Rilo Kiley gets ‘Adventurous’

Poised to become the next big thing in indie rock, Rilo Kiley will perform at the 9:30 Club on Saturday

Date published: 5/26/2005

By EMILY GILMORE

Rilo Kiley is not satisfied just with teetering on the brink of becoming the next big thing in indie rock.

Besides touring seven or eight months this year to spread word of their latest album, last year’s “More Adventurous,” all four bandmates are involved in other projects that eat up their downtime.

Guitarist Blake Sennett, a former child actor known as Ronnie Pinsky on Nickelodeon’s “Salute Your Shorts” and bully Harley Keiner’s skinny sidekick Joey the Rat on “Boy Meets World,” has his own solo project, The Elected. The group released an album on Sub Pop Records last year.

Rilo Kiley singer Jenny Lewis, also a former child actor, has collaborated with Death Cab for Cutie offshoot The Postal Service and is readying a solo album.

Jason Boesel pulls drumming duty for indie-rock royalty Bright Eyes when he’s not playing with Rilo Kiley, and bassist Pierre de Reeder also is working on an LP of his own.

How do they all balance their disparate endeavors?

“I don’t know, to be honest with you,” Boesel said in a recent phone interview. “It’s difficult, and you make it work as you go along.”

Tours sometimes coincide, so the musicians can’t always do everything, “but sometimes it works out perfectly,” Boesel said.

He fit in one tour with Bright Eyes earlier this year, but his duties with Rilo Kiley will prevent him from participating in Bright Eyes’ current tour.

Rilo Kiley decided to tour together as much as possible on the release of “Adventurous,” Boesel said, and they embarked on an aggressive national headlining run at the end of last month.

Between shows in New York City and Norfolk, Rilo Kiley will stop at the 9:30 Club in Washington on Saturday.

Song selections will include tracks from the group’s previous two albums—2001’s “Take-Offs and Landings” and 2002’s “The Execution of All Things”—but the show will be “weighted heavily” toward “Adventurous,” Boesel said.

By the end of the tour, the group will have played 41 shows in 53 days, which means performing the same songs over and over and over again.

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Date published: 5/26/2005