Poor little rich girl Jenny Lewis

Jenny Lewis

If the past 12 months are any indication, it promises to be a very good year for Jenny Lewis. In 2005, after seven years striving for a breakthrough, her band Rilo Kiley earned rave reviews for their first major-label album More Adventurous, and toured America with Coldplay.

Breaking away temporarily to mark her 30th birthday with a solo album, their flame-haired singer is stepping further into the limelight. With her quirky lyrics and kooky look - all hot pants, knee socks and vintage mini-dresses - the elfin Lewis already has the attributes of a star. Plus she has a heartbreaking, spellbinding voice that has earned comparisons with Loretta Lynn. Throw in a past as a successful child actor, and a talented musician boyfriend eight years her junior (Johnathan Rice) and she would seem to have it all.

Yet, despite having had experience in front of a camera since the age of 3, and having developed a confident stage presence, Lewis seems self-effacing and slightly insecure; someone who admits being overawed when meeting Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Touring with Coldplay in the American Midwest last summer exposed Rilo Kiley to their largest audience. But stories of rock'n'roll debauchery with Martin and Paltrow are in short supply.

"We didn't hang out much with Coldplay but they seemed like nice guys," she shrugs. "I briefly met Gwyneth and I think we're about the same age but..

"I think Chris Martin is younger than I am but when I met him I felt like I was talking to my father. It's so strange, that feeling when someone is that famous - you assume that they are either older or better. Which is ridiculous because... She searches for something more positive to say. "I think they are pretty nice and down to earth really."

Her remarkably assured debut, Rabbit Fur Coat, should surprise even established admirers of Rilo Kiley. Stylistically pursuing the country-got-soul direction of I Never from More Adventurous, it's a distinctly modern take on what Americans call "old-time" country music. Blending elements of country, folk, bluegrass, gospel and soul, it retains a modern feel thanks to songs whose bittersweet and sharply observed lyrics reflect the US's present moral crisis.

Songs such as Born Secular, The Charging Sky and Rise Up With Fists articulate Lewis's confusion at a God-fearing/God-searching America splintering under the weight of religious, racial and economic divisions, while California basks complacently in its shallow obsessions with cash, youth and beauty.

Yet it's far from bleak because there's always a sense of optimism in Lewis' songs of heartbreak - "My friends call me the silver lining!" she laughs.

"Sometimes things feel hopeless. Not always within my own life - but looking outward, it seems like rough times lie ahead of us. The world seems to be kind of caving in on itself in a lot of ways. But I try to look on the bright side." She smiles brightly and offers some downhome wisdom: "There's always a good meal ahead, and hopefully a warm bed."

One song is even called Happy - though it came to her in a sad place. "I was at this old abandoned LA hotel, the Ambassador, where Robert Kennedy was shot," she recalls. "It's been shut for 15 or 20 years but they shoot videos there and I went to see Elvis Costello doing his video for Monkey To Man, which I ended up doing an awkward walk-on cameo in. Anyway, I was really nervous and I went into the kitchen, which is where Kennedy was shot, and there was a little X on the ground where it happened. I was alone in there and there was this great echo in the kitchen and I started singing the melody for what became that song."

Billed as a joint venture between Lewis and the Kentucky-born Watson twins, whose backwoods harmonies could kickstart a whole new genre when their own debut is released later this year, Rabbit Fur Coat also features collaborations with friends such as Conor "Bright Eyes" Oberst, Ben "Death Cab For Cutie" Gibbard and M Ward - all of whom feature on a cover of the Traveling Wilburys' hit Handle With Care - as well as two members of Maroon 5. It was Oberst, whose new Team Love label releases Rabbit Fur Coat in America, who persuaded Lewis to make a solo album in the first place.

Lewis semi-jokes that the album represents her "quarter-life crisis" as she approached her 30th birthday, which she celebrated earlier this month. "The closer I got to it, the less it seemed to matter. But I've made it this far, which is a good thing."

Divorce, drugs and alcohol conspired to make hers a difficult childhood. She was born in Las Vegas, where her parents had a Sonny and Cher tribute act, but she retains no love for her birthplace.

"It's a sham - the worst place on earth," she says. "It feels so desperate."

After her father left when she was 3, Lewis grew up with her mother and sister in the San Fernando Valley, where she worked to supplement her mother's welfare cheques and waitressing tips. She quickly became the family's main breadwinner by acting, first in commercials, later on television, including the final Lucille Ball show Life With Lucy, and finally in films such as Pleasantville, Foxfire and The Wizard.

At home, the all-female household sang around the kitchen table to singers such as Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, Roberta Flack, Laura Nyro and Barbra Streisand. Country music, she recalls, always held a particular appeal: "I'm a fan of good storytelling by great American songwriters. They're always such tragic tales, and also in country music there's often a strong female perspective."

Lewis made her singing debut at her seventh grade graduation at 12, performing Killing Me Softly ("before the Fugees covered it!") in front of her school.

Fronting a band, Lewis finally felt independent. "I think in LA sometimes children are treated as adults in showbusiness so just growing up there was a great weight on my shoulders of responsibility to my family. I don't regret my childhood in any way, and I think it enriched me in some respects, but at a certain point my sanity was the most important thing and I was willing to sacrifice the responsibility.

"I knew it was something I had to do. Just being a teenager, and being looked at by so many people, became uncomfortable.

"You're going through the awkwardness of growing up and people are in director's chairs commenting on it. You're always being judged, and on a superficial level such as your appearance."

She says she could only be tempted back to acting by a part in Larry David's sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm or possibly by Ricky Gervais' show Extras.

Far from keeping up with old acting buddies, Lewis avoids them. "There are some people I don't ever wanna see again but if you live where you grew up, you're running into people constantly. Have you seen Extras? There's this great line where Ricky Gervais says: "That's another person that I'm gonna put on the long list of people that I will try to avoid for the rest of my life."'

Lewis looks up, smiling: "I feel that way about almost everyone."

- INDEPENDENT