by Chad Bowar

Juliette Lewis has been famous since the late ‘80s for her roles in movies such as Christmas Vacation, Kalifornia, Natural Born Killers and Strange Days. These days Lewis is still acting, but she’s shifted her main focus to music. With her band The Licks she released an EP “Like A Bolt Of Lightning” and a full-length called “You’re Speaking My Language”. Lewis is no rookie to the music side of things, having recorded songs for several movie soundtracks, but she decided to pursue it full blast a couple of years ago. Juliette And The Licks are a rock and roll band with some punk
influences. Lewis writes the lyrics and melodies for the group, and commands the stage with her high energy antics. They toured Europe over the summer and played in several festivals. Lewis also hosted the Kerrang Awards in England. Definitely not a diva, Lewis has had no problem adjusting to life in vans and tour buses and is enjoying her time on the road.

Juliette was plied with food, drink and several rounds of bowling and then cornered her for some questioning.

Looking at your tour itinerary, you went from San Francisco to Iceland to New York. Is that tough to adjust to?
Juliette Lewis: It’s just life in the Licks. There was a festival in Iceland. We’ve been playing a lot of festivals abroad and that one fit in. We lost a lot of sleep and we just refuel and go on.

Had you been to Iceland before?
Never. We did get to stop at the famous Blue Lagoon, which are these famous hot springs where you put mud all over yourself. We stopped there before we went to the airport.

You just finished touring Europe and Japan. Do you notice much of a difference in the fan response from country to country?
It’s universal. We get all different kinds of people because of my background as an actress. In the beginning we would get a lot of the curiosity factor, but the more shows we played, the reputation got out that we have a mean and exciting rock and roll show. Then you get people coming back for seconds and thirds. Now we’ve developed quite a nice following abroad because we’ve played much more this year. We’ve been there three times. Festival audiences are so exciting because you have people there to see all kinds of different bands. We’ve been on the bill with Franz Ferdinand, Foo Fighters, Queens Of The Stone Age and groups like that. In Budapest we played in front of 20,000 people and nobody left, so we did our job. It’s pretty spectacular. Then we played a little club tour that we headlined and during the last run, people were singing the songs. It’s neat to see inch by inch our work being paid off.

Speaking of, your onstage intensity and energy is already becoming legendary. Is it difficult to keep up that high of a level night after night?
Sometimes I tell myself I’m just going to sing the songs tonight, but it never happens. I’ve got to contort and move. The music revs my engine all night. I want to move the crowd and pick them up. We put on a
pretty fast paced live show. There are some dynamics now that we’ve expanded the live set, so it’s not all fast.

Have your songs evolved from the way you recorded them to the way you perform them live?
We’re definitely a live show band, so you get an extra punch in our music. As songwriters we’ve really developed. Our EP was designed to capture the live feel. It was ferocious rock. The full-length has more dynamics. There are a couple ballads and I use more of my masculine and feminine energies.

Are you able to write songs while on the road?
We try. Last tour we were on the road for two months and we added a new song to the mix. We do write on the road. I try to write lyrics and melody. If it’s ready enough we set it up. That’s the fulfillment of music. You can write it on a Monday and perform it on a Saturday and see how the crowd likes it.

It’s not like making movies where you have to wait two years for it to come out.
Exactly! And the quality control is all within my own hands. A film is much more collaborative of an experience. I help to tell the filmmaker and the writer’s story. The music is all my creative voice. It’s very ‘do it yourself’ and this is what I really respond to. It’s hard, but I think it’s more fulfilling in the long run when you can get things done and not have to rely on
corporations or other people.

So why did you pick this particular time in your life to embark on a musical career?
It was just this undying hunger in the pit of my stomach with a push from a friend of mine that I used to write songs with. I developed enough tenacity and fearlessness at this age that I wouldn’t have possessed at 20. I wouldn’t have had the tenacity that it takes to get through. You really have to be in it for the long haul. It requires a lot of energy to oversee everything. There’s no label, there’s no management company. It will only go off of me and my band’s needs.

Do you have a timetable for the next studio album?
For us it’s all about the next record. We’re free agents for now. We don’t have a label. We did a one off with an independent label. There are so many things I want to do in music, from collaborations to developing as a songwriter and being more adventurous in the production. I think we’ve got the live show nailed down, but even that I would want to grow and change in the future. This December we will write our record and I hope to record in February.

A producer?
Yes, but I don’t want to say who it is yet. The first album I didn’t want a producer because I wanted to find out who we are. I didn’t want anybody else’s influence of what they thought we should sound like. I think the first record has a vibe. There are strong songs, but it’s definitely imperfect. I think it’s a strong first record. The next record I want someone else’s flavor. I want someone who can help execute my ideas in the studio better than I could.

I wanted to ask about I Love The ‘80s on VH-1. It looks like you really enjoyed doing those shows.
It was so great. I didn’t do much for the ‘90s version because I didn’t love the ‘90s, I loved the ‘80s. It was such a fun show. Where else do you get to walk down memory lane and talk about stuff from when you were a kid?

Back in those days, what type of music did you listen to?
I ran the gamut because I’m a girl who loves identities. I went through many different musical identities: New Order, The Art Of Noise, The Cure, The Police. Neil Young has been a mainstay. His songwriting is great and he plays mean guitar solos. I went through a ‘60s music phase listening to Janis Joplin and The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. Then I got into jazz. Only recently I got into Lucinda Williams. I’m just a music lover through and through.

The Ipod is a perfect invention for you, then.
It is, but I haven’t really figured it out. I still carry around a billion CDs and my CD player. One of these days I’ll advance to the new technology.

Any movie projects you’re working on?
I’m doing fewer movies, but I have not said goodbye to filmmaking. I really want to work with strong filmmakers, because that’s where I started. I did a movie with Jennifer Garner called Catch And Release a couple months ago. That will be out next April. It’s really a strong movie and I’ll be excited when it comes out.

Is The Darwin Awards movie you’re in ever going to be released?
I know! This is a little independent movie. It’s such an amazingly funny movie. I don’t know when it will come out. With these smaller, more interesting films it’s always a crapshoot if they get seen. It’s a great cast: Joseph Fiennes, Winona Ryder and David Arquette and some other people.

Do you have any plans to capture the energy of your live show with a DVD or live album?
That’s another thing I’ve got to wrangle up. We’ve had people film us here and there. I definitely want to release a live DVD and/or a live CD. I have a fantasy of putting that out before the other full-length record. It’s just a matter of compiling it and getting it together.

Is there anything else?
I’d just encourage everyone to come to a Licks show. Keep on rocking in the free world!

julietteandthelicks.com

2005 “You’re Speaking My Language” (Fiddler)
2005 “Like A Bolt Of Lightning” (Fiddler)