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Personally, when I think of LA, I sing a lot Rilo Kiley songs. For those who aren't familiar, Rilo Kiley is an indie rock band formed in 1998 and made up of ex-child actors/childhood friends. Jenny Lewis, the lead singer, started out acting in commercials and ended up in TV shows like Life With Lucy and Growing Pains, and even movies like Troop Beverly Hills and Pleasantville. Blake Sennett was the most successful of the bunch, starring in the amazing early 90's Nickelodeon teen comedy, Salute Your Shorts. His next big break was in '94 in Boy Meets World as the bully of John Adams High School, Joey "The Rat" Epstein.
Jenny and Blake ended up meeting on a film called Don's Plum, which Blake was scoring and Jenny was the female lead. The bassist, Pierre de Reeder, was in a high school band with Blake called Caustic Truth, and thus the beginnings of Rilo Kiley were started. The current line up also features Jason Boesel on the drums and Mike Bloom is the jack-of-all-trades, playing guitar, keyboard, and more.
For those already familiar with Rilo Kiley, the video above is the new single off of their upcoming album, Under the Blacklight. The song is called The Moneymaker, and the video is 12 minutes long, featuring 9 minutes of people being interviewed for a porn film. Yes, a porn film.
It's actually rather interesting seeing them talk about their reasons for starting a career in porn, their wills and wonts, their future aspirations. But if you want to cut to the chase, go ahead and fast forward the video to the 9 minute mark, and the song will start shortly after that.
As for the music itself, I wouldn't say this is their best effort. The basics of the song sound totally borrowed from the history of rock music, and the lyrics aren't particularly deep. But it is nice to see them again, and I'm still extremely excited for their new album, which comes out August 21st on Warner Bros. Records.
What do you guys think?
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i'm a fan of most of rilo kiley's songs, but i gotta say the new song just isn't doing it for me. i'll still give the new album a chance.
the album to really look for this summer is the new one by tegan and sara. this is coming from someone who was not a fan of theirs in the past.
i love it
the song, the good interviews, adn the fact that the blonde is called faye runaway
nice
It's very catchy but a real departure from their usual sound. Should be an interesting album!
I love the new sound they went for. I'm so tired of the sweet indie pop crap when, live, they can obviously amp it up so much more - and are way more musically talented than they've previously recorded.
Now we need some secret LA shows to kick it off.
I really liked the video, thanks Bobby!
I think it's horrible. Another band might be able to pull this off but it's just not Rilo Kiley. It's all fine and good to want to try a new direction, but they've overstepped their bounds w/this one. Jenny Lewis has an amazing voice and the band is phenomenal. This sound, for them, just doesn't work for me.