With 'Coat,' Jenny Lewis Finds a Good Fit

In retrospect, "I Never" was something of a declaration of independence for Jenny Lewis of Los Angeles indie-pop darlings Rilo Kiley, which she fronts with guitarist Blake Sennett.

Sure, the song was on the band's acclaimed major label debut, "More Adventurous," but it was more reflective of the country-soul sounds that the flame-haired singer had grown up with than Rilo Kiley's smart pop.

Although there were country tinges in the band's earlier work, and Lewis has been described as a latter-day Loretta Lynn, there wasn't much to warrant such a connection or comparison until the recent release of her solo debut, "Rabbit Fur Coat," and its first video, "Rise Up With Fists!"

Set on a faux "Hee Haw" set with Sarah Silverman appearing in a cameo as the Roy Clark host and Lewis clearly channeling early Lynn, the video is awash in images of despair, redemption and corrupt evangelism, underscored by the stark country-gospel harmonies of Kentucky's Watson Twins (Chandra and Leigh), who get co-billing on the album and current tour.

"I never had a plan to make a solo record," Lewis said recently from Seattle, the second stop on her first headlining tour that brings her to the Birchmere on Thursday. "But 'I Never' felt different than all of the other [band] songs, and it led to the feeling within these songs. When we were finishing up 'More Adventurous' [in 2004], I just kept writing. I knew it would take a while for [Rilo Kiley] to get back to the studio, and I didn't want to forget the songs."

Lewis eventually tested some at Rilo Kiley sound checks. "I'd torment the guys with 'Run Devil Run.' That was my a cappella mike sound-check song, over and over, with feedback in the monitors. I kind of put it first on the record just to annoy them further," Lewis admits, laughing cheerfully and noting that the rafter-shaking hymn, now three voices strong, also serves as her show opener.

"Rabbit Fur Coat" finds Lewis coming into her own as a solo performer and a songwriter, though a division of songwriting labor was evident on Rilo Kiley's last album (five Lewis credits, five songs written with Sennett, one Sennett song). She also clearly relishes the company of the Watson Twins, friends of Sennett's and stalwarts in the arts-friendly Silverlake scene in Los Angeles. Lewis had already written most of the album when she was asked to participate in a hootenanny in Los Angeles. "I had not done any songs by myself yet and was quite terrified, actually, and I thought it would be fun to call up the girls for that one show. It went so well that when the songs started to pile up, I started thinking about this record that I had grown up with."

That record was Laura Nyro's "Gonna Take a Miracle," a 1971 R&B covers album deeply enriched by the harmonies and energies of soul trio LaBelle.

"The whole idea was born out of that," says Lewis, whose velveteen alto is often wrapped in the twins' soprano harmonies. "I don't think the record would have turned out the same way without them. I'm so thrilled to have them, not only musically -- it's a unique experience for me to sing with them -- but aesthetically, as well. It just looks so cool when we play. There's something undeniable about identical twins."

It's old news to Rilo Kiley fans that Lewis, 30, was a successful child actor whose parents had a Sonny and Cher tribute act in Las Vegas. After they split when she was 2, Lewis grew up with her mother and sister in the San Fernando Valley. While her mother worked as a waitress, Lewis began appearing in commercials (her first: a Jell-O ad at age 3) and soon after, television and film. She eventually became the family's main breadwinner.

So it's easy to sympathize with the narrator of "Rabbit Fur Coat," a haunting lullaby waltz about a young girl and her waitress mother whose prize possession, said coat, is stolen, leading to much pain and suffering. Lewis makes it a metaphor for ambition, lust and greed: "A lady says to my Ma: you treat your girl as your spouse/You can live in a mansion house/And so we did, and I became a $100,000 kid." Except there is no happy ending for mother or daughter, and as Lewis sings on the ironically titled "Happy": "They warn you about killers and thieves in night/I worry about cancer and living right/but my mama never warned me about my own/Destructive appetite."

"All I can really say is that my life isn't that interesting to only write about myself," Lewis insists. "I like to create characters, and I like to tell stories."