Photo courtesy of Rilo Kiley
Rilo Kiley
Rilo Kiley
When Rilo Kiley got an invitation to play a festival a couple years ago, guitarist Blake Sennett had to reacquaint himself with songs like “Dreamworld,” “With Arms Outstretched” and “Portions for Foxes” that he hadn’t played for years. When the ‘00’s indie rock band that paired Jenny Lewis’s sweet, emotional lyrics and melodies with knotty, buzzing guitar reunited for a tour last summer, Sennett had to take an even closer dive into the songs he did a quarter century ago.
“They feel like someone else did this, like my core is the same human being, but they were written and produced, recorded, and they exist by virtue of a totally different person, me, so long ago, 20-25 years ago,” Sennett said in a recent interview.
“I was able to approach them as though they weren't mine at all. They were someone else's, and it was my job to honor them and make them as beautiful as I could—and try not to mess up the part,” he elaborated. “I feel in awe of what we were able to do so many years ago. Thanks, younger Blake, for this.”
Rave Reviews
Sennett has done just that, playing the Rilo Kiley catalog beautifully since the band’s reunion tour began last summer, their shows drawing rave reviews, topping their best of the oughts.
Child actors Lewis and Sennett, who were boyfriend and girlfriend, put their acting careers on hold to form Rilo Kiley in 1998, and after an EP—and some TV work together—they released their debut album Take Offs and Landings in 2001.
While on tour in San Francisco that year, Rilo Kiley met Tim Kasher of Cursive, who invited the Californians to join them on the cross-country drive to their next gig in Iowa. Along the way, they stopped in Nebraska, where they met producer Mike Mogis and Rilo Kiley decided to record their next album with him and work with the Omaha-based indie label Saddle Creek Records.
Omaha Sound
The result of channeling the “Omaha sound” in Mogis’ studio was The Execution of All Things, their 2002 breakthrough album. Then came the band’s Warner Brothers debut, 2004’s More Adventurous. In 2007, Rilo Kiley released Under the Blacklight and played their last live show before this year in 2008. By 2011, however, Sennett had declared the band dead, and in 2014 they officially broke up.
The reunion had its impetus five years ago when Lewis and Sennett began to heal the rift that broke them up as a couple and led to the end of the band. “Jenny and I talked about it when we did this little version of a song called ‘Let Me Back In’ for a benefit during COVID time over Zoom,” Sennett said. “We had kind of touched on this idea, just briefly. Then we kind of left it alone and thought ‘Yeah, that's something that could happen at some point.’ Then the universe reached out.”
The reaching out came in the form of an invitation to play last year's Just Like Heaven festival. That show went well, raising the possibility of a reunion tour. “Why not go celebrate the legacy and see each other again, sort of indulge ourselves in the privilege that was afforded to us, which is to play these great songs that we wrote that mean so much to us?” Sennett asked.
Rilo Kiley’s received rave reviews, playing to packed houses filled with fans anxious to hear the old songs. That reception makes it feel like Rilo Kiley will continue as a touring entity. But will there be new songs for the fans to hear the next time they come around? “I think we're just taking it one tour at a time, having fun, appreciating what we've done and not thinking too much about the future and seeing what’s meant to be,” Sennett said. “I don't know but never say never. But it could. It could go either way again.”
Rilo Kiley perform 8 p.m. May 28, at the Riverside Theater.
