Speaker 1: I Heart Radio Presents Inside the Studio, I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Joe Leavi. This time around, I got a chance to
Speaker 1: sit down with Lenny Kravitz, who, just from the way
Speaker 1: he dresses, is one of our ultimate rock stars. Sometimes
Speaker 1: that's a reason people love him. Sometimes it's a reason
Speaker 1: people make fun of him. When we sat down and
Speaker 1: he opened up about his dreams, an encounter with Johnny
Speaker 1: Cash he had at Rick Ruben's house, and the trouble
Speaker 1: he had getting started on his new record for his
Speaker 1: vibration if you want to talk the man now. The
Speaker 1: backstory of most Lenny Kravitz albums is a rock and
Speaker 1: roll fantasy. Lenny rented a chateau in France to work
Speaker 1: in or he was living in his vintage Airstream trailer
Speaker 1: on the beach in the Bahamas, and he was recording
Speaker 1: in the studio that he'd built for himself in an
Speaker 1: island paradise. But making this latest album was a little different,
Speaker 1: at least in the lead up. After ten albums going
Speaker 1: back almost thirty years to Let Love Rule in nine,
Speaker 1: as well as a handful of acting roles in Precious,
Speaker 1: The Hunger Games, and the TV series star Kravitz wasn't
Speaker 1: exactly sure where he was or maybe who he was musically.
Speaker 1: You know, his course early on had been charted by
Speaker 1: the music of the sixties and the seventies that he
Speaker 1: grew up loving. Born in nineteen sixty four, Lenny Kravitz
Speaker 1: seems to have entered the world wearing bell bottoms in
Speaker 1: a fringed buckskin vest and has really never taken them off.
Speaker 1: But he's also a musical pollymath, and he plays nearly
Speaker 1: all the instruments on his album, and he's always shuffled
Speaker 1: style seventies, Philly soul, misty mountain hop, rock, stompers, roots, reggae,
Speaker 1: supersaturated beatles, melody like he was a Vegas dealer at
Speaker 1: a blackjack to able early on. His style was firmly
Speaker 1: rooted between nineteen sixty seven the Summer of Love, in
Speaker 1: seventy seven the Summer of Punk, and he used a
Speaker 1: recording method is vintaged as the clothes he wore. But
Speaker 1: by the time he was covering the Guess Who's American
Speaker 1: Woman in nineteen nine for the soundtrack to Austin Powers
Speaker 1: The Spy Who Shagged Me Well, he'd embraced modern technology
Speaker 1: on singles like Flyaway. He was a decade or so
Speaker 1: into his career, and he'd already racked up enough songs
Speaker 1: for the Greatest Hits package, full of the sort of
Speaker 1: inescapable hits that Bachman Turner Overdrive or the guests who
Speaker 1: put on the radio in the nineteen seventies. That's not
Speaker 1: really the version of the seventies he was aiming for,
Speaker 1: But who cares. It ain't over till it's over stand
Speaker 1: By my woman, great songs, are you going to Go
Speaker 1: My Way? And always on the run, completely different kind
Speaker 1: of great songs, and sometimes as a listener that's really
Speaker 1: all that matters. But leading up to Raise Vibration, his
Speaker 1: latest and eleventh album, Kravitz was getting pressure to work
Speaker 1: with outside producers and come up with a sound that
Speaker 1: was more contemporary. Although he's recorded with Jay Z as
Speaker 1: far back as his two thousand and four album Baptism,
Speaker 1: and he worked with a Vicci on a remix of
Speaker 1: super Love from his eleven album Black and White, America,
Speaker 1: contemporary has never exactly been Lenny Kravitz's lane, and so
Speaker 1: he found himself, if not at the crossroads and a
Speaker 1: kind of artistic traffic jam, stuck because I can play
Speaker 1: many different styles, and I like so many different genres
Speaker 1: of music. I wasn't really clear on where it was.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go. I can go here, I can
Speaker 1: go there, I can go here, and I was thinking
Speaker 1: too much. But it was good because I've never really
Speaker 1: done that. So it was really good because what it
Speaker 1: led to was me letting go of every thought that
Speaker 1: I had and just stopping. And when I did that
Speaker 1: and I got quiet, I began to wake up in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night with songs in my head,
Speaker 1: and that, to me, is the most beautiful way because
Speaker 1: it takes me my thought process, my ego, whatever is there,
Speaker 1: takes it out of it and it's just pure channeling.
Speaker 1: And I dream tunes all the time, but I've never
Speaker 1: dreamt a whole album. So when when you say you
Speaker 1: dreamt this whole album, it was coming to you one
Speaker 1: song at a time, but one song at a time.
Speaker 1: And I would wake up and put the melody that
Speaker 1: I'm hearing on in my head on a on a recorder,
Speaker 1: or I grabbed the guitar in the bedroom and put
Speaker 1: the chords down and hum whatever the melody is, or
Speaker 1: recite whatever words it is that I was hearing and
Speaker 1: then you would studio and work on the track, work
Speaker 1: on it for a week, work on it for two weeks,
Speaker 1: with you know whatever, however long it took me to
Speaker 1: put things together, because I'm playing all the instruments and
Speaker 1: I'm doing all the orchestrations and and so forth. So
Speaker 1: everything is happening one at a time, and then that
Speaker 1: song would sort of get finished, and then here comes
Speaker 1: another one. Dreaming tunes and then waking up and recording them.
Speaker 1: You know, if you were writing a novel about a
Speaker 1: rock star and you came up with a character like
Speaker 1: Lenny Kravitz, it would be a pretty hard sell. You'd
Speaker 1: probably get a stern talking to from your editor along
Speaker 1: the lines of, well, this is fascinating, and the parts
Speaker 1: about dating the Brazilian supermodel and Tom Cruise's ex wife,
Speaker 1: those are definitely a lot of fun, but it's really
Speaker 1: not very believable. Could you come up with something a
Speaker 1: little more real a stick, because Kravitz is life and
Speaker 1: accomplishments defy most of the way we understand the world works,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the laws of space and time. Some details
Speaker 1: chosen more or less at random. He was born in
Speaker 1: New York City to a black mother and a white father.
Speaker 1: His mom, Roxy Roger, was an actress. His dad, Si Kravitz,
Speaker 1: was a former Green Beret who, after serving in the
Speaker 1: Korean War, became a TV producer with a sideline as
Speaker 1: a jazz promoter and a music producer. Lenny Kravitz grew
Speaker 1: up with artists and musicians in and out of his house,
Speaker 1: including Duke Gallington and Miles Davis. At age six, he
Speaker 1: saw James Brown at the Apollo, and around the same
Speaker 1: time he saw the Jackson five at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 1: Photos from this era show a young Lenny with a
Speaker 1: peace sign painted on his forehead like a third eye
Speaker 1: in our rock and roll novel, we'd call that foreshadowing.
Speaker 1: By age ten, he was living in Los Angeles because
Speaker 1: his mom had gotten cast on the sitcom The Jefferson's
Speaker 1: Playing Half with a New a racial couple Apart, Kravitz
Speaker 1: has said was modeled to some degree on her own life.
Speaker 1: During this time, Lenny joined the California Boys Choir and
Speaker 1: performed classical music, sometimes with the Metropolitan Opera, but by
Speaker 1: the time he was a teenager, he was deep into
Speaker 1: rock and roll. In attending Beverly Hills High School, although
Speaker 1: he really wouldn't become friends with the other guitar obsessed
Speaker 1: by racial kid in his class, Saul Hudson, until later
Speaker 1: when Saul was known as Slash and playing with guns
Speaker 1: and roses. At twenty three, in Kravitz got married in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas to Lisa Bonet, then par laying her role
Speaker 1: in the number one television show in America, The Cosby
Speaker 1: Show in her own series A Different World. Their daughter, Zoe,
Speaker 1: was born a year later. During this time, Lenny was
Speaker 1: recording his music on his own, and after being rejected
Speaker 1: by labels for not sounding black enough for white enough,
Speaker 1: he was signed in ninety nine by virgin The story
Speaker 1: goes that he played five minutes of his music and
Speaker 1: the A and R person he was meeting with left
Speaker 1: the room came back with another executive who promptly declared
Speaker 1: that Kravitz was Prince meets John Lennon and signed him.
Speaker 1: Kravitz's debut, let Love Rule, came out that same year,
Speaker 1: and it established the blueprint he follow Over the next decade.
Speaker 1: He recorded almost everything himself and borrowed from the heroes
Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixties and seventies without apology, creating a
Speaker 1: world where John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix were locked arm
Speaker 1: in arm with Bob Marley and the Commodores. Critics didn't
Speaker 1: give him much slack when it came to his retro
Speaker 1: look and sound, but other artists and audiences were more accepting.
Speaker 1: When Let Love Rule came out, Prince phoned Kravitz out
Speaker 1: of the blue to connect, and Kravitz found himself opening
Speaker 1: for Tom Petty, David Bowie, and Bob Dylan, who brought
Speaker 1: him on stage at one point to sing Maggie's Farm.
Speaker 1: I was scared shitless, Kravitz remembered earlier this year, I
Speaker 1: didn't know the words in Kravitz hit number two with
Speaker 1: the soulful breakup ballot. It Ain't over till It's over
Speaker 1: from Mama, said, a second album charged by the dissolution
Speaker 1: of his marriage by with Kravitz writing high on the
Speaker 1: title track from his third album, a zip line rocker
Speaker 1: called are You Going to Go My Way? The opening
Speaker 1: act on his European tour was none other than Robert Plant,
Speaker 1: who dubbed Lenny Kravitz the new King of cock Rock.
Speaker 1: By the way Kravitz says, he and guitarist Craig Ross
Speaker 1: came up with are you going to go My Way?
Speaker 1: In five minutes at the end of a recording session
Speaker 1: while someone else was waiting to get into the studio. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you see what I mean about our rock and roll
Speaker 1: novel not seeming particularly realistic. And we have not even
Speaker 1: gotten to the part about his homes in the Bahamas
Speaker 1: and ill or the Manhattan apartment he sold for reported
Speaker 1: fifteen million dollars, or his engagement to Victoria's secret model
Speaker 1: Adriana Lima, or the statue of Miles Davis he has
Speaker 1: in his Paris home, which is a four story town
Speaker 1: house originally built to be the U S Embassy. Or
Speaker 1: the bit about him being a distant cousin of NBC
Speaker 1: weather man Oul Broker, or the half of a joint
Speaker 1: that he smoked with Mick Jagger and kept as a
Speaker 1: talisman for about a year until he ran out of
Speaker 1: weed and smoked the rest of it. Honestly, we've barely
Speaker 1: scratched the surface of all the ways in which Lenny
Speaker 1: Kravitz is some sort of platonic ideal of a rock star. Kravitz,
Speaker 1: who rose to fame in the early nineties era of
Speaker 1: grunge and gangster rap was ridiculed for just this, and
Speaker 1: it's worth asking why. Yeah, he borrowed wholesale from the
Speaker 1: music of the past with a clear love of led Zeppelin,
Speaker 1: and he went on stage looking like he was in costume.
Speaker 1: But then again, so did Jack White of the White Stripes.
Speaker 1: In the eight eighties and early nineties, is Kravitz was
Speaker 1: weaving the music of his childhood into his own albums.
Speaker 1: Rappers were building their sounds around samples of George Clinton
Speaker 1: Zapp or Stevie Wonder, and Kravitz may or may not
Speaker 1: have been thinking about just this when he took a
Speaker 1: public Enemy instrumental itself made from a James Brown sample,
Speaker 1: added some synthesizers, and turned it into Madonna's Justify My Love.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I understand grunge. Gangster rapped the White Stripes.
Speaker 1: They're a little more inventive. They have a little more
Speaker 1: to tell us about the world than Lenny Kravitz escapism.
Speaker 1: But I can't remember the last time rock and roll
Speaker 1: pop music didn't include escapism. And as for Lenny Kravitz
Speaker 1: being dedicated to vintage sounds, listen to what goes around
Speaker 1: comes around from Mama said today, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: a model for Farrell Williams. My pockets now, my money
Speaker 1: is gone, my face and no thanks thanks. Cravitz is
Speaker 1: still playing around with the music of the past. It's
Speaker 1: Enough from Raised Vibration is a protest song laced with
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory undertones, and it uses a Curtis Mayfield groove face.
Speaker 1: Because of this face and one of the most interesting
Speaker 1: songs on the new album, Johnny Cash starts off with
Speaker 1: some Ernie Eisley guitar. Cravitz talk with me about his
Speaker 1: encounter with Johnny and June Carter Cash at Rick Rubin's house,
Speaker 1: and about his phone calls with Prince and Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: and about the album he has waiting in the wings,
Speaker 1: which has guest appearances from George Clinton, James Brown, saxophonist
Speaker 1: Maceo Parker and other greats. So let's join Lenny Kravitz
Speaker 1: in his dream world. Well, Lenny Kravitz, welcome to the
Speaker 1: inside the studio. Thank you. One of the first tracks
Speaker 1: that we heard from this new album was Low And
Speaker 1: it's interesting that the video for that you did with
Speaker 1: John Baptiste, famed fashion photographer, great video director, someone you've
Speaker 1: worked with in the past, and it begins it's just
Speaker 1: a dark room with you on the drums. And I
Speaker 1: was interested by that because that's sometimes how the recording
Speaker 1: process starts for you think that that's very good. I
Speaker 1: didn't think of that. I was in past, and he
Speaker 1: wanted to hear the album M so I invited him
Speaker 1: over to here the record, and when Low came on,
Speaker 1: he kept saying, play that again, playing it again, play
Speaker 1: it again. And I had no idea that he'd want
Speaker 1: to make a video because he doesn't really make videos
Speaker 1: that much anymore. It's very special when he does. But
Speaker 1: he kept listening to it, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: orchestration on Low. There's you know, there's two guitars, there's base,
Speaker 1: there's mini mooved based, there's drums, there's percussion all over
Speaker 1: the place. There's an orchestra, there's horn arrangements. But he
Speaker 1: kept focusing on the drumbeat and it pulled him in
Speaker 1: and he just started riffing on this idea. It's like,
Speaker 1: you should do a video, and I just want to
Speaker 1: see you on the drums, black room, black clothes, black drums,
Speaker 1: and just have it be really sparse and empty and elegant,
Speaker 1: and forget any storyline and sets and location, very stripped
Speaker 1: down and it worked. I mean, I love it. It
Speaker 1: is one of those videos that changes how you hear
Speaker 1: things a little bit, but it does. But no, but
Speaker 1: that was one of his points. He said that when
Speaker 1: the video was edited and he watched it it comments
Speaker 1: people were giving him where that they heard the music differently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: suddenly it sounds as stripped down as that video looks exactly.
Speaker 1: It's you know, the power of sight, right of an image.
Speaker 1: So let's stick with this just for one more second,
Speaker 1: because it's not just you in this video alone in
Speaker 1: this room against the dark setting. There's one other person. Yes,
Speaker 1: and she's a great drummer that just graduated from Berkeley
Speaker 1: School of Music named Jazz. And I met her through
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who is from the Bahamas, who
Speaker 1: lives in the Bahamas, who's going to Berkeley School of
Speaker 1: Music and knew her and he had shown me footage
Speaker 1: of her playing at one point, and when Jamatis and
Speaker 1: I were in my kitchen in Paris talking about the video,
Speaker 1: we are comming with this idea that'd be really cool
Speaker 1: to have a female energy in the video, and that
Speaker 1: she would appear and disappear and appear and it becomes
Speaker 1: this sort of conversation. I guess it is a conversation.
Speaker 1: It also struck me, I mean, it felt like this
Speaker 1: moment of gender fluidity because she's sometimes articulating the vocals
Speaker 1: where she's singing is she's yeah, she's doing what I'm
Speaker 1: doing exactly. There's no difference between you and her. Is
Speaker 1: part of what part of the message of the same clothes,
Speaker 1: and but she's beautiful and she's just an amazing drummer,
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, it came out really good. Every element
Speaker 1: was right right. I want to stick with the videos
Speaker 1: just for another second, because it's enough. Another one of
Speaker 1: the early tracks from this record that we heard. The
Speaker 1: video comes with a content warning. You're about to see
Speaker 1: some very graphic images because there's a lot of news
Speaker 1: footage in this video. This is a pro test song
Speaker 1: with what sounded to me like almost a Curtis Mayfield
Speaker 1: kind of groove Curtis Mayfield vibe to it. Tell me
Speaker 1: about this that song. It's enough. Actually, I recorded that
Speaker 1: song twice in the process. When I first recorded it,
Speaker 1: it came out very punk. Really, it's almost like a
Speaker 1: Ramans track. I don't like to hear that I still
Speaker 1: have it and I will release it at some point,
Speaker 1: like B side of something or just let it out
Speaker 1: because it's really cool. But I played it for my
Speaker 1: daughter when she came out of the Bahamas, and she's like,
Speaker 1: mm hmmm, I don't know. No, not not about the
Speaker 1: because she loves the Ramones, but she just thought that
Speaker 1: it wasn't right for that song or for me. I
Speaker 1: don't know, and she just said, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just she said, I just it should be a little
Speaker 1: more like this or like that. And so I didn't
Speaker 1: think much about it after that, and then I really
Speaker 1: started thinking of about it. I was like mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And then the idea came in again, one of these dreams,
Speaker 1: and I completely recut the tune. But the point was,
Speaker 1: and when you recuted, did you build it around the groove?
Speaker 1: I builded around the groove that's on the record that
Speaker 1: you hear. But what's interesting in what works better than
Speaker 1: it did before, which I understand what she was saying,
Speaker 1: was that I took it down. I pulled it in.
Speaker 1: I made it very sparse and funky. But when I'm
Speaker 1: singing the lyrics, they're very quiet, they're smooth. There's space
Speaker 1: between each sentence, and therefore you hear the message stronger
Speaker 1: than when I was giving it to you yelling. So
Speaker 1: that's what it was. Let's talk about the message of
Speaker 1: this song. I mean, there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: that war comes up. Pharmaceutical companies pushing their wares on
Speaker 1: us comes up in this song. At one point you
Speaker 1: mentioned chem trails in the sky. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of different things that you go through, all with the
Speaker 1: idea that it's enough. You reference that saying attributed to
Speaker 1: Jimi Hendrix, when the power of love overcomes the love
Speaker 1: of power, then we'll know peace. That's that's referenced in
Speaker 1: the Yeah have a sent This that's someone says the
Speaker 1: same thing. I know, looking at the video, all the
Speaker 1: things that we see as we see that, you can
Speaker 1: change that video every week exactly. I haven't seen it
Speaker 1: since it came out, but I'm sure it's like already.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, there's things that are obviously still happening,
Speaker 1: but again, you could refeed that thing. And and that's
Speaker 1: what I want to ask you, is this you reacting
Speaker 1: to the news of the day. Are we so inundated
Speaker 1: with it? Is that the feeling it's enough or it's
Speaker 1: enough of what's going on. It's enough of that. It's
Speaker 1: enough of all that stuff, the negativity, the destruction of
Speaker 1: ourselves and our planet, how we treat each other. It's
Speaker 1: a shame. It really is a shame we're living in.
Speaker 1: We've always been living in. That's where I want to
Speaker 1: use challenging times. There's always issues, but we're getting to
Speaker 1: a point now where it's about to blow. Feels like
Speaker 1: things are on fin you know, it's about to blow.
Speaker 1: Will we can we turn around? You know? Will we
Speaker 1: raise our consciousness, raise our vibration and really realize what's important?
Speaker 1: And when you have governments that are operating on greed
Speaker 1: and power, money and corporations, and it's a lot, man.
Speaker 1: You know. One thing that struck me was you see
Speaker 1: some footage of the neo Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia
Speaker 1: in this video, and I flashed on a song from
Speaker 1: a few years ago, the title track of your album
Speaker 1: Black and White. Yeah, blackline America, Yeah, Black and White America,
Speaker 1: where you're talking about maybe we've reached a point where
Speaker 1: the future has come around and we've found that we
Speaker 1: finally have common ground. And now it's a number of
Speaker 1: years later, and it doesn't feel that way so much,
Speaker 1: and really interesting how it just did a back flip,
Speaker 1: you know, and a lot of that is obviously a
Speaker 1: reaction to that it was moving forward, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that feel that enough of this and
Speaker 1: it does amaze me how backwards we've gone. It's really
Speaker 1: surreal and a trip. You're someone who born in the sixties,
Speaker 1: came of age in the seventies, and had interracial parents,
Speaker 1: so which is certainly something that comes up in that
Speaker 1: song in Black and White America. You actually talk about
Speaker 1: your parents falling in love getting married. Absolutely, I mean
Speaker 1: they had the inspiration for that song as well as
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously the history of in our nation. But
Speaker 1: but at the point that they fell in love and
Speaker 1: got married in the sixties, being in danger, just walking
Speaker 1: down exactly, they dealt with a lot of issues and
Speaker 1: hate and and then it's just ironic that my mom
Speaker 1: ends up on a television show, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: historic sitcom The Jefferson's where she played basically, I mean,
Speaker 1: she didn't play herself, but the character Helen Willis was
Speaker 1: essentially her married black woman married to a white man
Speaker 1: in New York City. Yeah, so we've been carrying this
Speaker 1: torch right, you know, you know, as someone who's about
Speaker 1: the same age as you are, we've seen these reactionary forces.
Speaker 1: We've lived through this before because the whatever progress was
Speaker 1: made in the sixties or seventies perhaps was set back
Speaker 1: or slowed down by Reagan's America. What's you're feeling about
Speaker 1: where we're at now? I mean, we're going to get
Speaker 1: to the title of the record, the title track and
Speaker 1: the record ray's vibration in just a second. You've already
Speaker 1: brought it up. But are you part of the resistance?
Speaker 1: Do you feel that way as a musician, as an artist?
Speaker 1: You know, when there's a march, do you want to
Speaker 1: get out on the street that I do? Yeah, But
Speaker 1: I'm all about love. So it doesn't matter who, what country, where,
Speaker 1: who this president, that president, this Prime minister, this king,
Speaker 1: this whoever. If they're not operating from a place of
Speaker 1: love and concern for the people, then I'm not down
Speaker 1: with that. And that's all over the world. We can
Speaker 1: talk about this country, this president, this thing. It's everywhere,
Speaker 1: it's everywhere, and it just seems that we're losing our
Speaker 1: minds more and more each year. He's getting more ridiculous,
Speaker 1: and I don't understand it as people were living in
Speaker 1: this time where the technology and the social media has
Speaker 1: really done a number on us, where we should be
Speaker 1: paying attention to our lives, ourselves and what's really going on.
Speaker 1: We're absorbed in the media and where absorbed with our narcissism,
Speaker 1: and we're absorbed with just being in this other reality.
Speaker 1: And when you're saying you were absorbed in the media,
Speaker 1: I just want people to know your holding up your
Speaker 1: your hand as though though you're looking into your phone,
Speaker 1: so you're you're really talking about being lost in our screens. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and you know that's part of the plan. But we've
Speaker 1: got to get our heads out of wherever they may
Speaker 1: be and they look at ourselves and what's going on.
Speaker 1: All right, Hold up, what do you mean that's part
Speaker 1: of the plan? What do you I don't think it's
Speaker 1: just I think there's some design to all this. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think they like us to be in there. You
Speaker 1: think there's like look over here, look over here. You
Speaker 1: think there's almost an organized whether it's intention or not,
Speaker 1: an organized culture of distraction. There's there's a lot of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who benefits from that? Those folks, very small group of folks. No,
Speaker 1: but it's like you know, I mean, you can get
Speaker 1: into all the conspiracy stuff. Well, I mean, you got
Speaker 1: a song where you mentioned the Chemp trail, so I
Speaker 1: gotta ask you, are you into that stuff? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by a lot of this stuff. There's so
Speaker 1: many questions and we don't have all the answers. No,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of things going on that needs
Speaker 1: some explaining. Whether we'll ever get the answers or not,
Speaker 1: I don't know. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: with all this going on, to get back to I
Speaker 1: choose to remain optimistic, and I choose to choose the
Speaker 1: path of love, and that's the way I was raised.
Speaker 1: I can't really help it. I mean, this is something
Speaker 1: you've been talking about. We're gonna celebrate the thirtieth anniversary
Speaker 1: and let love rule next year. So this is something
Speaker 1: you've been going on about for thirty years. I can't
Speaker 1: believe it's thirty years coming man. Wow. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: from let level to raise vibration. That's bad. They're kind
Speaker 1: of book ends. It's the same message, just said in
Speaker 1: a different way, and time has changed things. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting is forget even my records. We won't even reference
Speaker 1: my record, a record by Marvin Gaye. What's going on?
Speaker 1: It sounds like it was written yesterday. I had it
Speaker 1: on recently, as it's like we're right there. It doesn't
Speaker 1: just sound like it was written yesterday to do a
Speaker 1: certain itstand. It sounds like it could have been recorded
Speaker 1: yesterday as well, because we've we've returned to some of
Speaker 1: those sounds. And I want to ask you something. Do
Speaker 1: you ever feel like you didn't get a fair shake
Speaker 1: your music? You took a little bit of stick about
Speaker 1: being a revivalist, right, being interested into things you were
Speaker 1: interested in retro that was a very big word. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And at the same time, late eighties in the world
Speaker 1: of hip hop, if you go back to an old
Speaker 1: record and sample it, just take the music manipulated, which
Speaker 1: one could say you might do by loving old records
Speaker 1: and writing new songs the way that you were. But
Speaker 1: if you go back to old music and sample it,
Speaker 1: you're celebrated. But if you're Lenny Kravitz, you're retro good.
Speaker 1: You know, it all comes around. It's like I've always
Speaker 1: been original and written my own music. When I had
Speaker 1: my influences. No, man, I'm trying to get you angry.
Speaker 1: You are Love Rule, but no more than I mean,
Speaker 1: look at the Stones, you look at Zeppelin. I mean,
Speaker 1: we could go deep into that talking about other artists
Speaker 1: who drew very direct into ration from their sources even
Speaker 1: more than I did, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 1: any musician, it's all the things that you grew up on,
Speaker 1: all the education you've had mixed up together and in
Speaker 1: a stew and it comes out. You bring it out
Speaker 1: your own way, you know. But still, I want to
Speaker 1: tell you somebody who heard those records coming out at
Speaker 1: the time, that that retro idea did shape and color
Speaker 1: the way that I interacted with them. So when I
Speaker 1: go back to Let Love Rule right now and I
Speaker 1: hear Mr. Cab Driver, here's the song that when I
Speaker 1: heard it almost thirty years ago, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the bass is out front, this guy Revolver,
Speaker 1: he loves Revolver. And you know what, Now I hear
Speaker 1: it and I think, oh, yeah, the bass is out front,
Speaker 1: there's some choppy guitar behind dirty mind, this guy loves Prince.
Speaker 1: But that's not the way I heard it at the time,
Speaker 1: right right, It is true though, Right, that was a
Speaker 1: crucial record for you What Dirty Mind? Absolutely big one,
Speaker 1: big one for me. Yeah. Yeah, and that record let
Speaker 1: Love Rule I've heard you talk about this came out
Speaker 1: and you get a phone call from Prince, right I did.
Speaker 1: He called me after heard the record and wanted to
Speaker 1: meet me, and I met him. Was in l A
Speaker 1: at the time. I met him at some sound stage
Speaker 1: I forget where it was, somewhere maybe in burb banger
Speaker 1: And that started our relationship and we were friends up,
Speaker 1: you know, from then to the end. When you got
Speaker 1: a call from Prince back then, did the phone just
Speaker 1: rang and you heard a voice and it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's Prince you know, and it's like I never got
Speaker 1: the number from It was kind of like when Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton called me. It was like I was like, how
Speaker 1: did you get my number? Let me just put it
Speaker 1: was kind of like when Bill Clinton. Well it's by
Speaker 1: the way, Bill Clinton, I understand where he could get
Speaker 1: the number. That's what I'm saying, but I thought to
Speaker 1: say it. The first time he called, I was like hello, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, Prince called me, and yeah, it was really
Speaker 1: beautiful that he was supportive and basically saying like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're brothers, that's meet up. Yeah, he was. I mean
Speaker 1: in high school, listening to that Dirty Mind record was
Speaker 1: so much for me. Yeah, I used to listen to
Speaker 1: in high school and I had to jump up when
Speaker 1: head came on to turn it down so my mom
Speaker 1: wouldn't hear the lyrics the track right. Amazing? Yeah, do
Speaker 1: you do the same thing now for other artists who
Speaker 1: you might hear a kinstry, Like when you hear a
Speaker 1: Greta Van Fleet or a Curtis Harden who's opening for
Speaker 1: you on tour. Here's somebody else who draws on music
Speaker 1: that you've drawn on. Do you pick up the phone
Speaker 1: and tell them, Hey, man, I know where you're coming from.
Speaker 1: I know some of what's going to happen. Not so much,
Speaker 1: but like in certain cases, I'll invite people to come
Speaker 1: play with me, and they'll come and do some gigs
Speaker 1: with us and open up with me. Curtis and I
Speaker 1: became friendly on the tour. He did a bunch of
Speaker 1: dates in Europe with me. Gary Clark Jr. And for
Speaker 1: other people, that is a very soulful and stylish grouping. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Gary is amazing. He blessed us and was special guests
Speaker 1: for several shows. Um, it's great to hear music that
Speaker 1: is organic, people are actually playing instruments. I did. We've
Speaker 1: got to Raise Gracia raised vibration. You brought up the
Speaker 1: idea of the title track from this record, We've got
Speaker 1: to Raise our vibration raising. You mentioned Jesus, you mentioned Gandhi,
Speaker 1: you mentioned dr king in the song. Tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about the song. It's about going to that
Speaker 1: level and raising our vibration and acting on peace non violence.
Speaker 1: And it ends as you heard the end of the record.
Speaker 1: It ends with these Native American singers and drummers chanting
Speaker 1: at the end, which makes even more powerful. Where did
Speaker 1: that come from? Was that music that you saw people performing.
Speaker 1: I've always been into that, and actually my great grandmother
Speaker 1: was full blood Cherokee on my mom's side of the family.
Speaker 1: I have a friend, Chris Summer, who I made a
Speaker 1: record on in ninety eight, seven or eight called Street Ferry.
Speaker 1: It's really cool I made at the same time I
Speaker 1: made five, I made Creeze record in my record in
Speaker 1: a compass point in NASA at the same time. She
Speaker 1: grew up on a reservation. She's been the one who's
Speaker 1: really educated me on on that music. And so I
Speaker 1: was in l A and I was speaking to her
Speaker 1: and I said, I hear this sound for this song,
Speaker 1: and she found the players and for me and I
Speaker 1: flew them over. And the first intention was to put
Speaker 1: them on the song in the middle of the song,
Speaker 1: while in the break it was so pure on its
Speaker 1: own that anytime they did it in the track, it's
Speaker 1: almost like you've changed channels, like you're you're in a
Speaker 1: different song entirely that moment. So instead of putting them
Speaker 1: in the track, I waited till the end of the
Speaker 1: song and then fade them in at the end and
Speaker 1: the chat for a while coda and added message, Yeah
Speaker 1: it was so it was really beautiful. Yeah, And the
Speaker 1: track is as far as it just starts with a
Speaker 1: guitar and a vocal for like a while before the
Speaker 1: drums kicking. Yeah. You talked a little bit about letting
Speaker 1: love rule, you know, the idea that that you've carried
Speaker 1: forth as a program throughout your work. And I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about this song, Johnny Cash, which isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily about not not you know, one way, but it's
Speaker 1: about something that happened. It's about a feeling Johnny Cash
Speaker 1: left me with. In one way of describing this song
Speaker 1: is about wanting to find someone who looks at you
Speaker 1: or treat you the way June Carter treated Johnny right. Well, basically,
Speaker 1: I was singing to somebody that I was having a
Speaker 1: very deep break up, and I'm telling them in this
Speaker 1: song how I need them. I wish it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to hand, and I'm asking for their comfort. So shoot
Speaker 1: me writing this song. I wake up with this song
Speaker 1: in my head, and I go to the studio and
Speaker 1: I'm just laying on the thunder Roads and I'm playing
Speaker 1: the chords and I'm singing the melody. I didn't have
Speaker 1: any words, but the only words that were coming out
Speaker 1: of my mouth it was holding me like Johnny Cash,
Speaker 1: which is the first line of the hook. And I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there singing this hold me like Johnny and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, what am I talk? What hold me
Speaker 1: like Johnny Cash? What does that mean? And so as
Speaker 1: the words kept sort of streaming out of me and
Speaker 1: I wrote more words, I realized I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is serious. So basically, the day my mother died,
Speaker 1: I was in the hospital. It was in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: at the time, and I knew she had maybe just
Speaker 1: a few days left. But I was in the hospital
Speaker 1: all day on this particular day, and I took a
Speaker 1: break to go home to shower and get some food,
Speaker 1: and I was going to go back. At the time,
Speaker 1: I was living at Rick Ruben's house in l A.
Speaker 1: I lived with Rick for several years. That was my
Speaker 1: spot in l A. He gave me a little wing
Speaker 1: of the house and very sweet And at that particular time,
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash was making the Acoustic record, so he was
Speaker 1: living at the house as well. So I drove from
Speaker 1: the hospital. I get to the house, I get the
Speaker 1: phone call that my mom had passed. I was shocked
Speaker 1: because I didn't know what was gonna happen like that,
Speaker 1: and I want to be there, and I'm standing at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the stairs and I'm sure I looked
Speaker 1: shocked and out of it, and Johnny and June were
Speaker 1: coming down the stairs to go out, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: Johnny could see that something was wrong with me, so
Speaker 1: he said, Lenny, Hey, what's what's going on? How are you?
Speaker 1: And I said, my mom just died. And the two
Speaker 1: of them came down the stairs and just grabbed me
Speaker 1: and held me really tightly and consoled me. They were
Speaker 1: comforting me, They were telling me all of these things
Speaker 1: and saying very beautiful, supportive things. It was a really human,
Speaker 1: beautiful moment because we weren't close like that. We were
Speaker 1: living in the same house. Hi, good morning, how are
Speaker 1: you good afternoon? Nice to see you. We never got
Speaker 1: into like a real deep conversation because we were always
Speaker 1: coming and going and having things to do. But they
Speaker 1: took ten minutes whatever it was and just sat there
Speaker 1: with me. And so the chorus says, told me, like
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash when I lost my mother, whisper in my ear,
Speaker 1: just like June Carter, and now I fight these tears
Speaker 1: that I hid. Just hold me tight for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life. So obviously, the last time I was
Speaker 1: comforted on a level like that was the time that
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash and June Carter held me when my mom died.
Speaker 1: And that feeling is what I was looking for from
Speaker 1: this person, and that was the way to tell the story.
Speaker 1: And it's also quite surreal that the moment that my
Speaker 1: mother dies, there's nobody around, there's nobody in my family.
Speaker 1: I'm by myself and the only people that are there
Speaker 1: our Johnny Cash and June Carter. That's surreal, right, so
Speaker 1: and and and they had such a powerful connection. The
Speaker 1: two of them were one, you know, and you see
Speaker 1: that when people are that close. I mean they when
Speaker 1: one passed the next one, it wasn't too far behind,
Speaker 1: but they were one. It was beautiful to see. And
Speaker 1: they were just beautiful people. And I I had that moment.
Speaker 1: They were there at a very crucial moment and did
Speaker 1: what they felt they should do, and it was the
Speaker 1: exact thing that I needed. Yeah, I want to circle
Speaker 1: back to the genesis point of this record. We were
Speaker 1: talking about before you knew what direction to go in,
Speaker 1: or you would open yourself up to going in whatever
Speaker 1: direction you would. I know you've talked a little bit
Speaker 1: about hearing from other people that you should, well maybe
Speaker 1: work with this producer, that producer. What were people wanting
Speaker 1: out of They want you to be quote unquote relevant contemporary.
Speaker 1: But what's that sound like? Being in fashion to what's
Speaker 1: going on? That would mean I guess me adopting you know,
Speaker 1: like whatever is on the radio. So first, I mean,
Speaker 1: so making some sort of pop dance or trap record,
Speaker 1: what like yea perhaps right? Yeah, which could be an
Speaker 1: interesting challenge, just as an artic collaboration. It's not a
Speaker 1: record that I would make. I'm going to make what
Speaker 1: I make. But there were lots of opinions, and so
Speaker 1: that was part of the confusion. But it was, as
Speaker 1: I said, it was an interesting process. It's interesting. It
Speaker 1: could be interesting to try to just do it to
Speaker 1: see what happens, you know, and I did, you did,
Speaker 1: I actually did with a few folks, just to be open,
Speaker 1: open to the process. Yeah, because people are saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta drop your ego. And it was never about ego.
Speaker 1: It was about this is how I work. When a
Speaker 1: painter is painting is painting, nobody says, well, why don't
Speaker 1: you get a few other people involved here and let
Speaker 1: them throw some colors on there. And there aren't a
Speaker 1: lot of people like you who were making their records
Speaker 1: essentially by themselves. I mean most people, whether they're in
Speaker 1: a band making rock music or whether they're making pop
Speaker 1: music or working in a team of collaborators. And there
Speaker 1: aren't a lot of people in the music business who
Speaker 1: have the artistic freedom to say, well, I'd like to
Speaker 1: do it the way I'd like to do it. Well,
Speaker 1: I always had from day one. I had creative control,
Speaker 1: that was in my contract from day one. But people
Speaker 1: were just saying, and you make it so hard on yourself.
Speaker 1: You do everything, Why don't you just do this make
Speaker 1: it easier? And so I tried it, and I actually
Speaker 1: did some really cool things with one group of guys.
Speaker 1: If you're not able to say who they were, can
Speaker 1: you tell us what the vibe was, what the sound was.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say what it was, which is different.
Speaker 1: But I made some really good friends from these two
Speaker 1: particular people, and I'm sure we're gonna put out some
Speaker 1: of that stuff because it was cool. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: what this record should be. It's something else. But I
Speaker 1: knew I had a record to make and statements to
Speaker 1: make and sounds to make that weren't that okay. So
Speaker 1: so far we've heard about this collaboration and uh, a
Speaker 1: punky Ramoncy version of It's enough. So what else is
Speaker 1: in the vault? Lanning? If we got thirty years of
Speaker 1: stuff in the vault? What's in there? I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: One day I'll go through it and see what's there
Speaker 1: for me. I'm always looking forward the next records, not
Speaker 1: in the eight percent done. So I'm my head's in
Speaker 1: that thing now? Is this the record I've heard about
Speaker 1: a little about where you've collaborated with different people across
Speaker 1: the years and put these recordings together. It's a very funky, greasy, raw,
Speaker 1: very raw. Who else? Who else is involved in these
Speaker 1: fus far George Clinton, Alan Tussa God rest his soul,
Speaker 1: Kenny Barrel, legendary jazz guitarist, Bill Summers who was the
Speaker 1: percussionist for Herbie Hancock and the head Hunters, Fred Wesley,
Speaker 1: trombonist for James Brown and others. Maceio Parker, saxophonist for
Speaker 1: James Brown, Big Black the percussionist too. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you ever saw soul power from the Muhammad Ali
Speaker 1: he's the discussionist. Did that that big solo in the
Speaker 1: middle of the concert. Yeah, there's some very cool eclectic
Speaker 1: You're in a different world with each one of these
Speaker 1: people's missing. How do we get this out of you?
Speaker 1: I have a little mixing to do, I have maybe
Speaker 1: a vocal to do, and I have a few more collaborations.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm innsseling vacation. You gotta get this done. Wenny,
Speaker 1: Thank you for being thank you for having me. Inside
Speaker 1: the Studio is an I Heart Radio original podcast created
Speaker 1: by Chris Peterson. This episode was written and hosted by
Speaker 1: me Joe Leavy. Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens for audiation,
Speaker 1: and our mixer is Matt Noble. We'd like to give
Speaker 1: a big thanks to Lenny Kravitz and BMG Records, and
Speaker 1: you can follow Inside the Studio on I heart Radio
Speaker 1: or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.