In 2005 Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice launched their creative alliance when Rice supplied a guest vocal on Lewis’s debut solo effort Rabbit Fur Coat. Lewis answered the gesture by contributing vocals to Rice’s own first solo album Trouble Is Real, and the partnership deepened once Rice joined Lewis’s touring band the next year. After the Rabbit Fur Coat tour concluded, the pair took up residence together in Silverlake, where they turned their attention to several concurrent recordings: Rice’s sophomore album Further North, Lewis’s Acid Tongue, and the Elvis Costello project Momofuku.
While supporting Acid Tongue on the road, they began writing material that moved at a brisker, more pop-inflected pace. Rather than slot the songs onto separate solo releases, they formed the duo Jenny and Johnny and headed to Omaha, NE, spending the winter of 2009 tracking a complete album with Mike Mogis. The project’s first public appearance came one year later with the August release of I’m Having Fun Now.
