For her first solo album, Jenny Lewis has reached back to an early '70s country- gospel inspiration. The Rilo Kiley founder tells Kevin Courtney about the jump from indie to mainstream success

YOU can always tell when a band is trying too hard to replicate its favourite album. The Stone Roses' Second Coming, for instance, is too obviously Led Zeppelin 2 and a Half, while The Darkness's new one could be renamed A (Boring) Night at the Opera.

Jenny Lewis's first solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat, is inspired by an album her mother used to own. If you guessed (correctly) that it was Laura Nyro and Labelle's Gonna Take a Miracle from 1971, then there's probably a job for you here at the super, soaraway Ticket.

Nyro was a singer-songwriter who was tipped for greatness but eclipsed by another folky lady from Canada named Joni Mitchell. Nyro's passion for r'n'b led to a collaboration with the Labelle sisters on an album of sweet folk-soul. Thirty-five years years later Lewis, the fiery red-headed singer with Rilo Kiley, has teamed up with identical twins Chandra and Leigh Watson to make an album of sweet country-gospel - and it could very well save your soul.

"Gonna Take a Miracle was my favourite record listening to growing up, and I wanted to pay homage to that record," says Lewis. "It was in my mother's record collection; it was her favourite record too. I think the singing, Nyro with the Labelle sisters - there's just something really lovely about the two worlds colliding, this white folk movement and this incredibly wonderful gospel music.

"So when I started putting these songs together, I kept thinking about that record, and bringing the Watson twins along. They sang on an early Rilo Kiley 7-inch, and they played one show with us years ago, and I just always remember really enjoying singing with them.

"There's something nice about women singing together. I've been singing with Ben and Blake for so long, that I wanted to sing with some girls. I don't know if I would have had the confidence to do it without them."

Lewis is in Dublin to promote her debut solo effort, a record she only got round to making because: a) she had some money left over from touring with Rilo Kiley; b) she wanted to get the songs recorded before she lost interest in them; and c) because Conor Oberst from Bright Eyes told her to.

"Well, actually, Conor asked me a couple of years ago to make the record. At the time he asked me I thought, well, I'm in this band and I'm touring all the time, I couldn't possibly make the record. Then we were recording the last Rilo Kiley record, and in the studio I started writing a couple of songs, and I wanted to record them before they became meaningless to me."

It's hard to imagine such fine, poignant songs as Big Guns, Happy, Melts Your Heart and Rise Up with Fists becoming meaningless anytime soon. Even if the lyrics weren't already crammed with insightful tales and incisive ideas, Lewis's lovely voice would be reason enough to put Rabbit Fur Coat on the CD player. The added harmonies of Kentucky's Watson twins only add to the album's haunting allure. Lewis laid down the tracks in short stints over eight months, and numerous friends from the US indie scene were recruited to help out. These included Oberst, Ben Gibbard of The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie and M Ward, along with major label buddies James Valentine and Mickey Madden from Maroon 5.

"I think because I have participated in their music - I play with Ben Gibbard, and I played in Bright Eyes - and we're all on the same label, so I think it just made sense. But with the guys from Maroon 5, James and Mickey, we'd never gotten a chance to play together, so it was really nice to know them in a different way. I think they come from a different world.

"The American independent rock movement is really about touring for the most part, making records quickly and cheaply, and playing music with your friends, while the major label world is quite separate. But within both camps exist amazing musicians. At least my friends in both worlds are willing to experience both."

Moving between worlds is something Lewis has been doing all her life. She was born into a showbiz family in Las Vegas; her parents had a cabaret double act called Love's Way. Alas, Love's Way went their separate ways, and Jenny's mom took her daughter and the Laura Nyro records to LA. Jenny became a child actress, debuting in a Jell-O commercial in the mid-1980s, graduating to TV roles in The Golden Girls, Murder, She Wrote, The Twilight Zone and Baywatch, and appearing in numerous teen films too forgettable to recount. Her biggest movie was 1998's Pleasantville.

A year later she formed Rilo Kiley with guitarist/singer Blake Sennett, bassist Pierre de Reeder and drummer Dave Rock. Rock was later replaced by Jason Boesel, and the band's debut album, Take-Offs and Landings, received a rapturous response from critics. With 2002's The Execution of All Things and 2004's More Adventurous, the band have set their sights beyond east LA's indie clique and towards bigger, global targets.

For the most part, Lewis ignores the indie-corporate rock divide. She's seen Oberst move from cult hero to chart contender and one of her favourite north-western bands, Modest Mouse, make a clean transition from the underground to the mainstream, with neither compromising their music. So she's all for taking the major-label buck and running with it. "You might as well take 'em for all they're worth and offer up some good music to the people rather than the crap that you hear on the radio."

Turn on your wireless over the next few weeks, and you might hear a familiar song being performed by some not-so-familiar voices. Lewis's cover of The Travelling Wilburys' Handle with Care sees Oberst, Gibbard and Ward taking over from Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne, and Jenny giving the lead vocals a fragile, feminine touch.

"I was afraid of covering it initially. That song tends to divide people. People younger than myself assume that I wrote it, which is so strange, that they don't know that song. Or maybe they heard it when their parents played Travelling Wilbury records. And then there are the huge George Harrison fans and Dylan fans who say how dare you? How could you? That song is perfect. It is a great, vulnerable song, and that's why I chose it, because I thought lyrically it stood well with the other songs on the record.

"And then, with casting the parts, it became ridiculous, and it made me chuckle."

Rabbit Fur Coat is out now on Rough Trade Records