Jenny Lewis

On touring with Harry Styles, living in Nashville, the importance of failure, and her excellent new album

-  ANGIE MARTOCCIO

Jenny lewis knows she's not a real Southerner. "Let's be honest," the 47-year-old indie-rock icon says on a Zoom call. "I'm a Jewish girl from the Valley, transplanted in East Nashville. I'm not an outlaw at all." It's true: In Tennessee, where Lewis has been splitting her time with L.A. since 2017, the only law she breaks is smoking weed. She's also allergic to horses. And bonfires. "I'm the nerdiest, wimpiest Nashvillian," she confirms. Even so, Lewis' new album, Joy'All, is her Nashville Skyline moment, full of cozy melodies and lush pedal steel guitar. There's even a song titled "Giddy Up." And during our interview, she drops wisdom like a local in a porch rocking chair. "You can look outward," she says. "But really, you got to get on your pony and ride on out."

On 2021's "Puppy and a Truck," you sang, "My forties are kicking my ass/ And handing them to me in a margarita glass." Do you still feel like your forties are kicking your ass?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, my twenties and thirties were kicking my ass. That's just my karma. Every 10 years, something major happens in my life and I melt down, but I persevere. Now, people can forever figure out how old I am, because I say [in the song], "I'm 44 in 2020." So all you have to do is the math.

How did getting a puppy and a truck change you?