Double The Fun: An Interview With Jenny And Johnny
Johnathan Rice: We didn't have a plan. Creatively, we've both been in situations where there were rules. On this we could do whatever we want, sing about whatever we want. The idea was that this would be more fun than what we did before.
Fittingly titled I'm Having Fun Now, the first album from US indie sweetheart
Jenny Lewis and her singing-songwriting beau
Johnathan Rice as Jenny And Johnny was sort of an unplanned affair. Previously, Rice had toured on Lewis's first solo effort
Rabbit Fur Coat and produced the follow-up
Acid Tongue, while also managing to release his own album and, somewhere in the interim, making a record with
Elvis Costello. Lewis in the mean time had supersized her CV working with
Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard,
Bright Eyes,
The Killers' Brandon Flowers and, naturally, Elvis Costello. Lest we forget, she's also lead singer of a major label band, the currently on hiatus
Rilo Kiley. Rounding up 2009 with EP Carpetbaggers featuring, what the heck, Elvis Costello, the couple found themselves in a Nebraskan cabin, snowed in with post-tour jetlag and a few bottles of wine. It was there that Jenny and Johnny accidentally stumbled upon, er, Jenny And Johnny; another collaboration. Like the White Stripes, Johnny and June and... Bush and Cheney before them, the pair have an explosive chemistry on record, onstage and backstage where they caught up with Q...
Q: Hi Jenny And Johnny, how are you doing?
Johnathan Rice: Good.
Jenny Lewis: Cold.
Q: You've been struck by extreme weather in the UK. Apparently you had some extreme weather issues recording the album...
JL: We did. It's funny because everyone says we made a very summery record. Maybe the title alludes to that. Really we had pretty bad luck. We were in a little house in Nebraska in Omaha. The front door froze shut. So I decided not to go out for five weeks in that time. I got a little weird...
JR: You recovered.
JL: Yeah but I did like... a
thousand loads of laundry.
Q: You called it I'm Having Fun Now. Were you having fun at that point?
JL: I don't know about fun. I was focused... on the laundry.
JR: It was a good working environment.
JL: We drank a lot of wine.
JR: I think karma got us for living in California.
Q: You share a home in Laurel Canyon. How much of that area's musical history influences the music you make as a pair?
JL: [Pauses] Other than the ghosts howling in the Canyon who might make it onto a demo or two, the music we make is affected by the rural nature of the place but not the music directly. Although there was a period of time when our friends would have these jams in the Canyon with all these musicians of different age groups who would collect... and jam.
JR: When you make an album you make certain choices. We didn't want this to sound "retro", like Canyon Folk, or whatever it's called.
Q: Canyon folk?
JR: Yeah, that's been used. Like, remember when the NME used to talk about Shroomadelica?
JL: I bought that period. I was in London during part of that.
[Wryly] It was
very exciting.
JR: Yeah, the
Shroomadelica movement... unfortunately that never took off.
Q: Both of you were focusing on solo careers. How did this collaborative album come about?
JL: We didn't set out to start a new band. We were touring my record
Acid Tongue and ended in Japan. We got home and had really bad jetlag, staying up til eight in the morning. All we could do was drink wine and write little bits of songs. My friend Mike [Mogis,
Bright Eyes] offered us a studio to demo these ideas and only in recording did we realise we'd created a new sound.
JR: There was a song on my album
Further North called End Of The Affair - a duet Jenny and I had written. When we were mixing the song we were both frustrated with the engineer. I was like, "It's a duet, you've gotta have Jenny's voice as loud as mine." He said, "But it's
your album." We wanted to erase that rule that there's a singer and a back-up singer, push both vocals to the front and make one voice.
JL: It would have been weird for me during his record to say, "Could you just turn him down a bit"... even though I was secretly fuming!
Q: The song My Pet Snakes on I'm Having Fun Now appears to be about a sort of career competition the two of you have with each other...
JR: Are you talking about the line "All the best of luck with your career"? I think it's really cool the way people interpret the lyrics.
JL: We're not saying that to each other.
JR: Actually, that's something a dude said to Jenny in a very hostile context. We all smile when we sing that line.
JL: Yeah, it was actually a text message that I got.
JR: It translated as "
Fuck you".
JL: Yeah, there's a silent "Fuck you" in there. You know, we all have our resentments. You wanna figure out what you want to do with yours - how can you make resentment productive? And if you're a songwriter I guess you put it into your songs.
JR: I always think of that song like going to the circus and you have a water gun and there are loads of ducks floating by and you have to get them. You don't get them all but you get 15 ducks out of 20. We got them. If you can't say something to someone's face...
JL: ...You text it to them...
JR: ...Or sing it in front of a thousand people every night.
JL: Seriously.
Q: You'd expect an album by a couple to include more love songs. This record sounds more like a lovers' tiff...
JL: I think the back and forth nature of the lyrics have that feeling but it's more just like our conversation. We say that we've been having a five-year long conversation - sometimes it gets nasty, you know? Sometimes it gets real, sometimes it gets romantic and sometimes it's awkward. And we didn't want to creep out our friends by writing a bunch of gooey love songs.
Q: When it came to naming the band Jenny And Johnny, who decided that Jenny's name would come first?
JR: The way that I feel about it is that even though we're living in a world where women are [equal] which is a great thing I still like it when your boyfriend holds the door for you...
JL: ...Or insists on carrying your bag...
Q: You're holding the door for Jenny...
JR: That's what I like to think of it as!
JL: I like to think of it more like that
Queen Latifah song [1990's Ladies First].
(Starts crooning: "Oooh, ladies first. Ladies first. Ooh!"). Gosh!
Q: She & Him, Belle & Sebastian, there's a ladies first pattern emerging...
JR: That's true. I've never thought of it that way.
JL: Him & She... that wouldn't have worked.
JR: And it was always
Nancy Sinatra And Lee Hazelwood.
JL: But it's
Johnny And June!
JR:
And... it's
Sonny And Cher. I'd have to shrink and she'd have to grow... But we think of it more as bland, blank names. I mean they
are our names, but we like to think of it as x and y, a and b. Any girl could be a Jenny, any boy could be a Johnny. It's interchangeable.
Q: You used to record as Johnathan...
JR: Well I'm both Johnathan and Johnny. I get called Johnny a lot more now! Jenny was in a band called
Rilo Kiley and many hours were spent just explaining the pronunciation of the name, the meaning of the name...
JL: [affects New Jersey Mafioso accent] "'ey? You Rilo?"
JR: Rilo Kiley were playing a massive venue opening for
Coldplay. The announcer goes, "Let's get the opener in here. Three cheers to Rilo!" Jenny was like poor Darius Rucker [of
Hootie & The Blowfish]. "There's Hootie!"
Q: Are the Rilo Kiley days over? Do you have more plans for Jenny And Johnny?
JL: Yeah, we don't have any plans. Other than getting a Christmas tree.
JR: We really need to get a Christmas tree.
Q: Jenny, you've collaborated with Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard, The Killers' Brandon Flowers, Elvis Costello - are you in competition with Jack White?
JL: I definitely have a reckless nature. And I don't have a day job so it's kind of boring up there in the Canyon unless you're writing. And I feel privileged to be able to do so. If people call and I like their tunes, typically I'll come and sing.
Q: What's been your favourite project that you've been involved with?
JL: I guess there was something really magical when the first
Postal Service record came out.
JR: You mean the only Postal Service record.
JL: Oh yeah. There was just this palpable sense of excitement from the audience although we played these tiny shows it was just jumping. It was the first time I'd done anything away from Rilo Kiley and it gave me the confidence to then continue along my own path. Ben [Gibbard] said, "You can do this". He the lead guitar player and me the back-up singer; he had complete faith in me. It gave me a lot of courage for all the other things I would try to do.
Q: What are your favourite songs on the record?
JR: I really like
Scissor Runner because it was like the birth of the album. It was the first we had written as Jenny And Johnny. I like the feeling I get when we play it. I like
Big Wave.
JL: We like Scissor Runner.
JR: And
Switchblade.
Q: Switchblade and Big Wave are like theme songs for the recession...
JL: Yeah they both are. Switchblade has a certain lost innocence to it. I wrote that one.
Q: Finally, what are Jenny And Johnny's favourite duos?
JR: Bush and Cheney.
JL: The all-time low.
JR: It's just such an amazing duo because they're fucking idiots.
JL: Gallagher and his lesser known evil brother...
(Q wonders which brother is lesser known) No! No! Not
that Gallagher. The Gallagher with the watermelon.
(Asks Q who looks confused) You know the comedian?
JR: Quite a famous American comedian.
JL: His whole schtick is smashing a watermelon with a sledgehammer and it's gonna get all over you. And his brother was apparently out doing "Gallagher" shows and the original Gallagher had to do a cease and desist... So Gallagher And Gallagher. But also the
other Gallaghers.
JR: Musically, the
White Stripes are probably my favourite.
JL: I really like
Ian & Sylvia. Chocolate and peanut butter. Dark chocolate. And peanut butter? Wooooooh.
JR: Lil Wayne had a weird one: hot sex and cold wine.
JL: Hmmm. I don't like white wine.
JR: See to me that belies a lack of cultural awareness of wine.
JL: Well, it only works if you're talking about white wine. Not if you're all
(winks at Johnny): "Let me buy you a Bordeaux
baby!"
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