Estrogen Fest! Lewis, Pretenders, CPower Tour

Not just an excuse to run a hot photo of Lewis: The Licks' frontperson takes the bull by the horn and does a project with the Mars Volta dude.

By Blurt Staff

Ass-kicking rocker (and erstwhile ass-kicking actress) Juliette Lewis, who has a new album titled Terra Incognita due in September on The End Records, is gearing up for a summer tour opening for none other than The Pretenders and Cat Power. Meow! Sit back and watch the Juliette, Chrissie and Chan fur fly!

Dates are to be announced very soon. No word yet whether Lewis will be backed by her touring band the Licks.

The album (samples already at her MySpace page) was cut with Lewis and Omar Ropdriguez-Lopez of the Mars Volta, who she met in 2007 at the Fuji Rock Festival. Upon hitting it off, they worked on it on-and-off, along with Lewis' co-writer, Chris Watson, at Rodriguez-Lopez's studio in Brooklyn NY and Guadalajara Mexico.

"This album is so sonically different than anything I've done before and captures many flavors of my emotional life and voice," said Lewis, in a press release. It took me five years to really cut my teeth both as a performer and as a songwriter and I wanted to break all the habits I'd gotten used to and let songs develop out of a groove or simple piano notes and melody."