Juliette Lewis Plotting 'Catchy' New Album for 2011

After being detained in Europe for carrying a bullet in her bag, a frightening hit-and-run accident and a few films due out in the next few weeks ('Conviction,' 'Due Date'), Juliette Lewis' rollercoaster year should provide some interesting fodder for the follow-up to her 2009 album 'Terra Incognita.' As Lewis tells Spinner, she already fleshing out new material, which should surface sometime in 2011.

"'Terra Incognita' was my avant-garde record," she says. "My next album, just because it's where I'm at, it's much more catchy: Catchy choruses, simple riffs. I want to stack electronic sounds onto natural drumming. It'll still be rock music. There's a song called 'Rockaway' that we've been playing live. That song's been killing it. It has a real simple 'ooh ooh' chorus. There's another song called 'Kick Drum Song,' which is called that because I play kick drum on it. That's all weird and contagious."

"I always have contrasts," she adds. "I may write something that's really simple and catchy, and then write something the opposite of that."

There's no word yet regarding who Lewis plans on working with. For 'Terra,' she teamed with Mars Volta prog-head Omar Rodriquez-Lopez, but our conversation revealed that these days, she's committed to her live show more than ever, where she feels liberated more than on a film set.

"People have to dig your live show. That was my first objective before selling CDs," she explains. "I wanted that connection. I started music to feel less alone. I always felt like an outsider and alienated. Working in movies and getting famous very young only exacerbated that feeling of alienation. Doing rock 'n' roll, I wanted to get off that pedestal that someone else put me on. I have an audience from film who will show up initially. I'm good for a 100 tickets but that's not what's going to keep them. It's a kick-ass live show and the music."