Rilo Kiley - Origin of The Band's Name

Origin of The Band's Name

On the syndicated radio show Loveline in August 2005, Sennett explained that he had a dream in which he was being chased by a sports almanac: "when it got me, I leafed through it...and I came upon an Australian rules football player from the 19th century named Rilo Kiley. It's kind of embarrassing." When asked by co-host Drew Pinsky if he had ever seen this name in reality, Sennett said, "I don't think so, I don't think that character exists...If you Google 'Rilo Kiley' you just come back with a lot of pictures of us." On how this imaginary name became the name for the band: "I wrote it down on a blotter, an office desk when I woke up, and, I don't know, I came back to it when we were trying to think of a name and we thought we'd use that for one show then change it, 'cause who'd want that name? Who can remember that anyway?"

In 2005, Sennett told Planet Sound Teletext Magazine that the name came from a Scottish athlete. On a 2005 episode of the MSNBC entertainment show MSNBC Entertainment Hot List, the female host stated that the name came from "old Scottish sports almanacs". In the interview segment that followed, Sennett stated, "We just looked in there and the name of one of the star players from the turn of the century was Rilo Kiley."

In an interview published in Q magazine in September 2007, Sennett offered this explanation: "Rilo Kiley is named after a character he'd met in a dream who had predicted the date of Jenny Lewis' death."