An Interview with Rilo Kiley

Rilo Kiley on Friendship, Touring, and Making Music

They embraced silently together as silhouetted shadows settled on the cold steel rails. Stephen and Ben Rilo Kiley were in love, but afraid of what the future held. Each was an aspiring football player with possibly bright but lonely futures ahead of them. The fact that their lives would eventually be found out and ruined in this small Midwestern town was more than either boy could bear. The year was 1909 and there were no pride parades or demonstrations. Two bodies bound together with arms of flesh is all the support they had. The conductor didn’t see them until it was too late, and the momentum of the train was too great as it cascaded through the ties that bound the two lovers, silently standing together, silhouetted as one. 

As these two were separated by death, two other friends are separated by distance. “There are oceans and waves and wires between us.” Blake Sennett, one half of Rilo Kiley’s Lennon/McCartney writing team, was waiting in his apartment in Echo Park, California. Meanwhile, 6,116 miles away, Jenny Lewis had survived a night of a blacked-out club and 300 chatting, devil-hat wearing Spanish soccer supporters on the last Postal Service tour stop. 

From Childhood Acting to Forming Rilo Kiley

In early 1995, a mutual friend introduced the two and slowly they warmed up to each other. Sennett remembers recording some guitar on a four-track and next time he heard it, Lewis had laid lyrics over it with surprising results. “I thought it was really good, so then we started writing together,” he says. Adopting their name from that section of track where two men had stood a long time ago, Lewis and Sennett, along with bassist Pierre de Reeder and Dave Rock on drums, released their first recordings (the self-titled Rilo Kiley/The Initial Friend EP) on their own label, Rilo Records. In 2001, they released Take Offs and Landings with new drummer Jason Boesel on Barsuk Records in Seattle. This connection would be quite significant later. 

Lewis and Sennett had each been child actors while growing up and had been in either a TV show or movie every year for 13 years. Their last appearance was in 2000 on the ABC TV series Once and Again, where they played themselves as Jenny and Blake of Rilo Kiley. Sounds like a great cue to close the curtain on acting and pursue music! “I really never thought I was good at acting. I always thought Jenny was way better,” Sennett says. Lewis herself has also been too busy for Hollywood, but won’t rule anything out: “Maybe in the future, but music is keeping me too busy right now,” she says.

Touring Success and Breakthrough Records

After a short tour with Cursive, Rilo Kiley was asked by Tim Kasher to open for them and Superchunk on an East Coast tour. From there, they were introduced to the Saddle Creek scene and later released The Execution of All Things, which made major magazine and newspaper 2002 Top 10 lists (along with mine). The connection to Barsuk came as Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie called Lewis while she was recording the new album and asked her to sing on a project that he and Jimmy Tamborello were mailing back and forth. “When we got together for the first time in LA, I picked Ben up from the airport,” Lewis says. “I had no idea what he looked like. I had never seen a picture of Death Cab or seen them play, even though I own all their albums. He said, ‘I’ll be dressed like a grown eight-year old boy.’ And he was, in fact. I spotted him right away. We picked up Jimmy and had margaritas and got pretty drunk. I think that was the first time we were all look ing at each other and it was instant. We all clicked immediately and now we are all really good friends.” 

Experimenting With Electronic Sounds and New Directions

The collaboration between rock musicians and the electronic beats provided by Tamborello couldn’t have come more naturally to Lewis or Sennett. Since their early recordings, they have been patching in sound bytes to their own songs. Sennett, being the primary sequencer, is using more programming in the new Rilo songs. “I think the next album will be more beat-oriented,” he says, but he is also putting the finishing touches on his solo album (he’s not sure what label he will release it on yet). Lewis sees the collaboration of technology as the next evolution in music. “It’s a real interesting time in music with the combination of electronic and rock music and it’s really fun, I think,” she says. “The standard rock setup can be limiting. So if you have the technology and the opportunity to work with the people who can wrangle the technology, then why not explore other sounds?” 

While being in Europe for two weeks is a pretty amazing experience, I asked if they felt any anti-American sentiment. “Well, we [Americans] are pretty unpopular and rightfully so,” says Lewis. “I’m not a Bush advocate or supporter. It can be a bit difficult because people want to engage you in a political debate, which I’m always up for. You have to differentiate and make it clear that I don’t represent the U.S. government. I’m there to play music; I’m an artist with a kind of skepticism regarding the U.S. and its political parties. We also ran into a lot of the stereotypes, those Americans that you’re embarrassed that they’re from the same country.” 

Politics, Touring Abroad, and Songwriting Themes

Themes, symbols and images are recurrent to any songwriter as some reference point to drive at their emotions. I recognized money and time as both a despairing image and an answer to many of Lewis’ lyrics in the last two albums. “I think my fears and anxieties take on a different word, face or emotion,” she says. “Those are pretty consistent. I think this new record will have some war references, as I was writing this new record and watching the war on television and having feelings about what I think about being in America and some of the things we are faced with.” While some artists or actors might scoff at the idea of being political or saying what’s on their mind, this is exactly what many believe being an artist is all about. “It’s a really scary thing to expose yourself and then scarier to expose your political ideas,” she says. “Personally, I don’t give a fuck. I’m going to say what I want to say and hopefully, the right people will hear, understand and relate to what I’m saying. I don’t profess to be a political activist; I’m not. I’m simply a consumer with ideas and fears. More than anything else, I’m just afraid for the future of our country. That’s why it comes up in our songs, because I’m scared for my own life.” 

Lewis has every reason to be afraid for the future in America, but musically, Rilo Kiley already has two astounding releases under their belts and they will return in November for a third. They have five days booked in Elliott Smith‘s studio in L.A. and they will finish recording and mixing in Lincoln, Nebraska at Presto! with Mike Mogis, the producing whiz behind almost every Saddle Creek release. 

On the Road Again and Playing for Loyal Fans

This tour’s opening act will be M. Ward and A Band of Four, which is actually M. Ward with Rilo Kiley backing up his songs. “We aren’t playing two full sets. We are only playing a few songs out of his 10-song list. At first it was only two songs, but we started to listen to others, saying, ‘Well, what about this one?’”  

Rilo Kiley has been a functioning band for five years and has come through this desertscape twice, but with better luck, we could have been four for four. “With Rilo Kiley, the only show we ever cancelled on tour was Salt Lake, because we were stuck on I-80 at a truck stop in a snowstorm,” Lewis says. “We never cancel shows, and now twice [the second was The Postal Service because of scheduling conflicts] we have not been able to come to Utah. And we love it there and Kilby Court is great; the kids are awesome. It’s a sad shame for sure, but we’ll be coming through for sure on this one.” 

Friendship, Touring, and What Comes Next for Rilo Kiley

Reunited again, these two friends will have five days practicing and preparing before they set out once again. “There are adventures every day you embark on a tour, ” Lewis says from general experience. Having a chance to talk with this duo, I can tell they have even greater accomplishments lying and waiting before them. “With Blake by my side, I could do any thing,” says Lewis. “I think we could be firefighters together and learn it on the fly. We could probably open up a gardening shop and make it work out. Whenever he’s with me, I feel like I could do anything.” 

Rilo Kiley will be playing their hits at Kilby Court on July 15 with M. Ward and A Band of Four and The Golden Age.