. (Chuckles)

Jenny Lewis
They shouldn’t trouble themselves with the intricacies of, you know, trying to navigate around 12 people in the lounge to make it to the restroom.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. (Chuckles)

Jenny Lewis
You know, we’re living, you know, men and women together. And so over the years, having been in the only woman among men on the road — for the most part — and that was when I started, there were very few women out there. I have in my solo work included more and more women in my band and crew, and it has made a world of difference.

Lilah Raptopoulos
It’s just a better experience?

Jenny Lewis
Oh, it’s just balance. And sometimes, you know, when you’re putting together a band, the best player may not be the best person for the gig because the hang isn’t as good. You can be a shredder but if you can’t, you know, handle the trying aspects of touring, it doesn’t really matter if you’re like the best at your instrument. So this tour is an incredible group of people who are loving and great musicians.

Lilah Raptopoulos
It sort of makes sense that Jenny’s tour is mostly women now. Her work speaks to people that are worried about the day-to-day anxieties of love and life and disappointment and grief. She has this very clear voice that’s right in your ear and these very clear lyrics. She sings about wanting love. She sings about decidedly not wanting love. They’re sort of hopeful and melancholic in equal measure. I play her single “Psychos” for her off my phone. It has this iconic lyric: “I’m not a psycho. I’m just tryna get laid.” She’s been trying to figure out why this song was such a hit.

[‘PSYCHOS’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

Jenny Lewis
Artists don’t know what’s good about their own material. We’re weird, you know.

[‘PSYCHOS’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

Jenny Lewis
I think it’s number one because of the drums and the bass. I bet that’s like 120bpm. That’s like the . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Like scratches an itch.

Jenny Lewis
Yes.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes. 

Jenny Lewis
I’ve got a lot of people saying like, “Oh, it sounds like Lindsey Buckingham or Fleetwood Mac.” That’s not at all what we were going for. But I think it’s in that rhythm section.

Lilah Raptopoulos
It is. A little Fleetwood Mac, yeah.

[‘PSYCHOS’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
“Psychos” actually started out as another song with a completely different melody and lyrics. Jenny didn’t like it. She just liked one line: “I’m a rock-and-roll disciple”. So she took that and she started over.

Jenny Lewis
So “Psychos”, yeah, I had this thing. I stole it from this other song, which it’s so sad. There’s a graveyard of songs that the organs have been extracted from. So I took the heart of that song. (Laughter) And then, yeah, I just started kind of chipping away at, you know, what would surround that idea and then kind of built it out from that lyric. I actually did some of my vocals on this record at my house in Nashville. I was demo-ing them to send to Dave Cobb, who produced the record, in the bathroom.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, wow.

Jenny Lewis
Yeah, like sitting on the bath mat cause it’s very quiet in the bathroom.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

Jenny Lewis
With my dog outside the door just waiting for me.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Forgive my ignorance, but that was just for the demo, right? They didn’t use that.

Jenny Lewis
No, we used it.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, really?

Jenny Lewis
Yeah, we used, we imported the garage band recordings from my phone. And then recorded on top of them . ..

Lilah Raptopoulos
Wow.

Jenny Lewis
. . . and use some of the elements from that, because you can’t recreate that kind of vocal intimacy in a room with a bunch of people, or like a fancy studio on Music Row.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, wow.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Jenny says that she wanted to be able to access a voice that only really comes out when no one’s watching. So the final album includes that sound from her bathroom as well as what she recorded in the studio. She walked me through it.

Jenny Lewis
So we usef some of those elements from my home recordings on “Giddy Up” and “Cherry Baby”, and then we put a very hi-fi rhythm section and additional vocals. So it’s the two worlds. You get the intimacy for a second, but then you get to go back to Nashville in Technicolor.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, that’s so cool. Can we listen?

Jenny Lewis
Oh, yes.

Lilah Raptopoulos 
. . . for a second of either of those, just to hear.

Jenny Lewis
Yeah. Pull up “Giddy Up” . And we’ll go to the middle of the song, to the bridge.

[‘GIDDY UP’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

Oh, that’s home recording vocal.

[‘GIDDY UP’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

Phone.

[‘GIDDY UP’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

Bathroom.

[‘GIDDY UP’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

Hi-fi.

[‘GIDDY UP’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

Doubled vocal.

[‘GIDDY UP’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

Phone vocal with auto-tune on it.

OK, we’re getting to the bridge, which is the real intimate home recording moment on the record.

[‘GIDDY UP’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING]

Yes. Here it is, right here.

[‘GIDDY UP’ BY JENNY LEWIS PLAYING].

Lilah Raptopoulos
It’s so intimate. Wow, wow. And I think that people really think that all of these things are like in the most professional version of that. You know, they don’t . . . 

Jenny Lewis
So that is, like, that’s the pandemic right there. That’s just the isolation in that moment. And I think that’s why I love artists like Elliott Smith, those early records, because they were just that he’s just playing everything himself. He’s doubling his own vocals. He’s doing his own harmonies. It’s just like a true bedroom slice.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right, right, right, right.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

One thing I love about Jenny’s music is that it can sit with more than one feeling at once. That you can be happy and anxious. You can date a person who is kind of bad to you, and you were also kind of bad to them, but it wasn’t bad that it happened. A song on Joy’All called “Puppy in a Truck” famously tells you not to overthink it. Get the things that make you happy and just stay present. It’s kind of zen. She’s been deep in the work lately of the spiritual guru, Ram Dass.

I’m curious, Jenny. Like, the album is in many ways joyful, but it also feels to me a little like an album that’s about like, you know, what can you do? You know, my forties are kicking my ass. I dated a psychopath. If you feel like giving up, just shut up and get a puppy and a truck, it’ll get better. In the song “Essence”, you sing like the essence of life is suffering, but you also sing the essence of life is ecstasy. How does it feel to you? I feel this tension between, like, hope, resigned hope, joy, a little like . . . eh.

Jenny Lewis
In this moment, I just realised I could have named the record Oy’All. (Chuckles)

It’s very Jewish. It’s very . . . I think it’s very Ram Dass in a way where if you listen to any of his amazing lectures, there’s this emphasis on being the witness to your own experience and really allowing yourself to see all the aspects of life which it is suffering. But it is joy as well. And it’s falling in love. And it’s getting your heart broken. And this is why weed gummies help.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Are you feeling it?

Jenny Lewis
Uh. No, not yet.

Lilah Raptopoulos
As you can hear, Jenny is pretty comfortable. She keeps jumping up and running around the green room to plug sounds that might bleed into our recording. At one point, a sink in the corner starts to gurgle.

Jenny Lewis
I’m investigating. See, I’m also your tech. Look at these rookies. 

Lilah Raptopoulos
I know. (Chuckles) We’re good.

Jenny Lewis
Shut up, sink. What?

Lilah Raptopoulos
It really is like a ghost. OK, with (Chuckles) . . . 

Jenny Lewis
Can you tell how I record music at home?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Not everyone is this comfortable with journalists, but Jenny’s been in show business for a very long time. Her parents had a lounge act in Las Vegas, and they made her a child actress from when she was three. She’s been in more than a dozen films like Troop Beverly Hills and The Wizard. She says that some parts of child acting were good for her, but a lot was hard. She talks about it in her song “Rabbit Fur Coat” from her first solo album.

[‘RABBIT FUR COAT’ BY JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
Did you feel a pressure as a kid, like, I don’t know. There’s a lot of . . . being a child actor is hard on kids. Did you like it? How did you feel when you were a kid?

Jenny Lewis
Well, I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re a parent. I think it’s too much for a kid to have the financial responsibility, which in my family, that’s what it became. So there was this . . . I didn’t really have a choice, although I made my choices a little bit creatively within, like, the structure of like, “Oh, you’re the one that works in this family, and I’m going to go with you to the set sometimes, but sometimes I’m not.” So I would just be among all of these creatives who were amazing, and they really became my family in a way. In these little bursts. So it was actually a very positive thing for me. But it was, there is a lot of responsibility. And then it’s hard to grow up on camera and go through all the awkwardness of your teen years and all the stuff. And sometimes it’s not, you know, they don’t want to hire you. You don’t get the job. So what are you going to do then, if, like, who’s going to pay the mortgage.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And you’re a kid.

Jenny Lewis
And you’re eight, 10, 12, 15. And when I was 17, I was like, “This is bogus.” Yeah, “This is cool” but it’s also, “No, I’m not going to do this.”

Lilah Raptopoulos
So Jenny switched to music, and a few years later, she formed the band Rilo Kiley. You might know them from their hits “Portions for Foxes” and “With Arms Outstretched”.

Jenny Lewis
Without the band, I don’t know if I would have had the courage to go out and do music on my own as a solo performer, a woman in 1999. There’s just no way. I mean, even dealing with, you know, sound guys at clubs around the world, you know, who . . . when you’re a woman and you have a guitar, they don’t assume you know what you’re doing. Although you got yourself there and booked the show.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right, yeah. I’ve heard you described this, like, the den mother of millennial emo girls or kind of an older sister. Do you feel kind of like ugh? (Chuckles)

Jenny Lewis
Old? Yes.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Or do you like that interpretation?

Jenny Lewis
Oh, I’ll take it. But it’s weird, yeah. When you’re at the age where you should mentor someone, you’re like, “No, I’m the mentee. I’m not the mentor.” Because it just happens. So, you know, you’re just doing your thing, and then suddenly, you know, it’s like . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. You’re deemed like a musical godmother. Does it? What is it? Does it feel, you know, you’re writing about being in your forties. Does it feel like you’re ageing in public? Do you feel how does it feel to. It’s a weird question to ask, but I’m curious like . . . 

Jenny Lewis
Who cares about ageing? This is, I mean, yeah, I am 47. I feel very young. Forties are good because you’re kind of in the middle of all the things. You can look back, you can look forward. And you still feel like, you know, when I look at pictures of Bob Dylan in his forties, you’re like, “Oh, cool.” And it’s important to speak to your generation and not ignore. And not try to cater to, you know, three generations later. 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Jenny, it’s so funny. Like your music has such . . . your songs have such clarity to them and they’re so personal. And so it makes me want to ask you personal questions. But also, I know that I just met you and that’s not my business and I have this big recorder in front of your face. And I’m curious, like, I know you’ve been doing this for a long time, but how do you stay honest, like in your music, knowing that people like me . . . (Chuckles) . . . can go . . . and ask you like, “How’s your sex life? And what is it like?” You know, like, I don’t know. Are you forties really kicking your ass?

Jenny Lewis
Well, ask away.

Lilah Raptopoulos
(Chuckles) Thank you for the permission.

Jenny Lewis
. . . and I can answer and you know this is when creative answers come in . . . Umm. Are my forties kicking my ass? Yes. I think we’ve all gotten our asses kicked collectively over the last like three or four years. So if they weren’t, that would be weird. Yeah, but I feel generally optimistic. Which is good. And I think naming my album Joy’All is bringing some of that. So despite having my ass kicked, I still think there’s, like, good stuff out there.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

Jenny Lewis
There’s a question mark.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Having your ass kicked is not all bad.

Jenny Lewis
It’s just part of the deal. Everyone gets their ass kicked.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, my thirties are kicking my ass. 

Jenny Lewis
My thirties also kicked my ass.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
By this point, it’s been an hour and a half. Jenny is taking her one night off in New York to go to her favourite restaurant in the East Village. The next day I’ll see her on stage performing to thousands of her fans. But before she goes, I want to know one more thing.

Jenny, my last question for you is when do you feel the most creatively fulfilled?

Jenny Lewis
Finishing a song, that first day is the best, and then the moment when your record is completed and no one’s heard it yet.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. Oh, wow.

Jenny Lewis
And it’s yours. And before it goes out into the ether.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Do you remember that day for this album?

Jenny Lewis
Yeah. And I posted a little bit before it came out because I wanted to just get that feeling down. Yeah, it’s magic. And then you put stuff out, and then there’s critique. That’s the nature of art. So remembering those pure moments where if you’re happy with the work, then you’re, you know, that’s the goal. 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right, right. Jenny, this is a real honour. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Jenny Lewis
Thank you. What a wonderful conversation.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Thanks.

Jenny Lewis
So good.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I wrote a profile based on this conversation for the FT Weekend magazine. The link is in the show notes.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

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