JENNY AND JOHNNY

INTERVIEW BY MARY CAPLE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY EMMA HARDY
ASSISTED BY ALICE BULLOUGH
HAIR & MAKE UP BY CELIA BURTON

Jenny and Johnny were photographed at Latitude Festival, Suffolk, England, July 2011

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Mary Caple: Tell me a little about how Jenny and Johnny got started.

Johnny: We met in a stairwell in the East Village.
Jenny: He moved out to LA a few years later and we basically started playing around then.
Johnny: This band started as a lark, pretty much. We like singing together; we wanted to do more of it.

MC: You’re following in the footsteps of many musical couples of the past – would you classify your collaborative relationship as comparable to Johnny Cash and June Carter? Paul and Linda McCartney? Jenny’s parents and their lounge act “Love’s Way”?

Jenny: I’m just repeating what my parents did, over and over and over again.
Johnny: All the other band names we thought of were taken. We were gonna be called “The Pigeon Detectives.” Taken.

MC: Scissor Runner, Switchblade and Straight Edge of the Blade are all songs featured on your album I’m Having Fun Now – is there something about the juxtaposition of sweet-sounding music and darker lyrics that you enjoy?

Johnny: Neither the sweetness nor the darkness are overtly intentional.
I think there’s a sweetness that occurs naturally when we harmonize together, and harmonizing together was the central focus of the songs that made the album. I guess neither one of us is known for fluffiness but I don’t think of the album as super dark. I think a lot of it is kind of funny. There are some lyrical take-downs, though. There were definitely some people in our crosshairs that needed to get dusted.

MC: Does living on the West Coast influence your musical style or are you inspired less by your surroundings and more by a certain time or feeling?

Johnny: It has influenced me greatly. Just the amount of time I have to myself, and together, has made all the difference. Life became super polarized when I came out here. On tour it’s just one long party, endless old friends and new faces, and then when I come back to LA I barely leave the house for months. I used to live in NYC, and every time I started to write a song I would wake up my roommates. As for non-spatial inspiration, yeah, sometimes a song just comes bolt-from-the-blue style, like when I’m unpacking a suitcase in Providence, Rhode Island or something.

Jenny: I’ve pretty much always lived here so I would say I’m West Coast to the bone. However, I have been daydreaming about living somewhere else. We’ve talked about NYC, New Orleans…

MC: I’m Having Fun Now was recorded in the middle of a blizzard in Omaha. How did that affect the recording process? Were you really having fun then?

Jenny: We were looking for an excuse to hang out with Mike Mogis and his family. He’s one of our best friends and the reason Johnny and I know each other is because of him and Conor [Oberst]. He had graciously offered us some studio time and we took him up on it. The blizzard was gnarly for sure. It definitely made us laser-focus on what we were doing, though.

Johnny: Yeah, vocal overdubs and making lasagne.

MC: Omaha seems to hold deep roots for both of you, how did that come about?

Jenny: Rilo Kiley was an all-LA band, of course, but to a certain extent we didn’t feel that we fitted into the music scene when we first started out… But when we went on tour with The Good Life, Tim Kasher’s band from Nebraska there was an instant warmth and kindness and inclusiveness that made us feel so good, and then we met all these other wonderful people when we came through Omaha that we kind of just adopted it as a second home.

Johnny: I met a lot of the Saddle Creek kids when I was living in NYC and they were the nicest people I’d met so far. I remember finishing vocals on my first record in Lincoln, NE while Rilo Kiley was moving their gear into the studio to start recording More Adventurous. That was the beginning of our paths crossing.

MC: Do you foresee a change in Jenny and Johnny’s sound in terms of future recordings or have you found something that feels comfortable for you?

Johnny: At our core, we’re a harmony group, so that’s the only essential component to what we do now and in the future, all the rest is just decoration, and the decor can always change. I could see us making an acoustic album, or at least something super stripped down.

Jenny: That’s always my favorite part of our live show. When we rely mostly on our vocals.

MC: As I understand it, the album’s title was taken from a bumper sticker. As touring musicians and Californians, you must be on the road often. What would be your dream road trip?

Johnny: The drive from LA to Big Sur is one of my favorites.
Jenny: That’s mine, too!
Johnny: Stop following me.
Jenny: No!

MC: Both of you sing on this last album, are the lyrics directed at one another also?

Jenny: Sometimes they are, I think. We kind of approach this project as characters of some sort, so it’s kind of like slipping into another persona altogether.

Johnny: Yeah, Johnathan would never dress like Johnny. That leather jacket? Please…

MC: What has been the major obstacle in both your careers so far?

Johnny: I would say myself, really. It takes a long time to just realize that you’re an entertainer, in the purest sense, and that is your job. Once I realized that, everything got easier. Now I love it.

Jenny: The mind can be an incredibly powerful obstacle. That and the goddamned internet.

MC: If your house was on fire and you had five minutes to evacuate, what would you reach for first?

Jenny: My ‘Pioneer Woman’ award which was given to me by the City of Los Angeles and my twenty shoeboxes filled with lyrics.

Johnny: I’m cool with losing everything. It would suck, but there’s no one thing. I’d make sure Jenny got out of there, of course.

MC: What is next for Jenny and Johnny? How do you visualize the next five years?

Jenny and Johnny: Tour. Album. Tour. Album. Tour. Album. Cooking classes. Dog!