Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Lenny Kravitz

Transcript

Lenny Kravitz · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:08
Speaker 1: Pushkin. In the opening lines of his New York Times
0:14
Speaker 1: best selling memoir Let Love Rule, Lenny Kravitz writes that
0:17
Speaker 1: he is deeply two sided. His young life was all
0:21
Speaker 1: about opposites and extremes, black and white. He grew up
0:25
Speaker 1: between his West Indian grandparents home in Brooklyn and his parents'
0:29
Speaker 1: home on the Upper East Side, where he was surrounded
0:31
Speaker 1: by his family's famous friends, legends like Miles Davis and
0:35
Speaker 1: Duke Ellington. When Lenny was eleven, his mother, Roxy Roker,
0:39
Speaker 1: landed his starring role on the iconic sitcom The Jeffersons,
0:43
Speaker 1: moving the family out west to Los Angeles, where Lenny
0:46
Speaker 1: fell in love with classic rock, funk, and skate culture.
0:50
Speaker 1: It's also where Lenny and Rick Rubin eventually became fast
0:54
Speaker 1: friends in the late eighties. In this conversation, Lenny tells
0:58
Speaker 1: Rick candid stories about his relationship with Lisa Bonne and
1:02
Speaker 1: talks about how writing his memoir helped him finally find
1:04
Speaker 1: peace with his overbearing father. They also talk about the
1:08
Speaker 1: time Lenny, Rick, and Johnny Cash were all roommates, and
1:12
Speaker 1: the day Lenny received the most devastating news of his life.
1:20
Speaker 1: This is broken record. Liner notes for the digital age.
1:22
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmonds. Here's Rick Ruben and Lenny Kravitz. For
1:31
Speaker 1: some reason, I didn't realize that you grew up in
1:33
Speaker 1: New York City. I had no idea. For some reason,
1:36
Speaker 1: I thought you were a California kid. So I was
1:39
Speaker 1: born in bed Sty, and for the first five years
1:44
Speaker 1: in my life, I lived in bed Sty on the
1:48
Speaker 1: weekdays and then lived on the Opper east Side with
1:50
Speaker 1: my parents on the weekends. My mom was doing theater,
1:54
Speaker 1: my mom was working at NBC, my father was at NBC,
1:59
Speaker 1: and so they were real busy, but I saw them
2:01
Speaker 1: every day. They'd come from Rockefeller Center over the bridge
2:06
Speaker 1: to Brooklyn, have dinner with me, play with me, hang
2:09
Speaker 1: out for a bit, put me to bed, and then
2:12
Speaker 1: my mom would go to a play. My dad would
2:14
Speaker 1: go to a jazz club or do whatever because he
2:16
Speaker 1: was also promoting jazz. And then when I turned five,
2:21
Speaker 1: I moved to the Upper east Side, which was eighty
2:23
Speaker 1: second between Fifth and Madison, across from the Metropolitan Museum
2:26
Speaker 1: of Art, and I lived there on the weekdays. But
2:31
Speaker 1: that was my life, going back and forth between Bedstein
2:35
Speaker 1: the Upper east Side, which was a very interesting contrast. Yeah,
2:41
Speaker 1: do you know. Do you know how your parents met. Yeah,
2:44
Speaker 1: they met at Rockefeller Center. My mother was a secretary
2:49
Speaker 1: working for some you know, big cat there, and my
2:54
Speaker 1: father was an assignmon editor for NBC News and they met.
3:01
Speaker 1: My father started out as a page worked his way up,
3:03
Speaker 1: was there for many years, and he met my mom
3:07
Speaker 1: at work. I think they bonded over, you know, theater
3:12
Speaker 1: and music and the arts, and they started dating and
3:16
Speaker 1: then he asked her to marry him, and they got married. Yet, beautiful,
3:21
Speaker 1: do you have any brothers and sisters or just you?
3:23
Speaker 1: I have two sisters from my father's first marriage, so
3:27
Speaker 1: half sisters, but you know they're my sisters, don't We
3:30
Speaker 1: don't do the half and the whatever. They're my sisters.
3:33
Speaker 1: But it was really nice to find out that I
3:36
Speaker 1: had sisters. When did you find out? I was small.
3:40
Speaker 1: I remember being like, I don't know, three or something
3:44
Speaker 1: when I met them. They lived up state in New York.
3:46
Speaker 1: They lived in Monroe, about an hour and twenty minutes
3:49
Speaker 1: outside of the city. I was an only child, and
3:51
Speaker 1: I always kind of wished I had brothers or sisters,
3:53
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, I had these two sisters,
3:55
Speaker 1: and it was it was cool, and then they started,
3:58
Speaker 1: you know, spending more time with us. They started going
4:01
Speaker 1: on family holidays with us. My mom insisted that my father,
4:07
Speaker 1: you know, men in this relationship. I think he wasn't
4:09
Speaker 1: so close to them at the time that they got together,
4:13
Speaker 1: or just that he was you know, you know, taking
4:16
Speaker 1: his time or whatever from whatever breakup he had had before.
4:19
Speaker 1: But my mom let him know that she could not
4:22
Speaker 1: marry him and be with him if he hadn't if
4:25
Speaker 1: he didn't fix that and he didn't get tight with
4:28
Speaker 1: his family. That's the kind of person that my mother was,
4:32
Speaker 1: as you know personally, you you knew her, and so
4:36
Speaker 1: that's how that happened. I understood your mom was a
4:39
Speaker 1: strong force, yeah, and all about family and love. I
4:43
Speaker 1: think I only met your dad one time, if I
4:46
Speaker 1: remember correctly. We were I can't remember where it was,
4:49
Speaker 1: but we were next to a tour bus. I remember
4:51
Speaker 1: we were outside. Really yeah, we were outside of a
4:53
Speaker 1: tour bus, either coming before or after a show, and
4:59
Speaker 1: we just talked for a little bit. But I remember
5:01
Speaker 1: he seemed like a cool cat. No, he was cool
5:03
Speaker 1: with all of our dynamics you know that were interesting
5:08
Speaker 1: and tough and beautiful. He was a cool person. And
5:13
Speaker 1: you know, in writing this book that I just wrote,
5:16
Speaker 1: it helped me to understand and love him even more
5:20
Speaker 1: because for the first time I saw him as a character.
5:23
Speaker 1: I saw him as a person, as a man living
5:26
Speaker 1: his life, dealing with whatever demons and things that he
5:31
Speaker 1: had to deal with. And I realized that he was
5:34
Speaker 1: operating on what he had, what he experienced with his parents,
5:39
Speaker 1: what he experienced in the military, all the things that
5:42
Speaker 1: he went through. He was dealing with what he had
5:44
Speaker 1: and he did the best he could with it. And
5:47
Speaker 1: for the first time, as I said, I was able
5:49
Speaker 1: to see him as not my dad, but as this person,
5:53
Speaker 1: and it was really freeing. Even though we made peace
5:56
Speaker 1: before he died, there were still things I realized that
5:59
Speaker 1: I was holding onto, and in writing this book, it
6:03
Speaker 1: all vanished and I loved him and liked him more
6:07
Speaker 1: than I ever had. And that was beautiful. That was
6:10
Speaker 1: the gift and the reward and the success of writing
6:13
Speaker 1: this book. Beautiful, beautiful. What motivated what motivated to do
6:17
Speaker 1: the book? I never thought I would write a book.
6:21
Speaker 1: I wasn't interested in writing a book. A mutual friend
6:25
Speaker 1: introduced me to David Ritz, who is an incredible writer
6:29
Speaker 1: and has written all of these books on everybody from
6:32
Speaker 1: Ray Charles to Marvin Gaye to woul Rita Franklin. And
6:36
Speaker 1: I met him at a dinner. We were at a
6:39
Speaker 1: Japanese restaurant in New York, and he said, you should
6:44
Speaker 1: write a book, and I want to help you write it.
6:47
Speaker 1: And I basically told him that I really never thought
6:50
Speaker 1: about it and wasn't interested in it. But by the
6:53
Speaker 1: time the dinner was over, he convinced me. I thought
6:55
Speaker 1: he was really interesting and smart, and I took it
7:00
Speaker 1: as a challenge. I thought, well, why not. And then
7:04
Speaker 1: he and I started hanging out, and then I spent
7:06
Speaker 1: a lot of time on my own, and then we'd
7:08
Speaker 1: hang out again. And you know, it took a few
7:10
Speaker 1: years to slowly put together, and it took me a
7:13
Speaker 1: while to actually find my voice how I wanted to
7:16
Speaker 1: tell the story. And then in writing the book, I
7:19
Speaker 1: realized that I only wanted it to be about the
7:22
Speaker 1: first twenty five years from my birth to the release
7:25
Speaker 1: of the first album and and the beginning of that tour.
7:28
Speaker 1: So the album came out when I was twenty four. Actually, yeah,
7:32
Speaker 1: that's that's right around the time we met. If I
7:34
Speaker 1: remember correctly, we met. We actually met before the album
7:37
Speaker 1: came out. I met you at the Roxy. No, yeah,
7:40
Speaker 1: I remember I did that. I did that showcase at
7:42
Speaker 1: the Roxy, and you were there after the show waiting
7:46
Speaker 1: to talk to me, and I was like so excited
7:48
Speaker 1: to meet you, and we hit it off right away.
7:51
Speaker 1: It was just very natural. You felt like a brother,
7:53
Speaker 1: and then we never stopped hanging out. It's true. I remember.
7:57
Speaker 1: I remember being at a music convention where all of
8:01
Speaker 1: the different labels were talking about their new upcoming artists,
8:05
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking everything was terrible, like all the
8:09
Speaker 1: everyone's presentation was like all this new music and nothing
8:12
Speaker 1: was interesting. And then there was a clip of you
8:15
Speaker 1: and it was like, oh, there's one good new artist.
8:19
Speaker 1: It was like I was so excited that there was
8:21
Speaker 1: one new good artist. And that's what got me to
8:23
Speaker 1: come to see the showcase at the Roxy, just based
8:28
Speaker 1: on seeing a little clip at a record event and
8:31
Speaker 1: thinking this is you know, this stands apart from everything.
8:35
Speaker 1: And then I saw the live performance, which was unbelievable.
8:39
Speaker 1: And you probably met my mother that night because she
8:41
Speaker 1: was there. I can't remember. I mean I met her
8:43
Speaker 1: plenty of times. He was there, Lisa was there. We
8:46
Speaker 1: were all there. Yeah, but you and I hung out
8:49
Speaker 1: for a while. I remember it was in the It
8:51
Speaker 1: was in the audience. Everybody had left and there's just
8:54
Speaker 1: a few people around and you and I were just out.
8:56
Speaker 1: I remember you were wearing the audience You're wearing kind
8:58
Speaker 1: of a winter over. Yep, it was long. I remember
9:03
Speaker 1: it was kind of like an old pimp coat to
9:05
Speaker 1: be to be honest. So funny the details that we remember. Yeah, Man,
9:10
Speaker 1: in the in the process of working on the book,
9:12
Speaker 1: did you remember pieces of stories that, over time and
9:18
Speaker 1: thinking about it, came back to you in a way
9:20
Speaker 1: that you didn't know that you knew them. I was
9:22
Speaker 1: quite surprised at how much I remembered, But I tend
9:27
Speaker 1: to have a really good, you know, long term memory.
9:31
Speaker 1: I remember things from my childhood from you know, when
9:33
Speaker 1: I was three years old with detail. Wow. But then
9:37
Speaker 1: you know, don't ask me what you know happened yesterday
9:40
Speaker 1: or where I put something, you know. But for some reason,
9:43
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't have to dig as hard as
9:46
Speaker 1: I thought I would have to. And I think it's
9:48
Speaker 1: also a time in my life that I really cherished,
9:52
Speaker 1: like I understood somehow that I had a really good childhood.
9:57
Speaker 1: Whatever it was, like, the ups and the downs, whatever,
10:00
Speaker 1: I enjoyed my childhood. I enjoyed, you know, growing up
10:04
Speaker 1: in New York City in the late sixties as a
10:07
Speaker 1: very small child and the seventies at a time where
10:11
Speaker 1: music was so incredible. I mean, all you had to
10:14
Speaker 1: do was turn on the radio and everything was there.
10:16
Speaker 1: I remember listening to w ABC and my father's VW
10:22
Speaker 1: Bug and you'd hear Simon and Garfunkel next to Aritha Franklin,
10:26
Speaker 1: next to Jimmy Hendrix, next to Led Zeppelin, next to
10:30
Speaker 1: you know, whomever. You know. It just was all over
10:33
Speaker 1: the place. And my mother was an actress. She was
10:37
Speaker 1: in the theater doing avant garde theater. She was in
10:41
Speaker 1: this incredible theater group called the Niger Ensemble Company. So
10:45
Speaker 1: I was going to plays. We were going to operas
10:48
Speaker 1: and ballets and symphonies in Central Park and Shakespeare in
10:52
Speaker 1: the Park and the Jackson Five at Madison Square Garden
10:56
Speaker 1: and James Brown at the Apollo and you know, Miles
10:59
Speaker 1: Davis and you know Duke Ellington at the Rainbow Room
11:02
Speaker 1: and wow, Sarah Vaughan, and I mean it was so colorful,
11:07
Speaker 1: and my parents had so many wonderful characters around. I
11:13
Speaker 1: thoroughly enjoyed my childhood and then growing up on the
11:17
Speaker 1: Upper East Side and having the Metropolitan Museum as your backyard.
11:21
Speaker 1: I'd go in there by myself and get lost and
11:24
Speaker 1: look at the art. And I even had a notebook.
11:27
Speaker 1: I mean, I must have been nine years old. I
11:28
Speaker 1: had a notebook, and I would take notes on the
11:31
Speaker 1: art that I saw and what I liked, and I
11:34
Speaker 1: would buy They had postcards in there that you could
11:37
Speaker 1: buy with pictures of the art, and I would get postcards,
11:40
Speaker 1: and you know, I was a member of the chess club,
11:43
Speaker 1: played chess, and and then I'd go to bed Sty
11:46
Speaker 1: and have that whole life. I got to see the
11:49
Speaker 1: birth of hip hop, which of course Brooklyn was one
11:52
Speaker 1: of the spots, right absolutely. And I remember the first
11:54
Speaker 1: time seeing a guy in the front of his house
11:59
Speaker 1: in the in the yard in front of his house
12:02
Speaker 1: with two turntables and these big old speakers that he
12:04
Speaker 1: had built, and he was mixing and doing this whole thing.
12:08
Speaker 1: And I didn't understand what he was doing. Like he's like,
12:11
Speaker 1: I'm playing music, right, but I didn't. I didn't understand it.
12:14
Speaker 1: I was like you're playing records like but then I
12:17
Speaker 1: it caught on quickly and I saw what they were doing,
12:20
Speaker 1: and you know, guys started break dancing and bringing out
12:23
Speaker 1: the linoleum floors, you know, onto the sidewalk and it.
12:27
Speaker 1: You know, I got to see all that, and then
12:29
Speaker 1: I moved to LA when I was eleven, moved to
12:32
Speaker 1: Santa Monica. Went to school in Santa Monica John Adams
12:36
Speaker 1: Junior High. It's nineteen seventy five when my mom started
12:40
Speaker 1: the Jeffersons and I got to see the birth of
12:44
Speaker 1: Dogtown and Z boys incredible. I went to school. I
12:48
Speaker 1: had English class with this guy named Mike Humpston. His
12:54
Speaker 1: big brother was West Humpston, and I remember him bringing
12:57
Speaker 1: in a Dogtown board that was hand drawn with the
13:02
Speaker 1: cross and the Dogtown and the whole thing, and he
13:05
Speaker 1: brought it in and showed, yeah, this is this is
13:07
Speaker 1: what my brother's doing. This is Dogtown. So I got
13:11
Speaker 1: to see so many things happen as a as a
13:15
Speaker 1: child that were so exciting and cultural, groundbreaking, historical InCred
13:21
Speaker 1: It's funny. It's funny you talk about Dogtown and seeing
13:25
Speaker 1: the birth of hip hop and how cool is that? Right? No,
13:29
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable, and it's they're almost the same thing. You know,
13:35
Speaker 1: they're both Yes, they're both examples of counterculture movements. You know,
13:41
Speaker 1: we tend to think of hip hop as a music movement.
13:44
Speaker 1: It's a counterculture movement. When I saw the Dogtown documentary,
13:49
Speaker 1: I watched it not looking at it as this is
13:51
Speaker 1: about skateboarding. I thought, Oh, this is the Deaf Jam story,
13:54
Speaker 1: except they're riding skateboards instead of making music. It's it's
13:58
Speaker 1: a it was a counterculture rebellion story, and you got
14:03
Speaker 1: to witness two in a row that, even though they
14:06
Speaker 1: looked different, we're really tapping into the same kind of
14:10
Speaker 1: youth culture energy of changing the world. Super exciting, super
14:16
Speaker 1: exciting and inspiring. And then on top of it, I'm
14:20
Speaker 1: growing up between a so called black and white world,
14:24
Speaker 1: Jewish and Christian, both my parents, all these people not
14:30
Speaker 1: having any understanding of the problems with race. For the
14:36
Speaker 1: first six years of my life, I had no clue
14:38
Speaker 1: that any of this was an issue, because that's just
14:40
Speaker 1: the way it was. My mother looked like she did,
14:42
Speaker 1: my father looked like he did. Both sets of grandparents, aunts, uncle's, cousins, etc.
14:48
Speaker 1: Our house is full of every race and every type
14:51
Speaker 1: of person from every background, religion, you name it, and
14:55
Speaker 1: it was that was normal life. And then I went
14:58
Speaker 1: to first grade and uh me and my parents because
15:02
Speaker 1: we walked in this first day of school, your parents
15:04
Speaker 1: walk into school and as it seemed, everybody else's parents
15:09
Speaker 1: matched except mine. And this kid ran out in front
15:14
Speaker 1: of us and he pointed with his finger and he said,
15:16
Speaker 1: your father's white and your mother's black. And it was
15:20
Speaker 1: like this moment like what is what is that? What
15:23
Speaker 1: does that mean? What is that? And why are you
15:25
Speaker 1: making a scene? You know? And that's when my mother
15:29
Speaker 1: started to talk to me and explain, you know, what
15:33
Speaker 1: was what, you know, how the how society operated, you know,
15:37
Speaker 1: how the world was seeing things. So it was a
15:40
Speaker 1: really rich upbringing, you know, being able to have all
15:44
Speaker 1: of these contrasts and to be able to have, you know,
15:47
Speaker 1: both of these sides, to be able to spend your
15:50
Speaker 1: childhood in between two opposites like the Upper East Side
15:53
Speaker 1: and Bad Sty was phenomenal and taught me so much.
15:58
Speaker 1: And then what's funny is Okay, So I moved to
16:01
Speaker 1: la and I'm seeing the birth of all this skate culture.
16:06
Speaker 1: So then I go back to New York. Skateboarding hadn't
16:09
Speaker 1: reached then yet. So I'm I got my board and
16:12
Speaker 1: I'm explaining all this stuff. It's nineteen seventy five, seventy six,
16:17
Speaker 1: and they have no idea what I'm talking about. Nobody's
16:20
Speaker 1: in the street riding skateboards in New York, and hip
16:24
Speaker 1: hop hadn't reached the West Coast in that way yet.
16:28
Speaker 1: So I'm watching all these guys breakdance and they're they're
16:31
Speaker 1: getting together in their apartments and they're having these you know,
16:34
Speaker 1: get together. Everybody's showing their moves and what's going on.
16:37
Speaker 1: I remember hearing the bridges over for the first time,
16:40
Speaker 1: you know, Boogie Down Productions, KRS one, and I'm going
16:45
Speaker 1: back to LA and no one has a clue of
16:47
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, you know. So I felt like
16:50
Speaker 1: I was on the I was on the inside of
16:53
Speaker 1: these things that the opposite coast had no idea about. Yeah, incredible,
17:00
Speaker 1: incredible timing, magic times, very very also in addition to
17:06
Speaker 1: hip hop, because I was I was there at that
17:09
Speaker 1: time too in New York. Well obviously you're you know,
17:11
Speaker 1: you're one of the pioneers, my brother, but there was
17:14
Speaker 1: also an incredible club dance music scene in New York
17:19
Speaker 1: that's revolutionary, you know, like the ESG and Bush Tetras
17:25
Speaker 1: and Conk all of the music that that, I guess
17:29
Speaker 1: now the closest version of it in the world would
17:33
Speaker 1: be LCD sound System. You know, they're they're sort of
17:35
Speaker 1: in the lineage of that New York club dance music
17:40
Speaker 1: that was so insistent and hypnotic and exciting. Yeah, and
17:46
Speaker 1: that didn't exist anywhere else. That was a real New
17:49
Speaker 1: York yeah vibe. And I didn't get that till later.
17:53
Speaker 1: Like I missed that early hip hop, like that club
17:55
Speaker 1: thing in New York. I was too young, But I
17:57
Speaker 1: started to party in New York when I was you know, eighteen,
18:00
Speaker 1: when I started going back to New York after high school,
18:03
Speaker 1: and it was beginning of the house music and the
18:06
Speaker 1: you know, the Paradise Garage and all those spots and
18:10
Speaker 1: all those great DJs, and yeah, but I missed. I
18:13
Speaker 1: missed that part of the of the clubbing. I was
18:15
Speaker 1: too young. Do you remember punk Rocotole or was that
18:18
Speaker 1: before you? My first introduction to punk was in Santa Monica,
18:25
Speaker 1: that that sort of West Coast version of what was
18:28
Speaker 1: going on there were like Black Flag black Flag, Circle Jerks,
18:34
Speaker 1: Circle Jerks. There was a band that my that my
18:38
Speaker 1: girlfriend's brother was in called Sin thirty four. But yeah,
18:42
Speaker 1: it was that whole LA thing was Red Cross. One
18:44
Speaker 1: of them absolutely, Red Cross had long hair and they
18:47
Speaker 1: had more of a sixties punk rock style. They were
18:49
Speaker 1: really cool. Yeah, they used to play, you know, on
18:53
Speaker 1: the pier in different places in town and you know,
18:57
Speaker 1: Santa Monica in Venice. So what else was going on
19:00
Speaker 1: musically when you came to California? In addition to the
19:03
Speaker 1: punk rock, they didn't have hip hop yet. Okay, So
19:06
Speaker 1: when I got to La, Okay, I in New York City,
19:09
Speaker 1: it was RMB, it was WBLS Frankie Crockery, so that
19:13
Speaker 1: was R and B and funk. You know. I was
19:16
Speaker 1: going to see things with my parents, So I knew
19:19
Speaker 1: about blues, I knew about gospel, I knew about you know,
19:23
Speaker 1: funk and R and B and soul. But rock was
19:28
Speaker 1: not around me so much then and my parents weren't
19:32
Speaker 1: so into it at that time. So I moved to LA.
19:36
Speaker 1: I come to Santa Monica and I meet all these
19:38
Speaker 1: kids who were skating and smoking weed and their parents
19:41
Speaker 1: or hippies, and I hear led Zeppelin for the first time,
19:45
Speaker 1: and I hear the Who, and I hear Cream and
19:48
Speaker 1: you know, Hendrix and everything and that, the Doors and everybody.
19:53
Speaker 1: That opened my head up and blew my mind. Yeah,
19:56
Speaker 1: it's interesting that for you rock music is your music
20:01
Speaker 1: as opposed to your parents music. Do you know what
20:04
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It's like R and B would have been
20:05
Speaker 1: your parents' music, and jazz of course that was in there,
20:08
Speaker 1: that was in their wheelhouse, you know, so you grew
20:11
Speaker 1: up always hearing that. But then when you heard I
20:14
Speaker 1: guess hard rock music, that was sort of yeah, that
20:17
Speaker 1: was yours. Yeah, absolutely, I discovered that on my own
20:21
Speaker 1: with my friends, and you know that all went together,
20:24
Speaker 1: skating and surfing and Zeppelin and smoking weed and you know,
20:29
Speaker 1: hanging out. That was all one thing. We'll be right
20:32
Speaker 1: back with more from Lenny Kravitz and Rick Rubin after
20:34
Speaker 1: a quick break. We're back with Rick Rubin and Lenny Kravitz.
20:42
Speaker 1: When did you start playing? Well, we had a piano
20:46
Speaker 1: in New York in our apartment. We had a little
20:49
Speaker 1: spin it upright piano in our little one bedroom apartment
20:53
Speaker 1: that I used to bang on. And then my dad
20:55
Speaker 1: had an acoustic guitar, a classical one with nylon strings
20:59
Speaker 1: that my mother apparently had bought him because he sort
21:04
Speaker 1: of expressed some interest in maybe learning how to play it,
21:06
Speaker 1: and I think she was into the idea of being
21:09
Speaker 1: serenaded by her husband. But he never he never quite
21:13
Speaker 1: got it. So this guitar used to be in the
21:16
Speaker 1: closet and I used to bring I used to take
21:19
Speaker 1: it out when they would go out. When I had,
21:20
Speaker 1: you know, the babysitter would come watch me, and I
21:23
Speaker 1: would go into the closet and it was this forbidden
21:25
Speaker 1: thing that I wasn't allowed to play with, but I
21:27
Speaker 1: was completely attracted to it. So I started like that.
21:31
Speaker 1: And then my father bought me my first guitar when
21:34
Speaker 1: I was maybe eight, took me to Manny's on forty
21:38
Speaker 1: eight Street and bought me an acoustic guitar. And that's
21:42
Speaker 1: how I started. And then I went I went to
21:44
Speaker 1: a I went to a summer camp upstate New York
21:47
Speaker 1: in Roscoe, New York. It was a camp called Lincoln
21:50
Speaker 1: Farm where kids learned how to live on a farm
21:53
Speaker 1: and deal with animals and deal with you know, planting
21:57
Speaker 1: and kayaking and you know, all the things you would do.
22:01
Speaker 1: And there was a guy there who was teaching kids
22:04
Speaker 1: how to play basic chords on guitar, and I learned
22:07
Speaker 1: how to play you know, country roads, Take Me Home,
22:11
Speaker 1: you know, West Virginia and all that, and learning how
22:15
Speaker 1: to play folk songs. Then when I went to LA,
22:18
Speaker 1: I got my first electric guitar, and my dad bought
22:20
Speaker 1: me a Fender jazz Master like Elvis Costello. I didn't
22:24
Speaker 1: know about Elvis Costello then, but and then I traded
22:27
Speaker 1: it in a couple of years later for a less
22:28
Speaker 1: Paul and that's where I started copying, you know, learning
22:32
Speaker 1: how to play Zeppelin and Kiss and you know, Jimmy
22:36
Speaker 1: Hendricks and trying to figure all that stuff out. And
22:39
Speaker 1: then drums came, and then bass came after that. What
22:43
Speaker 1: was the first band who put together or first band
22:45
Speaker 1: who played with They weren't bands at first. They were
22:48
Speaker 1: jam sessions. We used to have friends that we'd go
22:52
Speaker 1: to their houses near where I grew up, most of
22:55
Speaker 1: them in Baldwin Hills, and we would jam and we
22:58
Speaker 1: would sit there and just calm up on two chords
23:01
Speaker 1: for you know, five hours. Those those jam sessions in
23:05
Speaker 1: Baldwin Hills were like funk jam sessions. We're learning how
23:08
Speaker 1: to play Rick James and the Gap Band and you know,
23:12
Speaker 1: earth Wind and Fire and all that. And then I
23:14
Speaker 1: would jam with my friends in Santa Monica and we'd
23:17
Speaker 1: be playing the rock stuff, you know. Yeah, so I
23:20
Speaker 1: had two group of friends learning again. Everything was always
23:24
Speaker 1: like that. It was the yin and the yang, the contrast,
23:27
Speaker 1: and then I slowly figured out how to put it
23:29
Speaker 1: all together because I loved both sides. I remember going
23:33
Speaker 1: to your house in Baldwin Hills. You went to my
23:35
Speaker 1: mom's house, absolutely okay. And it's interesting too bringing up that,
23:41
Speaker 1: like Funk, Funk wasn't so big in New York, but
23:45
Speaker 1: Funk was really big in California. So it's it's interesting
23:49
Speaker 1: that you got to be in that world. The fact
23:52
Speaker 1: that you moved around the way you did really did
23:54
Speaker 1: expose you to completely different experiences culturally and musically, and
23:59
Speaker 1: it's almost like you lived multiple lives, even in even
24:03
Speaker 1: just going from Baldwin Hills to Santa Monica. In those
24:06
Speaker 1: two worlds, it's like most of the kids in each
24:09
Speaker 1: of those places only played in that one play, and
24:13
Speaker 1: you got to experience school. School was extremely clicky, like
24:18
Speaker 1: at John Adams the surfer skater kids sat in one area,
24:22
Speaker 1: you know when outside, you know, for lunch and whatever.
24:25
Speaker 1: The black kids were in one area. The Dungeons and
24:29
Speaker 1: Dragons kids are in hanging out in one group. And
24:32
Speaker 1: then you had the Mexican kids, which a lot of
24:36
Speaker 1: them came from Venice, and you had them and it
24:38
Speaker 1: was the whole V thirteen thing. And you know, then
24:41
Speaker 1: you had like, we even had guys that were like truckers.
24:44
Speaker 1: I don't even know how that happened, but guys who
24:46
Speaker 1: would wear like Peter Built hats and t shirts and
24:49
Speaker 1: they were into trucks. I mean, it was just all
24:53
Speaker 1: these groups of people. And then you had the musicians
24:55
Speaker 1: and the rock guys and then this guy's It was
24:59
Speaker 1: very clicky. And I had a really hard time figuring
25:01
Speaker 1: out who I was going to hang out with, because
25:04
Speaker 1: I dug them all. So I did that. I hung
25:05
Speaker 1: out with everybody. Do you remember any music shows that
25:08
Speaker 1: you got to see concerts or performances once you got
25:11
Speaker 1: to la that as a kid that really like caught you.
25:15
Speaker 1: The first one was Earthwit and Fire, Incredible seventy five
25:19
Speaker 1: went to the Forum. My godmother had tickets. I mean,
25:23
Speaker 1: I knew Shining Star. I knew like I'd heard a
25:25
Speaker 1: couple of tunes, but I wasn't into them. Went to
25:28
Speaker 1: the Forum to go see them and changed my life. So, uh,
25:32
Speaker 1: that was my first show. And then we used to
25:33
Speaker 1: go see a lot of jazz concerts in LA. I
25:36
Speaker 1: remember going to see going to Playboy Jazz. My parents
25:39
Speaker 1: used to take me every year to the Playboy Jazz
25:41
Speaker 1: Festival at the Hollywood Bowl and I, you know, we'd
25:45
Speaker 1: go see all their friends from Miles to Sarah to
25:49
Speaker 1: you know, Count Basie and you know everybody. It was.
25:52
Speaker 1: I remember seeing Weather Report, getting to getting to hang
25:57
Speaker 1: around with those jazz legends because they were frenzy your parents.
26:01
Speaker 1: What was it like being a kid being around most people?
26:04
Speaker 1: Could you tell they were different? And if they were,
26:06
Speaker 1: how were they different? See, that's the thing. The first
26:09
Speaker 1: person I met was Duke Ellington and I'm like five,
26:13
Speaker 1: so I don't know anything, but they took me to
26:16
Speaker 1: sound check because it was my birthday. My fifth birthday
26:20
Speaker 1: was a Duke Ellington concert at the Rainbow Room and
26:24
Speaker 1: they wanted to see him before the show sound check.
26:27
Speaker 1: They sent me on his lap and I remember him
26:29
Speaker 1: just being he had a white suit on head to
26:31
Speaker 1: toe and his hair was greased back. It was like
26:34
Speaker 1: salt and pepper, mostly mostly white, really elegant, soft spoken cat.
26:41
Speaker 1: And I just loved the fact that I was sitting
26:43
Speaker 1: there while this guy played piano and I misremember the
26:47
Speaker 1: energy coming off of that piano. And then during the show,
26:51
Speaker 1: the Duke Ellington Orchestra plays Happy Birthday for Me Wow,
26:55
Speaker 1: and his lead saxophonist, Paul all Gonzalvez was his name
27:02
Speaker 1: comes up to me right in my face, playing the
27:05
Speaker 1: melody to Happy Birthday, right while the orchestra's playing, you
27:08
Speaker 1: know the arrangement. And I didn't realize until I was
27:13
Speaker 1: probably thirteen, who Duke Ellington really was. I mean the
27:17
Speaker 1: American songbook, you know, the compositions, And it was the
27:22
Speaker 1: same for Miles. Miles was this really dark. When I
27:26
Speaker 1: say dark, I don't mean dark evil dark, just dark,
27:30
Speaker 1: interesting character. And he'd be around us because he was.
27:35
Speaker 1: He was around me my whole life because he was
27:38
Speaker 1: married to my godmother, Cecily Tyson, and she and my
27:41
Speaker 1: mother were like sisters. So I was around Miles my
27:45
Speaker 1: whole life and he was just this character, and I
27:47
Speaker 1: knew he was magical, and I could feel that energy. Yeah,
27:52
Speaker 1: but again, not until I became a teenager did I
27:54
Speaker 1: understand who Miles Davis was. And we're going to the
27:57
Speaker 1: you know, I remember that was during the time when
27:59
Speaker 1: he was turning his back to the audience and he
28:01
Speaker 1: would just play with his back to the audience because
28:03
Speaker 1: he liked the way it sounded. And it was also
28:07
Speaker 1: you know, a motherfucker of a move too, you know.
28:10
Speaker 1: But I think the beauty of my childhood and those
28:14
Speaker 1: experiences were the fact that I did not understand who
28:17
Speaker 1: these people were. Yeah. Of course, when your kid, it's
28:21
Speaker 1: like you go into every situation open, you know, you
28:24
Speaker 1: don't have, yes, you don't have a backstory to compare
28:28
Speaker 1: things to, and you're just experiencing the world and it's
28:31
Speaker 1: you know, anything we can do to maintain that state
28:34
Speaker 1: as long as possible or tap back into it as
28:36
Speaker 1: much as possible, keeps you alive and able to move
28:41
Speaker 1: forward and grow. Yes, And then it's beautiful to have
28:45
Speaker 1: been around them, to know them as human beings and
28:48
Speaker 1: then say, oh shite, he's like, oh my god, this
28:53
Speaker 1: guy had been around is like an alien, you know,
28:58
Speaker 1: just the most incredible you know. So I'm glad that
29:03
Speaker 1: it happened that way, you know, and there was nothing
29:05
Speaker 1: about fame or stardom or it was just like these
29:10
Speaker 1: were artists, you know. Yeah. So another another part of
29:14
Speaker 1: it that's interesting is the more you spend time around
29:17
Speaker 1: people like that. Yes, you can look back and step
29:21
Speaker 1: away and think about how incredible they are and that
29:24
Speaker 1: they're aliens and you can't believe it and they're the
29:25
Speaker 1: greatest of all time, right, But then also you realize
29:29
Speaker 1: they're just people too, you know, they really are just people.
29:32
Speaker 1: They're just regular people. They may be good at what
29:35
Speaker 1: they do, but they are regular people and everyone has
29:40
Speaker 1: that in them. You know, everyone has that, So it's
29:43
Speaker 1: not it's not we all absolutely everybody's. Everybody has a
29:48
Speaker 1: unique gift, absolutely, and it's just for finding it into
29:51
Speaker 1: it exactly. And my mother was always really good at
29:56
Speaker 1: explain teaching me that through example by example, because she was,
30:01
Speaker 1: you know, in her own right, extremely famous. During that time,
30:05
Speaker 1: The Jeffersons was a cultural phenomena. You know, eleven seasons
30:10
Speaker 1: of this historical TV show, the first interracial couple on
30:15
Speaker 1: primetime television, the first interracial kiss, and you know, the
30:19
Speaker 1: show was groundbreaking. But during this time where she was
30:24
Speaker 1: experiencing this new level of fame, because fame in the
30:30
Speaker 1: theater world in New York is a different it's a
30:33
Speaker 1: whole different thing. It's about artistry, and if you know,
30:36
Speaker 1: you know. But if you don't know, you don't know.
30:38
Speaker 1: If you're not a theatergoer, you know. And all of
30:42
Speaker 1: a sudden, she became extremely famous, very fast. She was
30:47
Speaker 1: already a grown woman, knew who she was, and was
30:52
Speaker 1: so humble and kept her feet on the ground. I mean,
30:56
Speaker 1: my mother during the height of her fame, we have
30:59
Speaker 1: no made we have no housekeepers, we have no assistance,
31:01
Speaker 1: there's no nothing. It's us. We're living together as a family,
31:07
Speaker 1: and we're taking care of our house. Saturday morning, my
31:10
Speaker 1: mother is scrubbing the toilet in her bathroom, scrubbing the floor,
31:14
Speaker 1: cleaning the house. I'm cleaning the house, I'm ironing, I'm vacuuming,
31:18
Speaker 1: I'm doing the laundry, I'm washing the cars. When you know,
31:21
Speaker 1: that's the way I grew up, and she was all
31:24
Speaker 1: She would always tell me, that's my job, it's my craft.
31:28
Speaker 1: But that's not just who I am, and that's not
31:30
Speaker 1: the only thing that defines me. I'm a person and
31:33
Speaker 1: She kept it real her entire life, and I'm so
31:37
Speaker 1: fortunate that. And I didn't understand it then, because you know,
31:40
Speaker 1: you're becoming fifteen and sixteen, and you know, my mom's
31:44
Speaker 1: driving Oldsmobile Cutless Supreme, and you know, I'm like, where's
31:50
Speaker 1: where's the roles, where's the Mercedes? Like what's going on here?
31:54
Speaker 1: You're on you're you're you're on the number one show
31:56
Speaker 1: in the country, and and she was like, I don't.
31:58
Speaker 1: I don't need that. I don't I don't require her that.
32:00
Speaker 1: I don't. You know, it just wasn't her thing, and
32:02
Speaker 1: she just kept it so real. And by the time
32:06
Speaker 1: I released my first album when I was twenty four,
32:09
Speaker 1: I had that in me. I had that base. You know.
32:12
Speaker 1: I'd be on tour, come home from a you know,
32:15
Speaker 1: sell out world tour, and uh, I'd come visit her
32:19
Speaker 1: and she'd be like, all right, I needed to take
32:22
Speaker 1: out the trash and do this and do that and
32:24
Speaker 1: do this and that. And it was wonderful, you know,
32:28
Speaker 1: because people are kissing your ass all over the planet
32:31
Speaker 1: and you come home and it's like reality, no, and
32:35
Speaker 1: I'm just and I'm just so thankful for that. All
32:39
Speaker 1: all of that stuff kept me on the ground. Yeah,
32:43
Speaker 1: what was it like for you having a mom who
32:45
Speaker 1: was so famous. Well, that was weird because I was
32:48
Speaker 1: not used to that. I mean, we were we lived
32:50
Speaker 1: our life lives as New Yorkers and you and especially
32:53
Speaker 1: you know, because we lived off a Fifth Avenue. So
32:55
Speaker 1: of course along Fifth Avenue you have a lot of
32:58
Speaker 1: rich folks that live in gigantic apartments, you know, pre
33:01
Speaker 1: war buildings, and so in New York City, if you
33:06
Speaker 1: were poor, if you were middle class, if you were
33:09
Speaker 1: extremely rich, you still took the bus. But that was
33:13
Speaker 1: New York life. You take the bus if you try
33:15
Speaker 1: to go down Fifth Avenue. So we moved around New
33:18
Speaker 1: York City. You know, no one ever came up to
33:21
Speaker 1: my mother, or very few people. Once we got to
33:25
Speaker 1: La and the Jefferson's broke, you know, all of a sudden,
33:27
Speaker 1: we're in Lucky Supermarket on Lincoln Boulevard, you know, and
33:31
Speaker 1: Pico and people are chasing my mother down the aisle
33:35
Speaker 1: while we're trying to buy groceries and people are freaking
33:39
Speaker 1: out and you know, autographs and it was just it
33:41
Speaker 1: was it was just a new thing, and she was
33:43
Speaker 1: really gracious about it. She was so good about it
33:46
Speaker 1: and took her time to deal with the people because
33:49
Speaker 1: she knew that these people were making her life. Yeah,
33:53
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, if they're not watching those
33:57
Speaker 1: Nielsen ratings aren't going anywhere, you know. But it was odd.
34:01
Speaker 1: It was odd for a while too, like whoa people
34:05
Speaker 1: like coming into your space and freaking out, you know,
34:08
Speaker 1: I imagine, tell me about the first album? How did you?
34:12
Speaker 1: How did the first album come to be? At that time,
34:15
Speaker 1: I was hustling. I was trying to play, you know,
34:19
Speaker 1: do studio work, which was sparse for me because I
34:22
Speaker 1: wasn't known. Then I found a gig that was pretty good.
34:26
Speaker 1: I would make demos for people if you if you
34:28
Speaker 1: had a song and you needed it produced and you
34:31
Speaker 1: needed a demo, you'd bring it to me. I'll play
34:34
Speaker 1: all the instruments, I'll arrange it, I'll put it together
34:37
Speaker 1: for you and then you you know, i'll produce your
34:40
Speaker 1: vocal and do and okay, you got a demo, you
34:42
Speaker 1: can go. So I used to do that. I played
34:44
Speaker 1: behind other people in bands that were trying to make
34:48
Speaker 1: it guitar player, bass player, drummer or whatever. And then
34:54
Speaker 1: I realized that I needed to make my own expression,
34:57
Speaker 1: but I didn't know what it was. I started trying,
35:01
Speaker 1: but it was labored and it didn't feel right yet.
35:05
Speaker 1: But I was searching. And then during the time when
35:09
Speaker 1: Lisa and I got together, we were having just an incredible,
35:13
Speaker 1: incredible relationship and a lot of magic and supernatural vibes
35:20
Speaker 1: around us and love, creativity. And I moved into her
35:26
Speaker 1: house in Venice at that time, and I put all
35:30
Speaker 1: my instruments in a room and just all came to me.
35:33
Speaker 1: Those songs started downloading, and it was from all my
35:39
Speaker 1: experiences that I had before that, everybody that I'd seen,
35:43
Speaker 1: everybody I'd heard, all the life that I'd lived, and
35:46
Speaker 1: then it was our life and our love that opened
35:50
Speaker 1: up that portal beautiful and let love rules spilled out.
35:54
Speaker 1: I had no idea what style I was going to do,
35:57
Speaker 1: what it was going to be, no idea, but it
36:00
Speaker 1: started coming and coming. And then I borrowed money from
36:05
Speaker 1: my dad, which he was good enough to lend me
36:10
Speaker 1: to go into the studio to try to get this
36:13
Speaker 1: stuff out of me, and I did. I went back
36:17
Speaker 1: to New York, watch it did New Jersey to Hoboken
36:20
Speaker 1: and hired Henry Hirsch, who became my longtime engineer for
36:23
Speaker 1: many years, because when I was working with him earlier,
36:27
Speaker 1: we realized that we had very similar tastes to music
36:31
Speaker 1: and also to recordings and recording techniques. Went worked with
36:36
Speaker 1: him put this stuff down. Wanted to hire a band
36:40
Speaker 1: because I wanted a band experience. I wanted to be
36:43
Speaker 1: in the studio like the documentaries I'd seen on all
36:46
Speaker 1: the great bands, the Stones and the Beatles and everybody,
36:50
Speaker 1: and you know, I wanted to have fun. I wanted
36:54
Speaker 1: people there, and I wanted it to be this hang
36:55
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have girls around and you're gonna be
36:58
Speaker 1: doing you know. And I didn't have the money to
37:01
Speaker 1: hire musicians, and the guys that would play for very
37:06
Speaker 1: cheap weren't cutting it. So Henry said to me, I
37:10
Speaker 1: heard you play keyboards, I heard you play drums, I
37:13
Speaker 1: heard you play bass, I heard you play guitar. Just
37:16
Speaker 1: do it, you know, do it like you know Stevie
37:19
Speaker 1: Wonder and Paul McCartney and Prince and just just do it.
37:23
Speaker 1: I thought, well, that's gonna be boring. I want to
37:25
Speaker 1: be around people. I want to have this this vibe.
37:27
Speaker 1: But I had no choice, so I said, all right,
37:30
Speaker 1: I'll do it. And it's funny because I was so
37:33
Speaker 1: influenced and educated by people like Stevie Wonder and Paul
37:38
Speaker 1: McCartney and Prince and you got guys like Todd Rundgren
37:41
Speaker 1: and you know who were one man bands. But I
37:45
Speaker 1: never thought of it. And once I started doing it,
37:48
Speaker 1: that was it. I fell into a hole, man, that
37:50
Speaker 1: was it became my sound. I had no idea. By
37:54
Speaker 1: the way, I never knew that you played everything on
37:56
Speaker 1: that record. I never knew that until now, what would
37:59
Speaker 1: be the order of events to put down a song
38:01
Speaker 1: when you're playing everything yourself. I'd start with drums, which
38:06
Speaker 1: was challenging because I'm singing the song in my head
38:10
Speaker 1: with the arrangement while I'm playing the drum track. So okay, shit,
38:16
Speaker 1: oh wait a minute, Am I on the second verse?
38:19
Speaker 1: Like you had to really know where the hell you were? Okay,
38:22
Speaker 1: now I'm on the bridge. Now I'm on the outro,
38:25
Speaker 1: and and I would just sing the song in my head,
38:28
Speaker 1: or Henry would play piano or Offender Rhodes or something
38:35
Speaker 1: and keep me. I teach him the arrangement, and now
38:38
Speaker 1: I had somebody to play too, to actually groove with.
38:41
Speaker 1: And then we would take that part off or keep
38:44
Speaker 1: it in a couple of instances, and then build on
38:48
Speaker 1: top of that. And then after I would normally have
38:51
Speaker 1: a drum, then I would do the guitar and get
38:55
Speaker 1: the chords and the rhythm, and then bass and then
38:58
Speaker 1: keyboards and then whatever else. Then if I was doing
39:01
Speaker 1: an orchestration, you know, I'd bring in the string players
39:04
Speaker 1: or whatever, and you know, just keep building on top.
39:07
Speaker 1: And then since the first album, you really haven't stopped. No,
39:12
Speaker 1: how many albums have you made. I don't know, twelve, wow,
39:16
Speaker 1: thirteen twelve? Yeah, and you've done at least at least
39:19
Speaker 1: one world tour for every one of those albums, I imagine.
39:22
Speaker 1: Oh no, absolutely. The reason that the albums were two
39:25
Speaker 1: or you know, most of them were three years apart,
39:27
Speaker 1: sometimes four. You know, I tour a lot, and I
39:31
Speaker 1: would go around the world and I would tour for
39:34
Speaker 1: two years, you know, and then I have to chill
39:37
Speaker 1: and I have to feel myself and see what's going
39:39
Speaker 1: on inside of me, and you know, before I can
39:42
Speaker 1: do another record. But yeah, I have not stopped. I
39:44
Speaker 1: have I have two albums in the can right now.
39:47
Speaker 1: What's the most fun part of the process for you?
39:49
Speaker 1: Would you say recording, man, I love the studio. I
39:54
Speaker 1: still love the studio as much as I did when
39:56
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I remember going to recording studios
40:00
Speaker 1: I was a young teenager with my dad in LA
40:02
Speaker 1: when he was producing folks and trying to do things
40:05
Speaker 1: in the music business. Just the magic of walking into
40:08
Speaker 1: this space where music is made with the console and
40:13
Speaker 1: the instruments and the equipment and the producer and the
40:16
Speaker 1: arrangers and you know, all these folks that used to
40:18
Speaker 1: hang out back in the day. And I still have
40:21
Speaker 1: that feeling when I walk into my own studio because
40:24
Speaker 1: it's a place where magic happens, and you don't know
40:29
Speaker 1: what it's going to be. You don't know when it's
40:31
Speaker 1: gonna come, you don't know how it's going to be
40:34
Speaker 1: until you finish it. Even if you have it in
40:35
Speaker 1: your head, A lot of times it comes out different
40:39
Speaker 1: differently then you had imagined it. And I love that
40:44
Speaker 1: process of painting with music and not knowing what you've
40:49
Speaker 1: got until it's done, and there are always surprises, there
40:54
Speaker 1: are always challenges. As you know. I love being in
40:57
Speaker 1: the studio. I can be in here day and night
41:00
Speaker 1: and I'm not I don't get tired of it. I've
41:03
Speaker 1: been doing this now professionally for thirty one years, and
41:07
Speaker 1: I was in studios hanging out, you know, during my
41:10
Speaker 1: mid to late teens. Not jaded, beautiful. And there's something
41:15
Speaker 1: also about being able to play all the instruments so
41:18
Speaker 1: I can come in here, you know, by myself essentially,
41:22
Speaker 1: and I can I can make something. There's something very
41:25
Speaker 1: satisfying about that as well. We're gonna take a quick
41:28
Speaker 1: break and then we'll be back with more from Lenny Kravitz.
41:36
Speaker 1: We're back with Rick Rubin and Lenny Kravitz. You've started
41:40
Speaker 1: doing creative work beyond music. What's the first thing you
41:44
Speaker 1: got to do outside of music? Design? That was my
41:47
Speaker 1: first thing. I didn't I didn't even see that really coming.
41:51
Speaker 1: But it started by just designing my own places and working,
41:57
Speaker 1: you know, working on furniture and interiors, which was which
42:02
Speaker 1: came because again not having any bread in the beginning
42:05
Speaker 1: when I lived in Soho, before Soho was all chic
42:09
Speaker 1: and all living on Broom Street, I used to go
42:12
Speaker 1: out and take the furniture that people have put on
42:16
Speaker 1: the side of the street for garbage, and I used
42:18
Speaker 1: to take it and fix it or change it. Or
42:22
Speaker 1: you know, recover it or And it kind of started
42:25
Speaker 1: like that when I did my first loft on Broom
42:28
Speaker 1: Street back in the day when I was making Let
42:30
Speaker 1: Love Rule. And you know, I've always been into design
42:35
Speaker 1: as you have been. I mean I remember walking into
42:38
Speaker 1: your house for the first time on Miller and I
42:42
Speaker 1: was I was like, man, this guy, this guy's got
42:44
Speaker 1: some taste. I mean, you such such beautiful place and
42:49
Speaker 1: concepts and the way you put things together, so I
42:53
Speaker 1: mean your designer as well, bro. But um, then I
42:56
Speaker 1: ended up you know, buying places, fixing them up, selling them,
43:00
Speaker 1: buying them, fixing it, selling it up. And then I
43:03
Speaker 1: got to the point where it just got ridiculous. I
43:05
Speaker 1: was like, I can't keep doing this. So I started
43:08
Speaker 1: a company where I could do it for other people.
43:10
Speaker 1: So I started Kravitz Design and it's been really great.
43:13
Speaker 1: We've been working a lot and still working now even
43:17
Speaker 1: during this time, on several private homes, a hotel in Detroit,
43:23
Speaker 1: different products, working with different companies. And the last two
43:27
Speaker 1: years I was creative director for Don Perignon, so I
43:32
Speaker 1: did I did their photography, which is another thing I do.
43:35
Speaker 1: I shot their ads, I designed their products, redesigned bottles, labels,
43:42
Speaker 1: you know, their whole presentations. That's something that I do
43:47
Speaker 1: even when I'm recording, even when I'm on tour, I
43:50
Speaker 1: continue to work. If I have to be working on
43:53
Speaker 1: a project, say a hotel project that we're designing and
43:56
Speaker 1: making furniture and doing things, my team will fly out
44:00
Speaker 1: me when I'm on the road, hang out on the
44:02
Speaker 1: tour bus or the plane or whatever. The hotel will
44:06
Speaker 1: work and then they'll go back and you know, put
44:08
Speaker 1: that into play. But it's something that I continue to
44:10
Speaker 1: do no matter what I'm doing. It's it's interesting how
44:14
Speaker 1: the different creative avenues play off each other and how
44:19
Speaker 1: ultimately it really is just all about taste. It's the
44:22
Speaker 1: same thing. It's the same thing. I would assume that
44:24
Speaker 1: whether you're producing a record or designing your house, it's
44:28
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's the same energy, it's the same flow.
44:31
Speaker 1: You start with nothing, you start with an idea, a concept,
44:35
Speaker 1: and you start and you it just grows until it's finished.
44:39
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the same process. In fact, you influenced
44:42
Speaker 1: me a lot, actually, because the first time that i'd
44:45
Speaker 1: really what was actually it's actually you and Sean Lennon
44:49
Speaker 1: and Yoko, because you guys were the first people that
44:52
Speaker 1: I saw that had opium beds in their houses. And
44:55
Speaker 1: I remember getting into that whole thing and then starting
44:58
Speaker 1: to learn about Balini Asian furniture and furniture from you know,
45:02
Speaker 1: different places in the East, and but definitely you know,
45:07
Speaker 1: as people. We haven't talked about it yet, but for
45:09
Speaker 1: your listeners, I mean Rick and I lived together by
45:12
Speaker 1: virtue of his generosity and his kindness. I remember you
45:16
Speaker 1: just saying, you're saying, I just got this house, and uh,
45:20
Speaker 1: you know, when you're in La, you're you're you know,
45:22
Speaker 1: stay there. It's all good. Just you can stay there.
45:24
Speaker 1: It's a big house. I got room, and I remember
45:28
Speaker 1: moving in there actually before you did. Yeah, this was
45:32
Speaker 1: this was right at the time I was doing the
45:34
Speaker 1: Argument and Go my Way video, or right before actually
45:36
Speaker 1: because I uh, Cindy Blackman came. I flew her out
45:39
Speaker 1: from New York and she came and stayed in the
45:42
Speaker 1: house and auditioned and got the got the uh the
45:45
Speaker 1: gig in your house. It was actually in your girl
45:48
Speaker 1: in your it was like the gym, the gym downstairs.
45:51
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right. And uh, but I remember living in
45:55
Speaker 1: your house while there was plastic everywhere, it was dusty,
45:59
Speaker 1: they were still paying and plastering and doing and I
46:02
Speaker 1: loved it. I was like, yeah, construction, it was full,
46:05
Speaker 1: construction zone full and I had like a futon on
46:08
Speaker 1: the floor. But I was in heaven. I had this
46:11
Speaker 1: I had this place to myself and it was a
46:14
Speaker 1: really so very special time for me. Craig Ross was
46:19
Speaker 1: was was living there with me as well, and we
46:22
Speaker 1: were just having I remember having all these drummers coming in. Fact,
46:27
Speaker 1: River Phoenix had a friend that he knew from Florida
46:32
Speaker 1: that he flew in because he said, this is your drummer.
46:35
Speaker 1: And it actually got down to that guy and Cindy Wow,
46:40
Speaker 1: and we must have seen about fifty drummers that were
46:42
Speaker 1: coming through your place. Man. Yeah. But it was just
46:45
Speaker 1: a really special time where I was exploring La again
46:50
Speaker 1: during this time of you know, my success, which was
46:54
Speaker 1: very interesting. Yeah. I learned so much hanging out with
46:59
Speaker 1: you and just I mean you really treated me like family, bro.
47:03
Speaker 1: And I mean the whole story of you know, my
47:06
Speaker 1: mother and her going through her sickness and her passing
47:11
Speaker 1: with such a monumental song. There's a song on my
47:14
Speaker 1: last album I don't even think we've talked about this,
47:16
Speaker 1: but there's a song on my last album called Johnny Cash.
47:20
Speaker 1: You should check it out. It was on Ray's Vibration,
47:23
Speaker 1: and it's dealing with that with the day that I
47:27
Speaker 1: found out that my mother passed, I was in Japan
47:30
Speaker 1: touring for a month. I didn't know that my mother
47:33
Speaker 1: was going to, you know, die that quickly. We thought
47:36
Speaker 1: she had more time. I didn't want to go on
47:40
Speaker 1: the tour, but she and my grandfather made me go.
47:42
Speaker 1: My grandfather said, if you don't go, it's gonna kill her.
47:46
Speaker 1: You have to go do your job. So I reluctantly went.
47:50
Speaker 1: I flew home from Japan. I went straight to your house,
47:54
Speaker 1: went to my room, went to the hospital, went and
47:57
Speaker 1: saw her. We were there for hours, hours. My dad
48:00
Speaker 1: had flown from New York. The family was there, and
48:04
Speaker 1: it was time for everybody to take a break, go
48:06
Speaker 1: get something to eat. I needed to take a shower,
48:09
Speaker 1: do whatever. I drove to your house, and this was
48:12
Speaker 1: when Johnny Cash was living in your house as well,
48:15
Speaker 1: doing that classic album that y'all did. And I walked
48:20
Speaker 1: in the house and the phone rang. I don't remember
48:25
Speaker 1: who gave me the phone and they told me that
48:27
Speaker 1: my mom passed. And the time that I was driving
48:30
Speaker 1: from the hospital to your house. So I'm standing there
48:34
Speaker 1: by the staircase with this portable phone in my hand.
48:37
Speaker 1: Even though I knew it was coming, it was still
48:39
Speaker 1: a very hard moment for me. And Johnny and June
48:44
Speaker 1: are coming down the stairs and they looked at me
48:46
Speaker 1: and said, hey, Lenny, Like I mean, I didn't know them.
48:50
Speaker 1: We knew each other because we passed each other in
48:52
Speaker 1: your hallways, you know. That's the extent that I knew
48:54
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash. We were flatmates in Rick Rubin's house, right,
48:58
Speaker 1: And so they said what's wrong, and I said, my
49:01
Speaker 1: mother just died. And the two of them came to
49:06
Speaker 1: me and surrounded me and held me. I don't know
49:11
Speaker 1: these people. And by the way, it's Johnny Cash, right,
49:13
Speaker 1: and June Carter, and they held me and consoled me
49:17
Speaker 1: and just were saying the most beautiful, comforting things and
49:22
Speaker 1: that they were sorry. And it was just a real
49:25
Speaker 1: moment of humanity, of just being human. And it was
49:30
Speaker 1: a monumental moment in my life because the only people
49:34
Speaker 1: that were there when I found out was them. Then
49:38
Speaker 1: you drove with me to the hospital, and you were
49:44
Speaker 1: the first. I mean, you came in there with me.
49:47
Speaker 1: We saw my mother there together. Remember you were with me.
49:52
Speaker 1: And anyway, So there's a song on the last album
49:56
Speaker 1: where I was going through a breakup and I'm writing
49:59
Speaker 1: to this person, and the chorus of the song says,
50:02
Speaker 1: just hold me like Johnny Cash when I lost my mother,
50:07
Speaker 1: whisper in my ear, just like June Carter, beautiful and
50:10
Speaker 1: though I fight these tears that I hide, just hold
50:14
Speaker 1: me tight for the rest of my life. And so
50:17
Speaker 1: it deals with me reflecting on the last time that
50:20
Speaker 1: I was comforted in such a way. What I needed
50:23
Speaker 1: from this person that I was singing to was that
50:26
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash held me when my mother died. It's it's deep,
50:31
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, this was all part of the adventure
50:35
Speaker 1: of the experience of living with you. Yeah. My greatest
50:41
Speaker 1: memory from that night. It's the only time I've ever
50:44
Speaker 1: been in the room with a body after the soul
50:49
Speaker 1: had passed. Yes, And I remember walking in and thinking
50:53
Speaker 1: and I had seen her much more recently than you did.
50:56
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember this part of the story.
50:58
Speaker 1: I ran into her, I saw at a restaurant, I
51:01
Speaker 1: saw in a restaurant at a weird time, at a
51:03
Speaker 1: time when the restaurant should have been closed, an unusual time.
51:07
Speaker 1: I went to a restaurant that I didn't normally go
51:09
Speaker 1: to at a weird time of the day. It was empty.
51:14
Speaker 1: I sit down and it was like three thirty in
51:17
Speaker 1: the afternoon, which is like way after lunchtime. Most restaurants close,
51:21
Speaker 1: you know, usually they're open for lunch and open for dinner.
51:24
Speaker 1: And just felt like going to get something needed a
51:26
Speaker 1: weird time. Found that Angelie was open. Don't know why
51:29
Speaker 1: I went there because it was a restaurant I never
51:31
Speaker 1: went to sing. Sitting in there with my friend Fred,
51:35
Speaker 1: who was the designer who helped me work on my
51:38
Speaker 1: who built your house in Sutherland. We're sitting there and
51:41
Speaker 1: who comes in but your mom. And this is maybe
51:45
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, three weeks before, so I was in Japan.
51:48
Speaker 1: You're in Japan, maybe two weeks before, very soon. And
51:53
Speaker 1: I remember the conversation we had because it was so
51:57
Speaker 1: different than any conversation we had had over the last
52:01
Speaker 1: few years. Because over the last few years, your mom
52:04
Speaker 1: was very defiant, and she was very clear that she
52:08
Speaker 1: was going to beat this and that she was going
52:10
Speaker 1: to do everything it took to beat it, and she would.
52:13
Speaker 1: And she was really strong and she was always doing
52:16
Speaker 1: well through this and would try everything and do every
52:19
Speaker 1: type of alternative therapy. Oh yeah, she went to Mexico,
52:23
Speaker 1: did the whole holistic thing. Yeah, And we would I
52:25
Speaker 1: remember we would research together for her and with her
52:28
Speaker 1: and share ideas all the time. And I saw her
52:31
Speaker 1: in the restaurant and she was completely different and in
52:36
Speaker 1: this state of peace that was unbelievable. And I asked
52:41
Speaker 1: her how things were going, and she said, everything is.
52:43
Speaker 1: It's like, it's wonderful. I know that I'm going to pass.
52:50
Speaker 1: I'm completely at peace with it. I'm ready and this
52:55
Speaker 1: is this is like, this is what happens now. And
52:58
Speaker 1: she was at one with the experience, ready for the experience.
53:03
Speaker 1: And then back at the house, you came from Japan,
53:07
Speaker 1: and I told you the story because I didn't know
53:10
Speaker 1: if she got to tell you this, I don't know.
53:12
Speaker 1: I didn't know if she didn't. So I got to
53:14
Speaker 1: tell you that she was ready to go, and it
53:19
Speaker 1: was okay. And as we're having this conversation, the phone
53:26
Speaker 1: rang because you need it felt like the energy of
53:32
Speaker 1: you fighting for her with her shifted when you knew
53:38
Speaker 1: that she was ready to go. It's like when you
53:41
Speaker 1: heard the story, the energy changed. She was she you
53:46
Speaker 1: now knew that she was ready to go, because she was.
53:49
Speaker 1: And then the phone rings and it's the hospital, And
53:53
Speaker 1: it was almost like energetically, once you knew the story,
53:57
Speaker 1: she could go because until then you she was fighting
54:02
Speaker 1: and she was obviously waiting for me to get off
54:04
Speaker 1: that plane, you know exactly, because by the time I
54:07
Speaker 1: got there that day, I mean, it was the last moment.
54:11
Speaker 1: And I remember when we went. You went to the
54:13
Speaker 1: hospital with me, but I thought you were just like like, Okay,
54:16
Speaker 1: you're gonna go to the hospital with me and you're
54:18
Speaker 1: gonna support me. And then I went in and you
54:21
Speaker 1: kept walking. I was like, you want to come in
54:24
Speaker 1: the room and you and you looked at me and
54:25
Speaker 1: you were like yes. Like it was like it was
54:27
Speaker 1: the most definite yes, Like yes, there was some connection.
54:32
Speaker 1: And I'm sure from your years of knowing her and
54:34
Speaker 1: also that that moment you guys had at that restaurant,
54:37
Speaker 1: but you you wanted to be there and you went
54:40
Speaker 1: in there with me, and uh, yeah, that was that
54:45
Speaker 1: was her send off. Man. Yeah, And what so My
54:49
Speaker 1: takeaway in that moment of seeing her was and having
54:52
Speaker 1: just seen her two weeks earlier, was whatever was laying
54:55
Speaker 1: on the table there was not her. That was just yeah,
54:59
Speaker 1: of course, and I've never experienced that before, but it
55:02
Speaker 1: was clear. It's like, that's just clothing, that's just bones,
55:06
Speaker 1: that's just flesh. But the vessel, it's a vessel, and
55:12
Speaker 1: it couldn't have been clear. That's where I learned it
55:14
Speaker 1: in that moment, was that's not her. Yeah, it's amazing
55:20
Speaker 1: all in all extraordinary memories and you know, the blessings
55:26
Speaker 1: that I've had thus far, and you being a big
55:30
Speaker 1: part of that story, that part of my life is
55:33
Speaker 1: I'm really grateful, man, I'm really grateful. Same. I love
55:37
Speaker 1: having you in my life. We've been good friends for
55:39
Speaker 1: a long time in their heart, their heart to come
55:41
Speaker 1: by and one day and we're gonna we're gonna make
55:45
Speaker 1: some music together. Great. I look forward, Yes, sir, well,
55:48
Speaker 1: I love you. I love you, brother. I'm so glad
55:50
Speaker 1: to see your face and uh, let's speak sooner than later. Man,
55:54
Speaker 1: I'm down, all right, my brother. Love love, love love.
56:01
Speaker 1: Thanks to Lenny Kravitz for sharing so much of his
56:03
Speaker 1: incredible story with Ray. You can hear all of our
56:06
Speaker 1: favorite Lenny Kravitz songs on the playlist at broken record
56:09
Speaker 1: podcast dot com and be sure to subscribe to our
56:12
Speaker 1: YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast.
56:16
Speaker 1: There you can find extended cuts of our new and
56:18
Speaker 1: old episodes. Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose,
56:22
Speaker 1: Jason Gambrel, Urtin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler and his executive produced
56:26
Speaker 1: by Mio LaBelle Broken Record is a production of Pushkin
56:29
Speaker 1: Industries and if you like Broken Record, please remember to share, rate,
56:32
Speaker 1: and review our show on your podcast. Daft our theme
56:35
Speaker 1: musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond Bass