WEBVTT - Lenny Kravitz 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:06.440 I Heart Radio Presents Inside the Studio, I'm your host, 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:11.040 Joe Leavi. This time around, I got a chance to 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.280 sit down with Lenny Kravitz, who, just from the way 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:19.480 he dresses, is one of our ultimate rock stars. Sometimes 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.440 that's a reason people love him. Sometimes it's a reason 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:24.959 people make fun of him. When we sat down and 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:29.240 he opened up about his dreams, an encounter with Johnny 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:33.640 Cash he had at Rick Ruben's house, and the trouble 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.680 he had getting started on his new record for his 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:47.839 vibration if you want to talk the man now. The 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.320 backstory of most Lenny Kravitz albums is a rock and 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:55.000 roll fantasy. Lenny rented a chateau in France to work 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.120 in or he was living in his vintage Airstream trailer 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.440 on the beach in the Bahamas, and he was recording 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.120 in the studio that he'd built for himself in an 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:07.720 island paradise. But making this latest album was a little different, 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.440 at least in the lead up. After ten albums going 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.920 back almost thirty years to Let Love Rule in nine, 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:18.440 as well as a handful of acting roles in Precious, 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.440 The Hunger Games, and the TV series star Kravitz wasn't 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:26.839 exactly sure where he was or maybe who he was musically. 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:29.840 You know, his course early on had been charted by 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:32.000 the music of the sixties and the seventies that he 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:36.440 grew up loving. Born in nineteen sixty four, Lenny Kravitz 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:38.760 seems to have entered the world wearing bell bottoms in 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.679 a fringed buckskin vest and has really never taken them off. 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.319 But he's also a musical pollymath, and he plays nearly 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:49.560 all the instruments on his album, and he's always shuffled 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:54.200 style seventies, Philly soul, misty mountain hop, rock, stompers, roots, reggae, 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:59.240 supersaturated beatles, melody like he was a Vegas dealer at 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:04.280 a blackjack to able early on. His style was firmly 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.480 rooted between nineteen sixty seven the Summer of Love, in 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.200 seventy seven the Summer of Punk, and he used a 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.519 recording method is vintaged as the clothes he wore. But 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:16.760 by the time he was covering the Guess Who's American 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.480 Woman in nineteen nine for the soundtrack to Austin Powers 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:24.360 The Spy Who Shagged Me Well, he'd embraced modern technology 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.920 on singles like Flyaway. He was a decade or so 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.720 into his career, and he'd already racked up enough songs 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:32.960 for the Greatest Hits package, full of the sort of 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:38.640 inescapable hits that Bachman Turner Overdrive or the guests who 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.800 put on the radio in the nineteen seventies. That's not 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:44.960 really the version of the seventies he was aiming for, 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:49.239 But who cares. It ain't over till it's over stand 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.680 By my woman, great songs, are you going to Go 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.519 My Way? And always on the run, completely different kind 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:01.120 of great songs, and sometimes as a listener that's really 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:05.080 all that matters. But leading up to Raise Vibration, his 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.320 latest and eleventh album, Kravitz was getting pressure to work 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.640 with outside producers and come up with a sound that 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:15.440 was more contemporary. Although he's recorded with Jay Z as 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:19.000 far back as his two thousand and four album Baptism, 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:20.880 and he worked with a Vicci on a remix of 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:24.000 super Love from his eleven album Black and White, America, 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:34.040 contemporary has never exactly been Lenny Kravitz's lane, and so 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.480 he found himself, if not at the crossroads and a 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:43.160 kind of artistic traffic jam, stuck because I can play 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:47.560 many different styles, and I like so many different genres 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:53.000 of music. I wasn't really clear on where it was. 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.240 I wanted to go. I can go here, I can 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.680 go there, I can go here, and I was thinking 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.720 too much. But it was good because I've never really 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:04.560 done that. So it was really good because what it 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.400 led to was me letting go of every thought that 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.080 I had and just stopping. And when I did that 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.360 and I got quiet, I began to wake up in 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.800 the middle of the night with songs in my head, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.320 and that, to me, is the most beautiful way because 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:26.279 it takes me my thought process, my ego, whatever is there, 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:30.599 takes it out of it and it's just pure channeling. 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.960 And I dream tunes all the time, but I've never 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.279 dreamt a whole album. So when when you say you 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.200 dreamt this whole album, it was coming to you one 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.960 song at a time, but one song at a time. 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.279 And I would wake up and put the melody that 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.520 I'm hearing on in my head on a on a recorder, 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.120 or I grabbed the guitar in the bedroom and put 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.279 the chords down and hum whatever the melody is, or 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.680 recite whatever words it is that I was hearing and 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.640 then you would studio and work on the track, work 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:06.600 on it for a week, work on it for two weeks, 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:08.400 with you know whatever, however long it took me to 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.120 put things together, because I'm playing all the instruments and 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.039 I'm doing all the orchestrations and and so forth. So 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.640 everything is happening one at a time, and then that 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:23.080 song would sort of get finished, and then here comes 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:37.080 another one. Dreaming tunes and then waking up and recording them. 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.080 You know, if you were writing a novel about a 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:41.240 rock star and you came up with a character like 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.440 Lenny Kravitz, it would be a pretty hard sell. You'd 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:46.799 probably get a stern talking to from your editor along 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.200 the lines of, well, this is fascinating, and the parts 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.760 about dating the Brazilian supermodel and Tom Cruise's ex wife, 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.800 those are definitely a lot of fun, but it's really 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:59.159 not very believable. Could you come up with something a 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.760 little more real a stick, because Kravitz is life and 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.360 accomplishments defy most of the way we understand the world works, 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.960 and sometimes the laws of space and time. Some details 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.080 chosen more or less at random. He was born in 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.839 New York City to a black mother and a white father. 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:21.159 His mom, Roxy Roger, was an actress. His dad, Si Kravitz, 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.000 was a former Green Beret who, after serving in the 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.240 Korean War, became a TV producer with a sideline as 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:31.200 a jazz promoter and a music producer. Lenny Kravitz grew 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.360 up with artists and musicians in and out of his house, 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.279 including Duke Gallington and Miles Davis. At age six, he 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:39.400 saw James Brown at the Apollo, and around the same 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.120 time he saw the Jackson five at Madison Square Garden. 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:45.400 Photos from this era show a young Lenny with a 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.159 peace sign painted on his forehead like a third eye 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.440 in our rock and roll novel, we'd call that foreshadowing. 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.119 By age ten, he was living in Los Angeles because 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.839 his mom had gotten cast on the sitcom The Jefferson's 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.960 Playing Half with a New a racial couple Apart, Kravitz 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.679 has said was modeled to some degree on her own life. 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.680 During this time, Lenny joined the California Boys Choir and 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:13.480 performed classical music, sometimes with the Metropolitan Opera, but by 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.680 the time he was a teenager, he was deep into 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.360 rock and roll. In attending Beverly Hills High School, although 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.040 he really wouldn't become friends with the other guitar obsessed 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.000 by racial kid in his class, Saul Hudson, until later 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.760 when Saul was known as Slash and playing with guns 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:35.480 and roses. At twenty three, in Kravitz got married in 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.560 Las Vegas to Lisa Bonet, then par laying her role 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:42.200 in the number one television show in America, The Cosby 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.840 Show in her own series A Different World. Their daughter, Zoe, 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:50.960 was born a year later. During this time, Lenny was 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.960 recording his music on his own, and after being rejected 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.760 by labels for not sounding black enough for white enough, 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.600 he was signed in ninety nine by virgin The story 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.200 goes that he played five minutes of his music and 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.200 the A and R person he was meeting with left 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.120 the room came back with another executive who promptly declared 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:17.760 that Kravitz was Prince meets John Lennon and signed him. 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.280 Kravitz's debut, let Love Rule, came out that same year, 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.480 and it established the blueprint he follow Over the next decade. 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.880 He recorded almost everything himself and borrowed from the heroes 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.480 of the nineteen sixties and seventies without apology, creating a 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.439 world where John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix were locked arm 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:39.360 in arm with Bob Marley and the Commodores. Critics didn't 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.400 give him much slack when it came to his retro 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:46.359 look and sound, but other artists and audiences were more accepting. 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.199 When Let Love Rule came out, Prince phoned Kravitz out 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.080 of the blue to connect, and Kravitz found himself opening 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.800 for Tom Petty, David Bowie, and Bob Dylan, who brought 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.000 him on stage at one point to sing Maggie's Farm. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:04.120 I was scared shitless, Kravitz remembered earlier this year, I 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:10.480 didn't know the words in Kravitz hit number two with 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.400 the soulful breakup ballot. It Ain't over till It's over 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.439 from Mama, said, a second album charged by the dissolution 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:22.880 of his marriage by with Kravitz writing high on the 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.880 title track from his third album, a zip line rocker 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:28.600 called are You Going to Go My Way? The opening 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:32.960 act on his European tour was none other than Robert Plant, 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.840 who dubbed Lenny Kravitz the new King of cock Rock. 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:41.600 By the way Kravitz says, he and guitarist Craig Ross 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.000 came up with are you going to go My Way? 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.959 In five minutes at the end of a recording session 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:51.880 while someone else was waiting to get into the studio. Anyway, 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:53.800 you see what I mean about our rock and roll 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.400 novel not seeming particularly realistic. And we have not even 0:09:57.400 --> 0:09:59.600 gotten to the part about his homes in the Bahamas 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:03.000 and ill or the Manhattan apartment he sold for reported 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:07.040 fifteen million dollars, or his engagement to Victoria's secret model 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.600 Adriana Lima, or the statue of Miles Davis he has 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:12.800 in his Paris home, which is a four story town 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.760 house originally built to be the U S Embassy. Or 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.160 the bit about him being a distant cousin of NBC 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.360 weather man Oul Broker, or the half of a joint 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.680 that he smoked with Mick Jagger and kept as a 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.320 talisman for about a year until he ran out of 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:31.160 weed and smoked the rest of it. Honestly, we've barely 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:33.400 scratched the surface of all the ways in which Lenny 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:38.720 Kravitz is some sort of platonic ideal of a rock star. Kravitz, 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.160 who rose to fame in the early nineties era of 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.200 grunge and gangster rap was ridiculed for just this, and 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:49.400 it's worth asking why. Yeah, he borrowed wholesale from the 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.480 music of the past with a clear love of led Zeppelin, 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.040 and he went on stage looking like he was in costume. 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:58.800 But then again, so did Jack White of the White Stripes. 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.240 In the eight eighties and early nineties, is Kravitz was 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.120 weaving the music of his childhood into his own albums. 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.600 Rappers were building their sounds around samples of George Clinton 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.400 Zapp or Stevie Wonder, and Kravitz may or may not 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:14.559 have been thinking about just this when he took a 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.640 public Enemy instrumental itself made from a James Brown sample, 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:23.439 added some synthesizers, and turned it into Madonna's Justify My Love. 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:29.560 Oh yeah, I understand grunge. Gangster rapped the White Stripes. 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.280 They're a little more inventive. They have a little more 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:36.000 to tell us about the world than Lenny Kravitz escapism. 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:40.320 But I can't remember the last time rock and roll 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:45.840 pop music didn't include escapism. And as for Lenny Kravitz 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.520 being dedicated to vintage sounds, listen to what goes around 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.560 comes around from Mama said today, and it sounds like 0:11:52.600 --> 0:12:06.600 a model for Farrell Williams. My pockets now, my money 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:15.160 is gone, my face and no thanks thanks. Cravitz is 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.160 still playing around with the music of the past. It's 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.280 Enough from Raised Vibration is a protest song laced with 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:35.320 conspiracy theory undertones, and it uses a Curtis Mayfield groove face. 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:44.360 Because of this face and one of the most interesting 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.360 songs on the new album, Johnny Cash starts off with 0:12:47.440 --> 0:13:00.760 some Ernie Eisley guitar. Cravitz talk with me about his 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.920 encounter with Johnny and June Carter Cash at Rick Rubin's house, 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:06.960 and about his phone calls with Prince and Bill Clinton, 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:09.480 and about the album he has waiting in the wings, 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.800 which has guest appearances from George Clinton, James Brown, saxophonist 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:18.920 Maceo Parker and other greats. So let's join Lenny Kravitz 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:25.880 in his dream world. Well, Lenny Kravitz, welcome to the 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:30.320 inside the studio. Thank you. One of the first tracks 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.320 that we heard from this new album was Low And 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:35.920 it's interesting that the video for that you did with 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:40.920 John Baptiste, famed fashion photographer, great video director, someone you've 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:44.280 worked with in the past, and it begins it's just 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.679 a dark room with you on the drums. And I 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.520 was interested by that because that's sometimes how the recording 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:56.000 process starts for you think that that's very good. I 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.040 didn't think of that. I was in past, and he 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.360 wanted to hear the album M so I invited him 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.600 over to here the record, and when Low came on, 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.360 he kept saying, play that again, playing it again, play 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:13.679 it again. And I had no idea that he'd want 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:15.680 to make a video because he doesn't really make videos 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.680 that much anymore. It's very special when he does. But 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:20.640 he kept listening to it, and there's a lot of 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.680 orchestration on Low. There's you know, there's two guitars, there's base, 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.160 there's mini mooved based, there's drums, there's percussion all over 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.600 the place. There's an orchestra, there's horn arrangements. But he 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:36.840 kept focusing on the drumbeat and it pulled him in 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:41.480 and he just started riffing on this idea. It's like, 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:43.240 you should do a video, and I just want to 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.920 see you on the drums, black room, black clothes, black drums, 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:55.200 and just have it be really sparse and empty and elegant, 0:14:55.320 --> 0:15:01.040 and forget any storyline and sets and location, very stripped 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.400 down and it worked. I mean, I love it. It 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:05.920 is one of those videos that changes how you hear 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.040 things a little bit, but it does. But no, but 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.920 that was one of his points. He said that when 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.600 the video was edited and he watched it it comments 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:19.400 people were giving him where that they heard the music differently. Yeah, 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.720 suddenly it sounds as stripped down as that video looks exactly. 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.239 It's you know, the power of sight, right of an image. 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:28.480 So let's stick with this just for one more second, 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.560 because it's not just you in this video alone in 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:35.000 this room against the dark setting. There's one other person. Yes, 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:39.560 and she's a great drummer that just graduated from Berkeley 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.600 School of Music named Jazz. And I met her through 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.680 a friend of mine who is from the Bahamas, who 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.240 lives in the Bahamas, who's going to Berkeley School of 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:53.920 Music and knew her and he had shown me footage 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.600 of her playing at one point, and when Jamatis and 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.840 I were in my kitchen in Paris talking about the video, 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:01.560 we are comming with this idea that'd be really cool 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:06.480 to have a female energy in the video, and that 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:12.560 she would appear and disappear and appear and it becomes 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.640 this sort of conversation. I guess it is a conversation. 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:17.840 It also struck me, I mean, it felt like this 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:23.000 moment of gender fluidity because she's sometimes articulating the vocals 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.080 where she's singing is she's yeah, she's doing what I'm 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:27.840 doing exactly. There's no difference between you and her. Is 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.280 part of what part of the message of the same clothes, 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:36.160 and but she's beautiful and she's just an amazing drummer, 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.680 and um, yeah, it came out really good. Every element 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.720 was right right. I want to stick with the videos 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:47.040 just for another second, because it's enough. Another one of 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.640 the early tracks from this record that we heard. The 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.360 video comes with a content warning. You're about to see 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.000 some very graphic images because there's a lot of news 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.560 footage in this video. This is a pro test song 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:03.880 with what sounded to me like almost a Curtis Mayfield 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.080 kind of groove Curtis Mayfield vibe to it. Tell me 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:11.760 about this that song. It's enough. Actually, I recorded that 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:17.760 song twice in the process. When I first recorded it, 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.639 it came out very punk. Really, it's almost like a 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:24.920 Ramans track. I don't like to hear that I still 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.680 have it and I will release it at some point, 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.520 like B side of something or just let it out 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.399 because it's really cool. But I played it for my 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:38.480 daughter when she came out of the Bahamas, and she's like, 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:42.480 mm hmmm, I don't know. No, not not about the 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.679 because she loves the Ramones, but she just thought that 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:49.800 it wasn't right for that song or for me. I 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.000 don't know, and she just said, I don't know. I 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:53.920 just she said, I just it should be a little 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:57.120 more like this or like that. And so I didn't 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.400 think much about it after that, and then I really 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:01.560 started thinking of about it. I was like mm hmm. 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:07.720 And then the idea came in again, one of these dreams, 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:11.399 and I completely recut the tune. But the point was, 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:13.720 and when you recuted, did you build it around the groove? 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:15.800 I builded around the groove that's on the record that 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.080 you hear. But what's interesting in what works better than 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.800 it did before, which I understand what she was saying, 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.600 was that I took it down. I pulled it in. 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.360 I made it very sparse and funky. But when I'm 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.399 singing the lyrics, they're very quiet, they're smooth. There's space 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:38.600 between each sentence, and therefore you hear the message stronger 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:43.440 than when I was giving it to you yelling. So 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:45.680 that's what it was. Let's talk about the message of 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:47.760 this song. I mean, there are a lot of things 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:52.479 that war comes up. Pharmaceutical companies pushing their wares on 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:54.359 us comes up in this song. At one point you 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.280 mentioned chem trails in the sky. There are a lot 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:59.800 of different things that you go through, all with the 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.199 idea that it's enough. You reference that saying attributed to 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.480 Jimi Hendrix, when the power of love overcomes the love 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.359 of power, then we'll know peace. That's that's referenced in 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.240 the Yeah have a sent This that's someone says the 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:14.679 same thing. I know, looking at the video, all the 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.000 things that we see as we see that, you can 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.679 change that video every week exactly. I haven't seen it 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.600 since it came out, but I'm sure it's like already. 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:25.960 Like I mean, there's things that are obviously still happening, 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:29.400 but again, you could refeed that thing. And and that's 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:31.320 what I want to ask you, is this you reacting 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.280 to the news of the day. Are we so inundated 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.400 with it? Is that the feeling it's enough or it's 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.400 enough of what's going on. It's enough of that. It's 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:45.199 enough of all that stuff, the negativity, the destruction of 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.720 ourselves and our planet, how we treat each other. It's 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:50.720 a shame. It really is a shame we're living in. 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.320 We've always been living in. That's where I want to 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.960 use challenging times. There's always issues, but we're getting to 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:00.359 a point now where it's about to blow. Feels like 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:01.880 things are on fin you know, it's about to blow. 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:06.280 Will we can we turn around? You know? Will we 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:12.680 raise our consciousness, raise our vibration and really realize what's important? 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.760 And when you have governments that are operating on greed 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:22.480 and power, money and corporations, and it's a lot, man. 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.720 You know. One thing that struck me was you see 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.320 some footage of the neo Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.919 in this video, and I flashed on a song from 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:37.200 a few years ago, the title track of your album 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.080 Black and White. Yeah, blackline America, Yeah, Black and White America, 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.680 where you're talking about maybe we've reached a point where 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.880 the future has come around and we've found that we 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.840 finally have common ground. And now it's a number of 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.880 years later, and it doesn't feel that way so much, 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:57.879 and really interesting how it just did a back flip, 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.639 you know, and a lot of that is obviously a 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.359 reaction to that it was moving forward, and there's a 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.720 lot of people that feel that enough of this and 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.879 it does amaze me how backwards we've gone. It's really 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:19.800 surreal and a trip. You're someone who born in the sixties, 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.280 came of age in the seventies, and had interracial parents, 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:27.400 so which is certainly something that comes up in that 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:30.240 song in Black and White America. You actually talk about 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:34.320 your parents falling in love getting married. Absolutely, I mean 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.199 they had the inspiration for that song as well as 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.360 I mean, obviously the history of in our nation. But 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.280 but at the point that they fell in love and 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:43.600 got married in the sixties, being in danger, just walking 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:48.520 down exactly, they dealt with a lot of issues and 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.400 hate and and then it's just ironic that my mom 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:53.840 ends up on a television show, you know, you know, 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:57.600 historic sitcom The Jefferson's where she played basically, I mean, 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:01.359 she didn't play herself, but the character Helen Willis was 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.480 essentially her married black woman married to a white man 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.080 in New York City. Yeah, so we've been carrying this 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:14.480 torch right, you know, you know, as someone who's about 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:17.640 the same age as you are, we've seen these reactionary forces. 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:21.679 We've lived through this before because the whatever progress was 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.879 made in the sixties or seventies perhaps was set back 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.760 or slowed down by Reagan's America. What's you're feeling about 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:31.760 where we're at now? I mean, we're going to get 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:33.960 to the title of the record, the title track and 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:36.639 the record ray's vibration in just a second. You've already 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:40.160 brought it up. But are you part of the resistance? 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:43.159 Do you feel that way as a musician, as an artist? 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:45.159 You know, when there's a march, do you want to 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:47.960 get out on the street that I do? Yeah, But 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:54.560 I'm all about love. So it doesn't matter who, what country, where, 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:59.480 who this president, that president, this Prime minister, this king, 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:03.560 this whoever. If they're not operating from a place of 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:10.160 love and concern for the people, then I'm not down 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:13.160 with that. And that's all over the world. We can 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:16.879 talk about this country, this president, this thing. It's everywhere, 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:20.400 it's everywhere, and it just seems that we're losing our 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:27.000 minds more and more each year. He's getting more ridiculous, 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:31.760 and I don't understand it as people were living in 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.600 this time where the technology and the social media has 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:39.600 really done a number on us, where we should be 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:43.760 paying attention to our lives, ourselves and what's really going on. 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:51.959 We're absorbed in the media and where absorbed with our narcissism, 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:56.280 and we're absorbed with just being in this other reality. 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:58.800 And when you're saying you were absorbed in the media, 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:00.520 I just want people to know your holding up your 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:03.280 your hand as though though you're looking into your phone, 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:08.320 so you're you're really talking about being lost in our screens. Absolutely, 0:24:09.160 --> 0:24:12.800 and you know that's part of the plan. But we've 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:15.920 got to get our heads out of wherever they may 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:18.560 be and they look at ourselves and what's going on. 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:20.120 All right, Hold up, what do you mean that's part 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:22.240 of the plan? What do you I don't think it's 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:25.120 just I think there's some design to all this. I mean, 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:28.159 I think they like us to be in there. You 0:24:28.240 --> 0:24:30.439 think there's like look over here, look over here. You 0:24:30.480 --> 0:24:33.439 think there's almost an organized whether it's intention or not, 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:38.000 an organized culture of distraction. There's there's a lot of that. Yeah, 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:47.720 who benefits from that? Those folks, very small group of folks. No, 0:24:47.840 --> 0:24:49.880 but it's like you know, I mean, you can get 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:53.119