JULIETTE LEWIS
"I live for the sweat I drip onstage," said Lewis, 30 (in Los Angeles last month), whose performances at clubs with her punk band the Licks are, she said, "seizure-like."

MINNIE DRIVER
Signed to a record deal at 19, she went Hollywood instead. Her debut alternative-rock CD, Everything in My Pocket, hits this fall. "I taught myself guitar, and I've written almost every song" says Driver, 34 (at an Austin gig in March).

GINA GERSHON
It's fun, even if some folks "think you are lame," says Gershon, 42 (in '03), who toured with Girls Against Boys to hype a film—then joined the band. Pal Mick Jagger's advice: "Be as freaky as you want." "It was freeing," she says.

JADA PINKETT SMITH
"There's nothing like that immediate gratification," says Pinkett Smith, 32 (at London's Wembley Stadium on May 3), whose six-piece, soul-fusion band Wicked Wisdom has recorded a CD and is opening for Britney Spears in Europe. Husband Will Smith's reaction to the show? "He had tears in his eyes, he was so proud." Being a singer and mother of two youngsters "is a trip," she says, "because now my kids just totally want to be rock stars."