Q&A: Jenny Lewis

Who are your country-music heroes?
The first songs I learned how to sing were by Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. The darker the tale, the more I was drawn to them. Songs like "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" — that one definitely appealed to me. Later, I gravitated toward the California country — Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, even the Eagles. They looked at the darker sides of Los Angeles.

I read somewhere that you were once a big hip-hop fan.
I was just rebelling against my mother's record collection. I loved narratives like N.W.A's "Straight Outta Compton" and, of course, "Fuck Tha Police." I can hear that influence on "Fernando," a song on my new record. It's got a Lil Wayne-inspired flow.

The album's called "Acid Tongue." You like to drop acid?
When I was 14 or 15, I took acid, and it culminated in a scene like one from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas — the scene where Hunter S. Thompson has to lock the lawyer in the bathroom. I was the Hunter character, because my friend decided to pull out a butcher knife and chase me around the house.

When and where do you write songs?
In line at the post office, convenience stores, stuck in traffic . . . I write a lot in public restrooms because the acoustics are great. "Happy," from my last album, I wrote in a bathroom. I've talked about installing a proper bathroom in the house, with a urinal and stalls.

Does your former life as a child actor ever intersect with your life as a musician?
Not really, although I remember about five or six years ago, Rilo Kiley was playing a gig at the Troubadour. And afterward I got this note that said, "Dear Jenny, I'm sure people always ask you what it was like working with Fred Savage. Love, Fred Savage." [The two starred in a kiddie flick, 1989's The Wizard.] That's as much contact as I've had with my previous life.

[From Issue 1062 — October 2, 2008]

• More from Issue 1062
• Jenny Lewis Tells the Smoking Section About Her Lone LSD Trip
• Review: Acid Tongue