Lili Pepper
Kirke had a lead role in Mozart in the Jungle. Now she’s touring with her full-length debut.
Lola Kirke grew up surrounded by creativity. Her father, Simon, was the drummer for the English rock supergroup Bad Company. Her oldest sister, Domino, is a singer and doula. Her other sister, Jemima, is an artist and actor best known for playing Jessa in HBO’s Girls.
But don’t ask her about what that was like. “I don’t love to talk about it,” she says. “It’s not exciting.”
A better question is why the 27-year-old decided to launch a second career as a musician just as her acting star is on the rise — Kirke had a leading role in the award-winning Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle, which ran from 2014 to 2018. On the show, she played Hailey Rutledge, an oboist who dreams of playing with the New York Symphony. In her free time, Kirke recorded a self-titled EP of country-rock, and in 2018 she released her full-length debut, Heart Head West.
“The thing about having two jobs — which I’m very grateful to have — is that I never realized it would be as much of a logistical headache,” says Kirke, who this month embarked on her first major tour, supporting Australian musicians Alex Cameron and Roy Molloy. They play the High Noon Saloon on Feb. 23. “I hope I don’t have to choose, [because] I really love doing both of them,” she says. “The only difference is the means of expression — what is being expressed is the same, only acting is doing it with other people’s words. Singing is my own.”
Despite her seemingly charmed existence, Kirke’s music is inspired by “pain and suffering and loneliness.” The album’s strong opener, “Monster,” is a wonderfully melancholy (and extremely catchy) song about feeling out of place. Kirke’s voice is somewhere between Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval and Neko Case, accented by soft, lush indie-country instrumentals. “English people love country music,” says Kirke, who was born in London and raised in New York City. “There’s a definite fascination with [the U.S.] — America ideologically represents freedom and simplicity.”
Kirke is also drawn to country music because of its rich storytelling tradition. “It’s such a character-rich music,” she says. “I was drawn to it because of that combination of showcasing of character, and also [because] country songs are typically three chords and the truth.”
Kirke, who is the youngest of her sisters, grew up listening to Domino sing, and for years tried to copy her sound — “until I found my own way,” she says, adding that she’d love to make a record with her sister someday. She’s working on new songs, many of which are a departure from her current sound, but she’s not sure what the future will hold.
`“It’s like that Mitch Hedberg joke,” she says. “Where do you see yourself in five years? Celebrating the five-year anniversary of you asking me this question.”
