Jenny Lee Lindberg has been the subject of cult fandom ever since she emerged as the bass player for Warpaint in 2008.
The Los Angeles-based musician has now branched out with her first solo LP, Right On! – credited simply to Jennylee. Warpaint are a highly collaborative unit, and the band’s two records serve to showcase each member’s individual personality. Considering her three bandmates have always supported Lindberg’s ideas within the group, you’d imagine she felt a whole lot of pressure crafting Right On! outside it. However, baulking at the pressure simply wasn’t an option.
“This album was birthed in a way that things just happened and I allowed them to happen,” she says. “It was about freedom and freedom of expression and, ‘Don’t overanalyse and don’t criticise and don’t be judgemental and let yourself go and don’t try to control things, don’t give yourself limitations.’
“Being in that mind frame before writing something or being creative, it’s a real good space to be in because things just come flooding. I’m always really pleased with things that I do when I’m operating from that space. So I didn’t feel any pressure, because there was no pressure that I was putting on myself. It was just like, ‘Oh, I’m going to sit down and I’m going to write some stuff.’”
This approach certainly was conducive to productivity – Right On! arrives less than two years after Warpaint’s self-titled second album (which itself took four years to make). However, it’s not as though Lindberg could simply sit down for a few minutes and pull entire songs out of thin air.
“There were times when I’d get a little stuck,” she says. “But what I was very mindful of, if the song wasn’t happening and it wasn’t coming out naturally and I was trying to control it or force it, then I would move on. So I didn’t feel any pressure as far as, ‘Oh no, I’m doing this on my own.’ I was excited to see how far I could actually go with myself.”
Lindberg has been progressively pushing herself into new territory throughout her career. On Warpaint’s debut effort, The Fool, lead vocals were split between guitarists Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman. On Warpaint, Lindberg took the lead for two songs – ‘Disco//Very’ and ‘CC’.
“I’ve been writing music for a long time and a lot of it was either instrumental or vocals were very minimal. I never really had a whole lot of confidence when it came to writing vocals, or even just singing. I didn’t really like my voice for a very long time – I hated my voice actually. Then I just started over the last five years singing more at home, writing more songs. But it was still never with the intention of releasing anything or even sharing.
“[With Right On!] it was really liberating and empowering to just let myself go and be the only person participating in this journey, because it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time and I just got to that point where it was like, ‘I am so ready to do this and go for it.’”
Lindberg’s resolution to act on impulse rather than adhere to an idealised structure has actually been of immense psychological benefit, regardless of the associated creative project.
“Without being too deliberate when singing about it, the record’s overall tone is about me breaking free from my chains that I’ve created for myself and changing my belief system that I have about myself and what I’m capable of and what I can do,” she says. “There’s programmed beliefs since I was little – things that I’ve always thought – that are false. They’re not right and they’ve also held me back, but it’s also been because I’m a little fireball and I’m not a quitter and I don’t usually give up on things. For the most part, I’ve been fighting myself on that for many, many years. One part of me is like, ‘No, you can’t do that. Don’t worry about it.’ And the other part is like, ‘No, don’t listen to that voice. You absolutely can do that.’ So it’s been an internal conflict for many years.”
Lindberg has taken some big steps forward – the groove-heavy, post-punk-indebted Right On! is a testament to this – but she doesn’t pretend to have reached ultimate equilibrium.
“I’m sure I will continue to [have internal conflicts], but this was a good step in the right direction in terms of coming to terms with wanting to strive for excellence. There’s a lot that I have in my head – there’s a lot of ideas, there’s a lot of creative energy going around, there’s a lot of things I want to express, there’s lots of things I want to make. I feel like I’m actually living my life when I follow through with those things, but it’s hard to do that when you tell yourself you can’t do it all the time.
“I was like, ‘It’s time for those voices to go away. It’s time to be a child and operate and express as a child would, and treat yourself as you would your child.’ You’re not going to tell your child that their song they made isn’t good. You’re not going to tell your child that their song sucks and you don’t like their voice. So that’s where I was coming from when I was making this album.”
Jennylee’sRight On! is out Friday December 11 through Rough Trade/Remote Control.
