{"id":604933,"date":"2026-05-26T15:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604933\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T15:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:00:17","slug":"lenny-kravitz-interview-the-story-of-his-early-solo-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604933\/","title":{"rendered":"Lenny Kravitz interview: the story of his early solo career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lenny Kravitz<\/a>\u2019s potent mix of rock, soul, funk and blues made him a breakout star when he first emerged 1989. In 2014, Classic Rock met up with him near his home in Paris to look back on his first two albums, Let Love Rule and Mama Said, and just how he became the musician everyone from David Bowie<\/a> to Slash<\/a> wanted to work with.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Lightning\n<\/p>\n

A stone\u2019s throw from the traffic thundering noisily past the iconic Arc de Triomphe lies an oasis of opulent calm. The Hotel Saint James Paris resembles a minor 19th-century palace, with a gated drive away from the bustle of the street. It\u2019s just past noon on a hot day and Lenny Kravitz, wearing a black shirt and jeans with snakeskin shoes, is holding court. He\u2019ll slip away for lunch at his nearby home \u2013 one of several scattered around the globe, including the private Bahamas beach where he keeps a caravan and a recording studio.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Since 1993\u2019s Are You Gonna Go My Way album turned him into an MTV staple, Kravitz\u2019s music has often had a slick style suited to plush environments. But between takes on The Hunger Games: Catching Fire set (in which Kravitz plays Jennifer Lawrence\u2019s stylist), the singer\/multi-instrumentalist found himself writing gutsier music.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\u201cIt brought me back to being a guy with a guitar, making raw music without much thought,\u201d Kravitz says of his latest album, Strut, his tenth. His voice has the grit which made his early singing recall Al Green, but his words come out even and easy.<\/p>\n

Recorded in his Bahamas hideaway, with Kravitz producing and playing everything, Strut has a polish by legendary mixer Bob Clearmountain but the most focused rock energy in years. Recording it reminded Kravitz of his feelings as he first started making music. So he\u2019s ready to look back to the eclectic albums with which he began. 1989\u2019s Let Love Rule and 1991\u2019s Mama Said, recorded on vintage equipment and influenced by classic rock and soul from the late 60s and early 70s, influenced the Black Crowes<\/a> and Guns N\u2019 Roses; they also led to Kravitz\u2019s befriending by older rockers from Bowie and Jagger to Kiss and Aerosmith.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was actually in New York two days ago,\u201d he muses, \u201cand I was driving past the place where I used to live at 450 Bloom Street where I made those first records, which now is all very nice. Soho then, especially on Bloom Street, was quite\u2026 gritty. And I saw my upstairs neighbour, this lady I hadn\u2019t seen in years, and I recognised her \u2013 from the back! Our families grew up together. I used to have Thanksgiving and Easter with them, they\u2019d invite me up. And so I was just there at that place where Let Love Rule was conceived and made.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Lenny\n<\/p>\n

Lenny Kravitz in 1990 (Image credit: Paul Natkin\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Almost since his birth in 1964 there was something of the golden boy about Kravitz. His Bahamian-American actress mother, Roxie Roker, a star in 70s sitcom The Jeffersons, took her son to shows and gigs. Father Sy Kravitz was a Jewish-American TV producer and part-time jazz promoter. Giants of the black artistic world were house guests as Kravitz grew up in New York; jazz great Duke Ellington played Happy Birthday to five-year-old Lenny.<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Kravitz agrees it\u2019s significant that such stellar musical figures were around him from the start. \u201cAbsolutely. It was all part of the road map. I got to watch these people, be around them, see them performing and personally hanging out with us. Duke and Miles Davis, and great writers, like Maya Angelou, and Nina Simone were around our crew. And you\u2019re watching your mother act in plays, and you see people around and they\u2019re doing poetry readings, and there\u2019s Lorainne Hansberry \u2013 she inspired Young, Gifted And Black. I mean, wow!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"The\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

When his family moved to LA in 1975, Kravitz found the rest of his musical soul. \u201cI\u2019d left New York City,\u201d he explains, \u201cwhere it was all about R&B and soul, gospel and jazz. And then I went to LA, and at that time the whole Dogtown skateboarding scene which I became part of were listening to English rock, and Hendrix and American rock\u2019n\u2019roll as well. That\u2019s where I learnt about Led Zeppelin<\/a> and The Who and Queen and Jimi. That electric guitar side of it \u2013 that heavy, distorted, powerful feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The West Coast in the 70s was perfect for Kravitz. He built his own world in his bedroom, where he set up a drum kit, guitar, bass and amps. \u201cAfter Let Love Rule my mom was like: \u2018Oh, that\u2019s what you\u2019ve been doing,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cI never shared it.\u201d When he wasn\u2019t honing his talent, the skateboard scene filled his time. \u201cI remember one of the first skateboards, before it even had wheels on it, with the hand-drawn Dogtown sign. I spent a lot of time on the beach, and riding my skateboard up and down the streets, and hanging out at kids\u2019 houses, and jamming. Smoking great weed. Because the parents were all hippies, and it was just a very loose, chilled atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

But his relationship with his ex-US Marine dad was less than chilled. In 1979, aged 15, Lenny left home. He had already made his gig debut, singing Mahler with a choir at the Hollywood Bowl. \u201cI had to get on my path,\u201d he remembers. \u201cI knew what I wanted to do when I was five. So by the time you\u2019re fifteen, you\u2019re: \u2018Well, I\u2019ve been knowing this for ten years now \u2013 let\u2019s go!\u2019 The streets of LA and the streets of New York are what taught me.\u201d His privileged life was largely left behind. \u201cI worked in a fish market, cutting and gutting and frying fish. I worked in a clothing store, I worked in a shoe store, I was a dishwasher in a macrobiotic restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Lenny\n<\/p>\n

Lenny Kravitz with then-wife Lisa Bonet in 1987 (Image credit: Vinnie Zuffante\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

By 1987 he was back in NY with girlfriend Lisa Bonet, who starred in The Cosby Show. The globally famous Bonet and her unknown boyfriend married that year. After eight years of struggle he ceased to be Lenny Kravitz, answering to \u2018Romeo Blue\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t comfortable being myself yet,\u201d Kravitz explains of his 80s alter ego, \u201cand I thought Lenny Kravitz was the most ridiculous name for anybody trying to make music. It was that time when people were having these very theatrical names. Someone called me Romeo, because they thought that I was very much a ladies\u2019 man: \u2018Oh, check out Romeo!\u2019 And I added the Blue part. I was thinking about a mesh of Ziggy Stardust and Prince.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Romeo Blue who unsuccessfully knocked on every major label\u2019s door. \u201cDepending on who was listening, I either wasn\u2019t black enough or wasn\u2019t white enough. It was rock but it was funky, it was R&B but it was too rock. It was usually this thing of being caught in between. Because at the record companies you had your black music division, and your other music division.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does it bug Kravitz that, as it has been since his debut, black radio in the US still won\u2019t touch him?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just the way it is,\u201d he says equitably. \u201cThey played It Ain\u2019t Over Till It\u2019s Over. They played certain ones. I don\u2019t agree with it, but I understand that people have their formats and their advertisers. It\u2019s too bad that things are so segregated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it disappointing that he\u2019s still seen as unusual in playing rock; as if it\u2019s assumed to be white music?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s always weird. I mean, it belongs to everybody, but we know who invented it, who it came from,\u201d he says, his placidity ruffling just a little. \u201cMy music is very mixed, but it has a lot of rock\u2019n\u2019roll in it \u2013 and I\u2019ve even had black kids say: \u2018How can you play that white music?\u2019 Know your history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lenny Kravitz – Let Love Rule (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Lenny<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

It was at a studio in a disused factory in Hoboken, NJ that Kravitz found a kindred spirit. \u201cHenry Hirsch came from New York City,\u201d he explains. \u201cHe was a keyboard player who\u2019d gone to Germany and had a couple of hits, and he then learned how to engineer, and had a very unorthodox technique, really raw. I came to his studio on the waterfront with another band I was playing with, and he and I saw things eye to eye. I ended up leaving that band to do my own thing. That was Let Love Rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in LA, and my wife at the time was pregnant. At that time there weren\u2019t many people around who were into the vintage thing \u2013 it was 1987 and \u201988. We were into the old equipment, with the older sound. Not because it was romantic, but because it sounded so damn good. He had very basic equipment, like an old Trident console. I called him, and I remember saying: \u2018I wanna make this real intimate, personal record that sounds carpety \u2013 very plush and warm.\u2019 And he got it. He\u2019s a big reason why I ended up playing all the instruments on the record. He said: \u2018It has more character when you play it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The major labels were still unimpressed. Until Kravitz talked his way into Virgin Records in LA to meet A&R person Nancy Jeffries, as she was about to leave on a Friday afternoon. \u201cShe said: \u2018I\u2019ve got fifteen minutes.\u2019 I had a cassette, and popped in the song Let Love Rule. And she said: \u2018Wait here a minute.\u2019\u201d One by one, more execs were brought to listen to Kravitz\u2019s tape. \u201cThey kept writing on papers, and passing them back and forth. And at the last song, they looked at me and said: \u2018Do you want a record deal?\u2019 I was in shock. When I looked at the papers they\u2019d passed, they said things like: \u2018John Lennon Meets Prince\u2019. And they told me straight up: \u2018We can\u2019t say this is gonna sell, because it doesn\u2019t sound like what\u2019s on the radio. But we really dig it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Romeo Blue was killed off before anyone knew he\u2019d lived. \u201cI realised I was Lenny Kravitz, and I should deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Virgin had feared, the Let Love Rule album made little impact in the US. With vocals veering from Al Green screams to the Lennonesque Be, the dirty guitar of Blues For Sister Someone, and Flower Child\u2019s beatific hippie flashback, critics sneered at its retro stance. \u201cThe influences are there, like you can hear in anybody,\u201d he says of the charge. \u201cBut I always made my own music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kravitz wasn\u2019t as alone as his label supposed. Guns N\u2019 Roses had recently relaunched Zep-style guitar aggro and sent it to the top of the charts. The Stone Roses mixed acid house with The Beatles. Dylan, Lou Reed and Neil Young returned from the wilderness with great new albums, and \u2018retro\u2019 ruled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Black Crowes had Let Love Rule in the studio the whole time they were making Shake Your Money Maker,\u201d Kravitz says. \u201cThe CD was right up there on the console, and they\u2019d be referencing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Lenny\n<\/p>\n

Lenny Kravitz onstage in Belgium in 1991 (Image credit: Gie Knaeps\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Kravitz was by now signed to the powerful agents CAA. He\u2019d never played a rock gig. But after a brief warm-up in the clubs he supported Tom Petty, Bowie, Dylan and The Cult. He\u2019d found his golden touch.<\/p>\n

\u201cTom Petty was the first to take me out,\u201d Kravitz confirms. \u201cThank you, Tom. And I got to open for Bowie at Dodgers Stadium. It was freaky. But once I got up there it felt really great. We had to work, because they were not there to see us. But even opening for the Stones later, and their audiences don\u2019t fuck around, we got them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veteran rockers were delighted to hook up with a young star indebted to their music, even if some of the meetings were\u2026 odd. \u201cDylan was in his underwear,\u201d says Kravitz. \u201cHis wardrobe person was ironing his pants.\u201d He became a friend though, along with Bowie and Jagger. \u201cMick came backstage on my Mama Said tour, here in Paris. I said: \u2018Mick, man, since you\u2019re here, why don\u2019t we do No Expectations from Beggars Banquet tonight?\u2019 We started working it out on guitars in the dressing room, and here I am, at my show, doing Stones tunes with Mick Jagger. You meet people that taught you, and now you\u2019re playing with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut my heroes got it: Curtis Mayfield, Al Green, Robert Plant and Mick Jagger, digging me and hanging out and coming to see me. Joan Baez used to come over to my place. I\u2019d be this kid in my loft in New York, and Anita Pallenberg and Yoko would be coming to hang.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kravitz returned to Hoboken to follow up Let Love Rule. But his life had taken a disastrous turn. Amid denied rumours of an affair with Madonna (for whom he co-wrote UK No.1 Justify My Love), he and Bonet separated. Kravitz responded with a break-up album.<\/p>\n

\u201cMama Said was that record,\u201d he agrees. \u201cThe Difference Is Why, It Ain\u2019t Over Till It\u2019s Over, More Than Anything In This World, Stand By My Woman, all of these songs were for her. It Ain\u2019t Over Till It\u2019s Over was a huge pop hit they had to beg me to put on the record. I was going to give it to Smokey Robinson. That was the song that broke out, in the middle of my misery, where I\u2019d be in my loft, not sleeping for days, depressed and just writing this music. As nice and up as It Ain\u2019t Over Till It\u2019s Over sounds, it was breaking my heart. And then it was all over the radio, and I couldn\u2019t escape it. That song changed everything for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lenny Kravitz – It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Lenny<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Slash\u2019s solo on opener Fields Of Joy came after Kravitz met him at the American Music Awards. \u201cAxl was wearing a \u2018Let Love Rule\u2019 button on his leather jacket,\u201d he remembers. \u201cSlash came up to me and said: [drawls] \u2018Man, I got laid to your records so much, man.\u2019 Then as we were talking, I said: \u2018Dude, didn\u2019t we go to high school together?\u2019 It wasn\u2019t that many years before, but we looked different. We said: \u2018Man, we should do something together.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After a Guns N\u2019 Roses European tour, Slash \u201carrived at eight in the morning, and went right to my loft,\u201d Kravitz remembers. \u201cI had to go to that same upstairs neighbour that I bumped into this week, and wake them up to borrow a bottle of vodka. And then we went straight to the recording studio \u2013 at nine in the morning. He thought I was out of my fucking mind. And we did Always On The Run right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

It Ain\u2019t Over Till It\u2019s Over didn\u2019t have its intended effect \u2013 separation turned to divorce in 1993. But it lifted Mama Said into the US Top 40 and UK Top 10. It laid the foundation for Are You Gonna Go My Way, and the rest of Kravitz\u2019s career. Now, the man serenaded as a child by Duke Ellington records in his own studio, on his own beach. Does that make any difference?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not on the subway or getting in my van and driving through the Holland Tunnel,\u201d he considers. \u201cBut once I\u2019m working in the studio, whether I\u2019m in the Bahamas or in some shit-hole in Hoboken, the work ethic and the feeling is still the same. Because the expectation is something\u2019s gonna happen. And when that thing starts to happen, it\u2019s the rush that it was in high school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 202, September 2014<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lenny Kravitz\u2019s potent mix of rock, soul, funk and blues made him a breakout star when he first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-604933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}