{"id":4140,"date":"2011-11-03T22:00:17","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T05:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=4140"},"modified":"2011-11-03T22:00:17","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T05:00:17","slug":"lenny-kravitz-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/11\/lenny-kravitz-2\/","title":{"rendered":"LENNY KRAVITZ"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>LENNY KRAVITZ
\nFor this one-man band, no influence is out of bounds\u2014even the Partridge Family<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cMaybe I\u2019m schizophrenic,\u201d says Lenny Kravitz with a chuckle, contemplating his reputation as one of rock\u2019s most committed multi-instrumentalists. From his 1989 debut Let Love Rule<\/em> through the new Black and White America<\/em>, Kravitz has consistently played almost all the instruments on his albums. \u201cWhen I\u2019m playing various instruments, I take on different personalities. It\u2019s as if the bass player, the drummer, the guitarist, the keyboardist and the singer are all different people\u2014even though it\u2019s just me. When I listen to the results, it always sounds like a true band session.\u201d For Black and White America<\/em>, the newly built home studio at Kravitz\u2019s residence in the Bahamas only encouraged that impulse. \u201cIt was like having a new toy,\u201d he says of the gear-stuffed facility. \u201cYou want to play with it. I started writing uncontrollably.\u201d
\nKravitz is well aware that he also has a reputation for writing songs steeped in the influences of his favorite artists\u2014\u201cSly Stone, John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Marvin Gaye, the classic stuff,\u201d he allows. When charges came early in his career that his music was overly derivative, he stayed the course. \u201cThe funny thing is, 10 years later groups like the Strokes began to be praised for doing exactly the things I was torn apart for,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought that whole criticism was ridiculous. Most of my favorite artists drew from the past. I just read an article about how Earth, Wind & Fire used to get torn apart in the press. The same was true of Led Zeppelin.\u201d
\nWhile making his new album Kravitz delved even more deeply than usual into the music of his \u201960s childhood. \u201cIn those days, even children\u2019s TV was psychedelic,\u201d he says. \u201cShows like H.R. Pufnstuf<\/em> were psychedelic. You can hear the impact of that on a song like \u2018Stand.\u2019 I dragged a harpsichord down to the Bahamas to use on that song. As it developed, I thought, \u2018Oh, I see what\u2019s going on here\u2014this is like something from The Partridge Family<\/em>!\u2019\u201d
\nKravitz plans to spend much of the next two years touring, which he admits has been a grind in the past. \u201cIt can be monotonous just running through the hits,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I\u2019m going to perform the songs people want to hear, but I\u2019m also going to explore this new music. The live experience will be almost like starting over.\u201d
\n\u2013Russell Hall<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m going to perform the songs people want to hear, but I\u2019m also going to explore this new music. The live experience will be almost like starting over.\u201d<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>LENNY KRAVITZFor this one-man band, no influence is out of bounds\u2014even the Partridge Family<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cMaybe I\u2019m schizophrenic,\u201d says Lenny Kravitz with a chuckle, contemplating his reputation as one of rock\u2019s most committed multi-instrumentalists. From his 1989 debut Let Love Rule<\/em> through the new Black and White America<\/em>, Kravitz has consistently played almost all the instruments on his albums. \u201cWhen I\u2019m playing various instruments, I take on different personalities. It\u2019s as if the bass player, the drummer, the guitarist, the keyboardist and the singer are all different people\u2014even though it\u2019s just me. When I listen to the results, it always sounds like a true band session.\u201d For Black and White America<\/em>, the newly built home studio at Kravitz\u2019s residence in the Bahamas only encouraged that impulse. \u201cIt was like having a new toy,\u201d he says of the gear-stuffed facility. \u201cYou want to play with it. I started writing uncontrollably.\u201d
\nKravitz is well aware that he also has a reputation for writing songs steeped in the influences of his favorite artists\u2014\u201cSly Stone, John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Marvin Gaye, the classic stuff,\u201d he allows. When charges came early in his career that his music was overly derivative, he stayed the course. \u201cThe funny thing is, 10 years later groups like the Strokes began to be praised for doing exactly the things I was torn apart for,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought that whole criticism was ridiculous. Most of my favorite artists drew from the past. I just read an article about how Earth, Wind & Fire used to get torn apart in the press. The same was true of Led Zeppelin.\u201d
\nWhile making his new album Kravitz delved even more deeply than usual into the music of his \u201960s childhood. \u201cIn those days, even children\u2019s TV was psychedelic,\u201d he says. \u201cShows like H.R. Pufnstuf<\/em> were psychedelic. You can hear the impact of that on a song like \u2018Stand.\u2019 I dragged a harpsichord down to the Bahamas to use on that song. As it developed, I thought, \u2018Oh, I see what\u2019s going on here\u2014this is like something from The Partridge Family<\/em>!\u2019\u201d
\nKravitz plans to spend much of the next two years touring, which he admits has been a grind in the past. \u201cIt can be monotonous just running through the hits,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I\u2019m going to perform the songs people want to hear, but I\u2019m also going to explore this new music. The live experience will be almost like starting over.\u201d
\n\u2013Russell Hall<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m going to perform the songs people want to hear, but I\u2019m also going to explore this new music. The live experience will be almost like starting over.\u201d<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LENNY KRAVITZ For this one-man band, no influence is out of bounds\u2014even the Partridge Family \u201cMaybe I\u2019m schizophrenic,\u201d says Lenny Kravitz with a chuckle, contemplating his reputation as one of rock\u2019s most committed multi-instrumentalists. From his 1989 debut Let Love Rule through the new Black and White America, Kravitz has consistently played almost all the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[2708,2682,2706,2707,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4143,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions\/4143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}