What, her worry? Well, yes

Jenny Lewis, the singer for the Los Angeles band Rilo Kiley, has played just one hometown show before releasing her first solo album, and wouldn’t you know, someone recorded the unannounced set at the Echo last summer and now her new songs are circulating on the Internet.

So will her fans be tired of the music before it comes out on Tuesday?

That’s just one more thing for the inveterate worrier to worry about, but as she closes in on her 30th birthday, she’s finding that it’s not as bad as it used to be.

“I still worry all the time, but there are moments throughout the day where everything feels all right,” she says. “I think you just become a little more comfortable in your own skin the older you get. Hopefully that will continue. Yeah, I feel all right. I think 30’s going to be good.”

Internet leaks notwithstanding, things are looking very good for Lewis. The pre-release word-of-mouth and early reviews for the solo album, “Rabbit Fur Coat,” on indie-rock hero Conor Oberst’s Team Love label, have been glowing, and though she’s worried -- there she goes again -- that Rilo Kiley fans won’t go for her album’s vintage folk and country flavor, there’s a momentum building around the release.

Lewis hasn’t gone the Mariah Carey route -- on the contrary, “Rabbit Fur Coat” is probably less conventionally accessible than Rilo Kiley’s often catchy rock. But it’s the kind of bold personal statement that could easily reposition this belle of the indie-rock ball as a presence in the wider pop landscape.

Given her penchant for diversifying her talent -- she was a participant in the surprising success of the atmospheric alliance the Postal Service -- and the fact that Rilo Kiley’s co-leader Blake Sennett is also releasing a side project on Tuesday, it’s natural to wonder whether the band is winding down and breaking up.

“I could see people assuming that, but I think this is in the spirit of what we’ve always done,” says Lewis, eating a lunch of soup and salad at the spot she’s chosen for the interview -- the old French restaurant Les Freres Taix, where she’s been coming since she was 5.

“I think that by putting out these records ... it keeps us satisfied,” she continues. “And then we can come back to the band and feel refreshed.... It’s a different kind of thing and we kind of flex different muscles and it creates a different sound. So I think for us it’s crucial to do these things.

“I think everyone’s main priority is Rilo Kiley. We’re a family and we’ve been working 10 years to do what we’re doing, and only because of the band was I able to make this record and put it out and really get the press that Rilo Kiley should have gotten for the last record. Like I’m reaping the rewards of the work that we’ve all done, Blake particularly. So I’m grateful for the band.”

Rilo Kiley plays richly arranged rock rather than raw punk, and it isn’t part of a tumultuous cultural upheaval, but in many other ways the quartet is this decade’s counterpart to X, the city’s quintessential group of the ‘70s era.

Lewis, Sennett and their bandmates spin stories that often distill a distinctly Los Angeles sensibility. Over the course of three albums the band has been a model of grass-roots development, from humble beginnings to major hometown popularity and growing national recognition. And like X, it’s fronted by two people whose creative partnership has survived the demise of their romantic relationship.

The band’s dogged touring has built a strong fan base, and the critics have been won over, especially by last year’s “More Adventurous.” Elvis Costello cites the album on his Amazon.com “List of Music You Should Hear,” writing that it has “the best lyric writing that I’ve heard in many a day. ‘Does He Love You?’ is the finest and most touching telling of a short story that you are likely to hear all year.... “

It was the band’s tendency to tour indefinitely that moved Lewis to assemble her own album. Her new songs were piling up during the recording of “More Adventurous,” and she knew it would be a long time before the next Rilo Kiley sessions.

“It just sort of happened that I recorded the songs so I wouldn’t forget them,” she said. “Mostly I wanted to simplify the process a little bit. With Rilo Kiley it’s very involved and we spend a lot of time arranging. I just wanted to get the songs out and I wanted the songs really to be the focus....

“I wanted to do it old-school style,” she said, “just do it on tape and not let people really obsess over the parts, and have my friends come in and play the part of the [session] musicians.”

On the album, Lewis gathers strands of Laura Nyro, Bobbie Gentry and Sun Records-era Elvis in songs that move from folky pop to pure mountain music that recalls the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” score. There’s a powerful intimacy to her vocals as she tangles with issues of God, politics and love.

The voices of the Kentucky-raised Watson Twins -- Chandra and Leigh -- encircle Lewis’ like guardian angels. The two are such a prominent presence that they get equal billing with Lewis on the album cover, where they flank her in a spooky photo that suggests “The Shining.”

“I feel like she’s going out on a limb, and I think that’s really hard to find these days,” says Portland-based singer-songwriter M. Ward, who produced four of the songs on the album. “It’s like she was trying to find a sound that maybe she loved when she was a kid and letting that lead her in an exciting direction.... I feel like the waters are running deep on this record.”

“She’s a great wordsmith,” Sennett says of his Rilo Kiley partner. “I think Jenny has an incredible sense of satisfying melodies. I think some people have that inherent to their being, and I think she has that. I’d say that and her words are her strongest suits, her strong sense of narrative.”

For Lewis, “It’s just exploring different ways of writing songs. It’s really fun to allow myself to become another character or disguise my personal flaws within another character that I create, or write with different people.... It’s all just a part of what I like to do best, which is just write songs....

“My main desire from the time I was a little girl was just to be one of the boys in a lot of ways, and be recognized as an equal,” she says. “So in my mind I really want my songs to be recognized.”