Lenny Kravitz says that when you’ve had a career stretching over three and a half decades, you learn to accept that your fortunes will shift every now and then. “The surf changes,” says the singer, guitarist and producer (and actor, fashion designer, author and design mogul), aptly looking out over the Pacific from his pad in Malibu, Los Angeles on a slightly gloomy February morning. “You’re riding little waves, then you’re riding moderate waves, then, oh wow, you’ve caught a huge one. Throughout a career of thirty-five years it goes up, down, every which direction.”
It has been a life of forward-facing restlessness for the now 59-year-old Kravitz, who emerged with the swaggering soul-funk of Let Love Rule in 1989, and went supernova with the jubilant rock’n’roll grooves of his third album, 1993’s Are You Gonna Go My Way. There has been little room for glancing back over eight records since, but Kravitz found himself in contemplative mood while making Blue Electric Light, his twelfth album (out on May 24). Prompted by the experience of revisiting his youth for his 2020 memoir, also titled Let Love Rule, it sees Kravitz imbue his sound with the synth-pop flourishes he obsessed over as a teen. Recorded at his studio in the Bahamas, the country where he normally resides, it captures Kravitz savouring what he sees as another big momentum shift on the horizon. “I feel as though I’m back in that magnitude of a wave and I’m enjoying every moment, because I did not take it in the first time,” he says. Life is good, he says, settling in for a career-spanning chat with Classic Rock. And why wouldn’t it be? He’s Lenny Kravitz.
Where was your head at when you started working on Blue Electric Light?
Denne historien er fra June 2024-utgaven av Classic Rock.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra June 2024-utgaven av Classic Rock.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Bright Sparks - Undertakers, band managers and museum workers by day, pop-charged rockers by night, The Hot Damn! are a gang you'd want to join.
Gill Montgomery has come straight from the mortuary. Her mortuary, to be precise. Some rockers wait tables, others teach music or pick up temp work. The Hot Damn! frontwoman looks after dead people.“It’s interesting,” she muses, of her day job running a funeral home in South East London. “It’s very hands-on. I think you’re either for it or you’re not.”
Motörhead
“Once we'd cracked the formula of how to work together on Overkill,\" said Eddie Clarke, that's when we really started to take off.” And it was all thanks to Phil Taylor's new drum kit.
LET'S DANCE
Dialling back on the aggressive approach that has helped bring Idles this far, and putting swing to the stomp, their new album is intended to make you shake a leg rather than a fist
Steve Hackett
The former Genesis guitarist’s latest themed’ tour enables him to visit the best of both worlds”.
Monster Magnet
“It's all-energy. It's rock excitement, psychedelic glory and space-rock hooks.” Sounds good to us!
MADE FRIENDS.INFLUENCED PEOPLE
In the 90s they were high flyers, then the fall hit them hard. Having picked themselves up, Terrorvision are back with their first new album in more than a decade, and it’s full of top tunes.
DON'T FENCE US IN
Embracing their roots on record for the first time, Don't call us southern” band The Cold Stares’ seventh album is both a love letter to Kentucky and a Call for unity in volatile times.
"I JUST WANTED TO BE RESPECTED FOR BEING IN A KICKASS BAND."
1976 was a pivotal year for Thin Lizzy. Guitarist Scott Gorham, one half of the band's classic twin-guitar sound, takes a trip down memory lane to the year that was...
Jerry Cantrell
The Alice In Chains guitarist on his forthcoming album and its guests, songwriting, AT, algorithm bots, AIC’s legacy...
THROUGH THICK AND THIN
In 1976, Thin Lizzy were touring Jailbreak in the US and were breaking big. Then disaster struck. Band manager Chris O'Donnell details the roller-coaster year in which they were cruelly robbed of their American dream.