Jenny Lewis was part of the first wave of musicians to speak out about Ryan Adams after multiple women accused him — Lewis’s former collaborator — of various forms of abuse, including inappropriate contact with a minor. But as Lewis prepares to release another album this week that features contributions from Adams, she’s mostly declined to comment further, instead referring back to her initial tweet calling the allegations “deeply troubling.” In a new interview with Pitchfork, however, Lewis has shared more thoughts on Adams and her unpleasant, most recent experience working with him. “The allegations are so serious and shocking and really fucked up, and I was so sad on so many levels when I heard,” she says. “I hate that he’s on this album, but you can’t rewrite how things went.”
Adams executive-produced her last album, 2014’s The Voyager, but Lewis says his role was dramatically reduced on her latest after he stopped showing up. “We started the record together two years ago, and he worked on it—we were in the studio for five days. Then he pretty much bounced, and I had to finish the album by myself,” she says. But, as Lewis correctly notes, she never needed him anyway. “Ultimately it’s my record. They’re my songs and this is a piece of the puzzle of my entire career,” she also told NME, saying she can only hope that the Adams allegations open up a wider discussion about abuse of power in the music industry: “Let’s have the dialogue openly and figure out a solution. Let’s identify what isn’t cool.”
