He has worked with Mick Jagger, Curtis Mayfield, Michael Jackson and more. He’s soon to appear in the movie Precious with Mariah Carey. He’s in Paris for this interview, and his recent Tweets include photos of himself with ambassadors from India and report that he owns the jumpsuit that James Brown wore in Zaire before the Ali-Foreman fight. Almost anything that has to do with Lenny Kravitz has an element of rock star and has since he first appeared 20 years ago as The Cosby Show star Lisa Bonet’s neo-bohemian boyfriend.
Kravitz returns to New Orleans on November 1 to close this year’s Voodoo Music Experience, ending out a night that includes Widespread Panic, the Flaming Lips, the Meat Puppets, the Pogues and Trombone Shorty and Orleans Ave. Kravitz tapped Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews to be a part of his touring band in 2007, an experience that Andrews credits with playing a significant role his musical evolution. In January, he told OffBeat that after playing with Kravitz, he took Orleans Ave. into the studio and said, “‘This is what Lenny does in rehearsal,’ and we played one section—four bars—for about 30 minutes… that’s when we gained our tightness.”
Kravitz is spending part of 2009 touring in support of Let Love Rule: 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, a two-disc set that includes his debut album, demos and live tracks from the period from Boston and Amsterdam (there’s no escaping the globetrotting, even then). The covers of “Cold Turkey” and “If 6 Were 9” point out obvious influences, but what’s surprising is how apropos the album sounds today. Throughout, a hippy-Utopian mindset is at odds with the world around him, where racism threatens to undermine everything. Even in the uplifting title track, there’s a moment when he shouts, “You’ve got to let love rule” with such ferocity that it sounds like a cry of frustration more than celebration, as if he finds it impossible to believe that things aren’t better when the answer’s right in front of people. It’s a tension that we’re still feeling 20 years later.
Why are you in Paris right now?
I’ve got a place here, and I’ve been touring Europe and Russia and South America, and for the last few years I haven’t been in America. It’s time to come back and reintroduce myself and say hello.
Why haven’t you been in the States?
I really love the vibe over here, and it worked out that way. I started touring and doing like I used to do 15 years ago when I tried to play all the little cities. In the summer, not only did I play the big cities but in all the provinces. I played 25 or 26 shows alone in France. I did that in other countries as well and ended up on the road for three and a half years. I got into it. Now it’s time to come back to America and do a couple of years of touring there and get back into that whole groove—play everywhere.
Does it take something to happen to make it possible to play the smaller dates?
You just have to decide to do it because it’s not about the money at that point at all because you don’t make money doing that kind of thing. You’re playing places that can’t pay as much. You’re spending more time on the road, but it’s about reconnecting. I’m going to go play for as many people as I can and play places where people play less. That’s what I did over here. I went to Bosnia and Turkey and places in Serbia. I played for folks that don’t get many shows.
Was it different?
It was incredible because people are hungry. They are hungry for joy. They were hungry for a place where people can come together and celebrate life and love and music. In some cases, you’re playing places where there was war 10 years ago, where kids grew up in war. Not like they’re from the hood and it’s rough; no—war. I found they were some of the best shows I’ve ever played, and some of the most love I’ve received onstage. You give to them and they see that you’re giving and they give back so much, and then you give back more and it becomes this cycle. It’s really nice.
Is it easier for you to live in Paris?
Yeah. It’s the most beautiful city to me in the world. I love architecture and I love art, and Paris offers that to me in a way that speaks to me. But what’s nice about Paris to me is that it’s a full city with all the things you want—all the arts, all the music, the opera, the symphonies, the ballet, the museums, fashion, food, but it’s not overwhelming in a way that New York has become to me. I’m a New Yorker. I’m from New York. I love New York, but New York has become a bit stressful for me. And New York has lost a lot of the individualism it had when I was growing up as a small child in the ’70s and a young person in the ’80s. New York wasn’t so homogenized. I lived in Soho, where artists actually lived. You had to have to have an A.I.R. certificate—Artists in Residence—to live in these lofts. It was great; now it is what it is. I’m not dogging New York, but to me it’s lost a lot of flavor.
Is it hard for you to have the sort of community now that you had in New York?
I would say that I carry my lifestyle and my people wherever I go, and it doesn’t matter if I’m in New York or not.
When you come back, you’re touring on Let Love Rule’s 20th anniversary. What do you think now of the artist you were then?
I still find the record to be very relevant as far as the message goes, as far as the music goes, as far as the timelessness of the production goes. It hasn’t dated, and that was my point 20 years ago–to make records that don’t date. You wouldn’t know if that record was recorded in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s or 2000s. It’s organic, it’s music, it’s real instruments. And I still love the record. I’ve changed a lot as a person; I’m the same person, but I’ve changed. I can hear where my singing has changed. I still sound the same; my voice hasn’t gotten damaged, but I’m different. I screamed a lot more. It was on the edge in a different way.
How is the edge different?
I think I thought less than I do now.
What are your recollections of that time?
I was all over the place. I didn’t know what was going on. I was a kid in the streets, I was just married, just had a kid, just got a record deal and I didn’t know anything, man. The world hadn’t opened up to me. I hadn’t traveled the world. All I had was the perspective that I had. I was a baby. I was 23 years old when I made that record, but I was very inexperienced. I left home when I was 15. I knew how to thrive on the street, but that was that. Running around the world and meeting people and being exposed to so many different cultures and things and experiences taught me more than anything.
You said when you made the album, you made it so that it would stand the test of time.
That I knew. A lot of people were using the recording techniques of that time, the equipment of that time, the sounds of that time, that were du jour. Of the moment, of the day. I was working with all that equipment before making Let Love Rule and I realized while working with it that I didn’t like it. I knew that it wouldn’t be classic-sounding and that it would date, and I knew that it wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. Nor did it feel organic to me, and it was important to me that my personality and my voice and my fingers were heard in a very pure way. I made the choice to go back and find vintage equipment and things that I knew would do the job. Those engineers, those people, those studios, and that’s what I did.
You became a star pretty much the moment Let Love Rule came out. Has it been hard living your adult life in public?
Yes, it was difficult for me because I was used to being in the street and sharing everything I had with people. I was used to meeting people and if I liked them, bringing them up to my apartment, hanging out. When I quote-unquote made it, people changed their view of me. It was about “What can I get from him?” It wasn’t just about Lenny, this guy; it was about me and everything around me. Their perception of me—not my perception of me—changed, and I had to learn to shut down. Which isn’t natural for me. At all. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I see that you’ve started a design firm. How did you get involved in design? From always making my own things and growing with it, doing it over and over and over for years and years and honing my own craft, just like I do in music. That’s why I started making furniture; I started designing, I started getting jobs. It happened very organically.
We shot our Allen Toussaint photos for the June issue in your apartment. How did you decide what to do with that space? [It’s a Creole cottage that has been made into two rooms—one large room with a bed in a loft overlooking it, and a smaller dining room that opens out to the back garden. It’s a wide open space with one long counter, a large black leather sofa, the Lucite piano Toussaint played, and a piano bench upholstered with fox belly fur. The dominant colors are black and silver, including an ornate black and silver patterned wallpaper].
I wanted to have a cathedral feeling with an arched ceiling. I wanted to open it up and see the wood. I didn’t need all that space. I lived in it when it was the way it was, but I’m into changing stuff.
Where did the Lucite piano come from?
I believe it came out of the house of Ingrid Bergman. Actually, it did. I know that for a fact.
When did you move to New Orleans?
I guess it was ’95? ’94? I came out for Jazz Fest the year Aretha Franklin played and stayed. I came out for Jazz Fest and ended up buying a house.
Did you spend much time here?
I spent a lot of time there. I recorded there. I hung out. I have great friends there. My dad moved down there for a few years before he died. New Orleans is one of my homes.
Is this an easy city to stay out of the limelight?
People are cool there. People in New Orleans don’t care, man. They say, “Hey, what’s up?” They know me from the neighborhood.
What did you see in Trombone Shorty that prompted you to take him on tour with you?
He’s a genius. He’s a genius player, he’s got nothing but personality, he plays his ass off, and he’s a beautiful human being. I love Shorty.
He talks about the tour as a learning experience; did you see it as a teaching experience?
We taught each other, but I think he was learning more from me than I thought he would. I didn’t realize he learned the things that he later told me he learned.
What did you learn from him?
I learned a lot about music.
