Rilo Kiley

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Rilo Kiley
Rilo Kiley playing at the Marquee in March 2005.
Background information
Origin	California, USA
Genre(s)	Alternative rock Indie rock
Years active	1998—present
Label(s)	Brute/Beaute Records Saddle Creek Records Barsuk Records
Associated acts	The Elected Jenny Lewis The Watson Twins The Postal Service
Website	rilokiley.com
Members
Jenny Lewis Blake Sennett Pierre de Reeder Jason Boesel

Rilo Kiley is a Los Angeles-based rock band. They have released three albums, all of which include country, folk, and pop sensibilities. Fronted by former child actors Jenny Lewis (Troop Beverly Hills, The Wizard) and Blake Sennett (Salute Your Shorts, Boy Meets World), the band originally signed with Barsuk Records, an independent label, for their first full-length album, Take-Offs and Landings, in 2001. Rilo Kiley went on to sign with Omaha's Saddle Creek Records and released The Execution of All Things in 2002. In 2004, they released More Adventurous on their own imprint, Brute/Beaute Records, which was distributed by major label Warner Bros.. The band later signed directly with Warner Bros.

They have sold nearly 75,000 records in three years and toured the United States repeatedly. Lewis sings lead vocals and shares writing credits with guitarist/vocalist Sennett, who provides lead vocals for some songs. The band also features Pierre de Reeder on bass and Jason Boesel on drums.

2004 saw a great increase in recognition for the band, as Sennett and Boesel released an album with their band The Elected and Lewis sang backup on Ben Gibbard's indie electronic Death Cab for Cutie side project The Postal Service. Lewis toured with The Postal Service before heading out on two tours in support of Rilo Kiley's More Adventurous in the summer and fall of 2004. The album spent late 2004 high on Billboard Magazine's Heatseekers Chart, and promoted with high-visibility appearances on the Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel Live. The band opened for Bright Eyes on the international leg of Conor Oberst's tour for 2005's I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning.

In May of 2005, Jenny Lewis announced in an interview that Rilo Kiley had signed with Warner Bros. and that the label is preparing to re-release More Adventurous. An exact release date has not been set, she says. In fall 2005, Rilo Kiley was the opening act for the North American dates of Coldplay's Twisted Logic Tour.

Jenny Lewis released her first solo album in January of 2006, with Leigh and Chandra Watson (aka The Watson Twins). The album is titled Rabbit Fur Coat and was co-produced by M. Ward and Mike Mogis.

The group's songs have frequently been used on television programs. In 2005, their song "Portions For Foxes" appeared on the pilot episode of hit TV show Grey's Anatomy.

In an October 2006 interview with Billboard.com, Jenny Lewis reported "Rilo Kiley is well on its way towards finishing its fourth album". The California quintet has supposedly recorded 20 songs for the follow-up to 2004's More Adventurous. Lewis predicted that Rilo Kiley's album will come out some time during the first half of 2007.[1]

1 Origin of the name
- 1.1 Theories given by band members
- 1.2 Theories of others
2 Band members
3 Discography
4 Trivia
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Origin of the name

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Over time, the group members and fans of Rilo Kiley have speculated and asserted many different, and conflicting, stories that explain the origin of the name "Rilo Kiley." Since there is no official explanation of the name, speculation continues.

[edit] Theories given by band members

Pierre and Jason both insist that "Rilo Kiley" has no real meaning.^{[citation needed]}
Former drummer Dave Rock once claimed during a radio interview that Rilo Kiley was the name of a pair of Siamese twins from the early 20th century and that they picked it as the name because the bandmembers were close.^{[citation needed]}
In February 2002, while on tour in Philadelphia for Take-Offs and Landings, Jenny Lewis said in an interview with PETA that the origin of the name was a dream Blake had, in which an Irish man named Rilo Kiley told him "when [Jenny] would die". When asked, "Well, when will you die, then?", Jenny responded: "He never told me, so it could be tomorrow, five years, twenty... Who knows?" Other band members weren't present to comment upon the subject.^{[citation needed]}
On the syndicated radio show Loveline in August 2005, Sennett explained that he had a dream where he was being chased by a sports almanac and "when it got me, I leafed through it...and I came upon an Australian-rules football player from the 19th century named Rilo Kiley, it's kinda embarrassing." When asked by co-host Drew Pinsky if he had ever seen this name in reality, Sennett said "I don't think so, I don't think that character exists...If you Google 'Rilo Kiley' you just come back with a bunch of pictures of us." On how this imaginary name became the name for the band: "I wrote it down on a blotter, an office desk when I woke up, and, I don't know, I came back to it when we were trying to think of a name and we thought we'd use that for one show then change it, 'cause who'd want that name? Who can remember that anyway?" [2]
In 2005, Blake told Planet Sound Teletext Magazine that the name came from a Scottish athlete.
On a 2005 episode of the MSNBC entertainment show Hotlist, the female host states that the name "Rilo Kiley" comes from "old Scottish sports almanacs." In the interview segment that follows, Sennett states, "We just looked in there and the name of one of the star players from the turn of the century was Rilo Kiley."

[edit] Theories of others

The theories of many of the band's fans are viewed by some as an interesting part of the band's mystique.

Some have claimed that the name is a reversal of the common Irish name Kyle O'Riley^{[citation needed]} although, since it is extremely rare to find either the first name "Kyle" or the non-standard spelling "O'Riley" in Ireland, this explanation is unlikely.
There have been claims that it was the name of a Scottish architect.^{[citation needed]}
An article in Performer Magazine (2001) states that the band got their name from the tragic tale of two exiled, gay, high school football players, Ben Rilo and Stephen Kiley, who committed suicide in 1909 on the railroad tracks just outside of their Midwestern town after making love for the last time. As a tribute to the two young men the band members adopted the name Rilo Kiley, which is also the name of the crossing where the two young men met their end.

[edit] Band members

Jenny Lewis (vocals, keyboards, guitar)
Blake Sennett (guitar, vocals)
Pierre de Reeder (bass guitar, keyboards, vocals)
Jason Boesel (drums, percussion)

Honorary Member (Utility Musician)

Mike "the Caveman" Bloom (guitar, slide guitar, keyboards, percussion)

Former members

Dave Rock (drums, percussion)

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

Take-Offs and Landings [CD] (2001, Barsuk)
The Execution of All Things [CD & LP] (2002, Saddle Creek)
More Adventurous [CD & LP] (2004, Brute/Beaute)

[edit] EPs

Rilo Kiley (first pressing, 1999, Rilo Records)
Rilo Kiley (second pressing, 2000, Rilo Records)
The Initial Friend E.P. (2001, Rilo Records)
Live at Fingerprints EP (2004, Brute/Beaute)

[edit] Singles

"Science vs. Romance/About the Moon" [7"] (2001, Falsetto Records, FR002)
"After Hours" [Split 7" with Bright Eyes and Sorry About Dresden] (2002, Devil In The Woods, issue #4.3)
"The Execution of All Things/Emotional (Until Crickets Guide You Back)/After Hours" [7" & CD] (2003, Saddle Creek, SCE-56)
"Portions for Foxes/A Town Called Luckey" [CD] (2005, Brute/Beaute, Warner Brothers)
"Portions for Foxes/American Wife/Portions For Foxes (video)" [CD] (2005, Brute/Beaute, Warner Brothers)
"It's a Hit/Patiently" [7" & CD] (2005, Brute/Beaute, Warner Brothers)
"It's A Hit/Simply Irresistible" [CD] (2005, Warner Brothers)

[edit] Compilations

Saddle Creek 50 (2002, Saddle Creek) songs: "With Arms Outstretched," "Jenny, You're Barely Alive"
Treats (2003, Barsuk Records) song: "Pictures of Success"

[edit] Trivia

Both Blake Sennett and Jenny Lewis contributed to the UNICEF benefit song, "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?".
Pierre de Reeder contributed a t-shirt design to the Yellow Bird Project and the band chose to direct the funds to the Elliott Smith memorial fund.
The songs "It Just Is" and "Ripchord" are rumored to be about Elliott Smith.
They were the first band not from Omaha, Nebraska to be accepted into the Saddle Creek family.
Blake used to play drums for a San Diego goth/hardcore band called The Caustic Truth; Pierre was also in the band [3].
In an interview with NPR's All Songs Considered, Jenny Lewis remarked that she wanted to name the group Love's Way (after her parents' lounge act in Las Vegas), but Blake "didn't go for it."[4]
The Initial Friend E.P. songs "Frug" and "85" were used during a third season episode of Dawson's Creek (#46, "Barefoot At Capefest"). Of this, Jenny Lewis said, "We felt honored and grateful to have our music on a show with the integrity and credibility that Dawson's Creek has so rightly earned. We feel proud also that they chose to play our songs during such poignant points in the episode." [5]
Rilo Kiley's song "Troubadours" was featured in Be My Valentine, Franny Canada, a 2003 Ragtag Productions short film about (fictitious) former child actors from the 80's loosely based on Punky Brewster. Their music may have been selected due to band members Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett's former child star status. "Teenage Love Song" was featured in Teenage Superhero Pregnancy Scare, another Ragtag Productions short film. (The films can be downloaded here.)
Rilo Kiley's music has been featured on Fox's hit show The O.C..
The song "Pictures of Success" was used in episode #114 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, entitled "Older and Far Away".
Rilo Kiley's song "American Wife" was featured on a UNICEF Tsunami Relief double disc album. [6]
"I Never" from More Adventurous, was used in the film Must Love Dogs, with John Cusack and Diane Lane.
"Ripchord" from More Adventurous accompanied the sex scene in Hans Canosa's 2005 film Conversations with Other Women.
Rilo Kiley's song "With Arms Outstretched" is featured in the pilot of the Showtime original series Weeds.
Rilo Kiley's song "I Never" was featured during a romantic scene in the 2006 teen flick "John Tucker Must Die"

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Saddle Creek Records
Artists
Azure Ray \| Beep Beep \| Bright Eyes \| Broken Spindles \| Criteria \| Cursive \| Desaparecidos \| Eric Bachmann \| The Faint \| The Good Life Ladyfinger (ne) \| Maria Taylor \| Mayday \| Neva Dinova \| Now It's Overhead \| Orenda Fink \| Son, Ambulance \| Sorry About Dresden \| Two Gallants
Related artists
The '89 Cubs \| The Bruces \| Commander Venus \| Consafos \| Gabardine \| Head of Femur \| Little Brazil \| Lullaby for the Working Class \| Park Ave. Polecat \| Rilo Kiley \| Slowdown Virginia \| Smashmouth \| Tilly and the Wall \| We'd Rather Be Flying \| The White Octave \|
Related topics
The Cog Factory \| Conor Oberst \| Lagniappe \| Mike Mogis \| Music of Nebraska \| Presto! Recording Studios \| Robb Nansel \| Saddle Creek 50 Simon Joyner \| Sokol Auditorium \| Spend an Evening with Saddle Creek \| Team Love Records \| Tim Kasher

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