Between 1999 and 2002, Lenny Kravitz won four straight Grammy awards for Best Male Rock Performance. Kravitz has dropped thirteen records and sold more than 40 million albums and why we love him, beyond classic tracks like Let Love Rule, Always on the Run, Fly Away and It Ain’t Over til It’s Over, is that the rock icon always exudes sexuality, soul, kindness and funk. Electric Blue Light, his blazing new record, is a fun mix of groovy rock and R&B bangers that swing like the Bahamian disco near his home where the record was made. At 60 years old, Kravitz appears buff and naked in his video for TK241, smoking a joint and dancing around his mansion in Paris like a warped sex God version of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. KIND’s Editor in Chief, Ben Kaplan, caught up with the red-hot Lenny Kravitz while he poked around his closet and chose some new stage clothes to wear.
KIND: Man, the record just sounds like fire. I can picture your state of mind in the studio but tell me—what brought you to take out the guitar just now?
Lenny Kravitz: I’d be curious to hear what you think.
KIND: I think you don’t have to do this, you made this because you wanted to. Because you felt good and caught the spirit and wanted to party with the world.
LK: I wouldn’t disagree with any of that that. I love what I do. I love making music. I love making art and I’m still inspired, still hungry. I’m so grateful for this journey and I found myself in the studio at my home in the Bahamas and just opened myself up, as I always do, and the expression is a reflection of what’s going on and reacting to the world.
KIND: And the vibe?
LK: I just want to feel good, enjoy the time and have fun.
KIND: Amen, and we can hear it in the tracks.
LK: I think there’s a good balance of celebration, sexuality, sensuality, but also spirituality and that’s generally the place I like to play in, so there’s definitely similar of my trademarks, but there’s also elements of production value and songwriting that take me back to high school.
KIND: Do you mean that you turned 60 and, to celebrate, you went back to high school?
LK: This is sort of the album I didn’t get to make in high school because after high school and after my whole development—my early development anyways, what I was doing at that time completely changed my sound—or it was changed for me.
KIND: What does that mean?
LK: I was given Let Love Rule and that changed everything for me, that’s great and that’s a gift. But this record Blue Electric Light, although it’s right now, there’s shades of the highschool version of me in there, maybe something that people haven’t yet seen.
KIND: I love the video for TK241, which is actually what made us reach out to you. The idea of you naked smoking weed with your guitar in a mansion, playing all the tracks on your album and recording in your home.
LK: That’s always how it is.
KIND: Smoking weed naked?
LK: Exercising my multi-instrumental self.
KIND: Is it really that hard to find someone to play bass?
LK: Recording this way didn’t start out on purpose. Back then, I couldn’t find or pay for or afford to pay musicians so on my first record, I ended up doing it myself and that’s been my way and my sound ever since. But this record started in the middle of COVID, so I was in the Bahamas and just with Craig Ross, my lead guitarist and my partner who engineered the last couple of records, and it just worked out. We made this record incorporating it into part of our day.
KIND: What’s a studio day with you like in the Bahamas?
LK: Wake up, go for a walk with your dogs. Go onto the beach, go into the water, do some things, check on the garden and go into the studio—spend the whole day in there.
KIND: Then what?
LK: Come out of the studio, eat, jump back in the water, and go back in the studio and record. It’s such a luxury that I have my own studio right there on the beach—it’s a wonderful place to open yourself up to receive whatever it is the creative spirit is offering you.
KIND: Do you still feel the creative spirit, those rock ‘n’ roll tingles, like you did at 16?
LK: Nothing like hearing a great piece of music that turns you on—it transforms you, and that feeling is something I strive for—even though I’m being given this music. I’m trying to transcribe what I’m hearing out there floating around, that piece of music.
KIND: You’re a conduit to a frequency you pick up in the cosmos.
LK: I’m ultimately looking to move myself. I make all this music for myself. At first, I’m not thinking about anybody, but then I’m fortunate enough to be able to offer it to the world, it becomes for everybody.
KIND: So how do you describe what you do?
LK: I’m trying to turn myself and turn everybody on.
KIND: That’s so fucking dope and, at 60, you still feel it—twelve records in?
LK: Absolutely. That’s the only reason I would do it. It’s not like people have a contract on me or they owe albums or I have to do it, or just drop something because I’m getting ready to go on tour. For me, if it’s not passionate, I can’t do it. I can’t fake the funk—there’s no fun in that, no purpose.
KIND: I love the idea of FUN. We need more FUN. It’s summertime. There’s wars waging, people are broke. How about a rock record, a party on the beach in the Bahamian sand.
LK: I was in a very inspired place when I did this record and it feels good. It’s really also feeding me. All of my music is centred around love and God and spirituality and unity, and people. That’s been my thing—Let Love Rule—from day one.
KIND: And let fun rule. How about making 2024 the Summer of Fun?
LK: I felt like having fun. It needed to be fun. It needed to feel good—to balance out a lot of this nonsense that’s going on. It’s a gift—there’s nothing wrong with fun.
KIND: Fun sometimes can feel like a radical act, like an act of rebellion.
LK: It’s a balance. Take that video you mentioned for TK241. People say, ‘Oh, it’s sexy or whatever,’ but I was completely having fun. Not taking myself seriously, that’s what made it work. Otherwise it could have gone south really quickly, but the director, this Ukrainian director, was so much fun and open and it was her idea and I didn’t quite get it. I was like, ‘Are you sure I’m running around naked, is that what we’re doing?’ But she came to my house and we just started having fun—sensuality and fun.
KIND: How do you transfer your solo studio beach vibe to stadiums all over the world?
LK: Before I go onstage I’m very calm. I let everything go. I don’t want to think about performing or make myself nervous. My attitude is whatever is going to happen is going to happen and that’s part of the live experience—you’re not sure what can happen, and I just want to say: ‘God, do with me what you’re going to do.’ Then I get up there and see what happens and that’s what it is every night—let’s see what’s going to happen.
KIND: What do you want to do on this tour?
LK: I’m looking to go as deep as I can in the connection between myself and the audience. I want you to feel me, that’s the exercise for me on this upcoming tour.
KIND: I hope young artists read this and get that as a job description for a life in the arts. So what you’re trying to discover is—
LK: How deeply can we penetrate each other, the audience and myself.
KIND: Wow, and are you currently in the setlist grind?
LK: That’s proving to be challenging. I want to represent the new album, but I don’t want to overdo it. I want to play the hits because folks want to hear the hits, but I also want to go into album cuts that I haven’t played in a long time, or ever, so between those three ideas I want to put together the best set I can.
KIND: And of course the best gear.
LK: I’m thinking about that now and almost feel like I don’t have enough time. It all has to start coming together, but it will. I’m just trying to remember to have fun and have faith.
KIND: What’s the last record that made you jump?
LK: Just yesterday my friend Nikka Costa put out a single called Dirty Disco. She has an album coming out, and it’s so funky. That had me jumping yesterday.
KIND: I love the video you posted of you jamming to Angry, the lead single from the new album by the Stones.
LK: That had me jumping, too. Such a great single and so inspiring to see these guys who’ve been doing it for so long that still have that thirst.
KIND: Without that spark, there’s nothing.
LK: It’s definitely about how far you can go. Not in terms of record sales but just that if you retain your passion; like, those guys [the Rolling Stones] didn’t just go in the studio to make a record, they went in there to do something. At this point in their life what I find so inspiring about the Stones is they’re not trying to fill space, they want to do something great. They’re still reaching.
KIND: Do you feel like you’re still reaching?
LK: I feel like I’m just getting warm.
KIND: Dude, 40 million albums?
LK: OK, maybe I’m at the beginning of getting hot: this is the beginning of hot.
KIND: How do you keep yourself prepared?
LK: I had a grandfather who lived to a wonderful old age and he took care of himself. He looked twenty years younger than he was and he was my example. He took care of himself and that’s what I try to do, too.
KIND: How so?
LK: It matters to me what I put in my body and over the last few years, I’ve taken my training to another level. I sacrifice my flesh every day and there’s things that I’d love to eat and drink but I don’t because I know that I’m looking for a certain level of health and functionality. There’s no shortcut to this, I work at it every day.
KIND: I like that you’re disciplined but also a rockstar and I like that you’re buff and also smoke weed.
LK: Some herb is alright for me.
KIND: Was it a conscious decision to be smoking in your video?
LK: My housekeeper who runs my house in Paris just told me onset that I needed to relax because I’d been working all day and she handed me a joint. I was sitting on the side of the bathtub and the director started filming. I wasn’t going to let it go out.
KIND: You don’t want to disrespect the plant.
LK: Moderation. I don’t do anything all the time, but I figure if 95% of the time I’m strict and careful, 5% of the time I can do things I don’t normally do.
KIND: We certainly appreciate your time and love the record and just want to sincerely thank you for all the music over the years.
LK: With music, there’s no choice for me in the matter. I’m still passionate and extremely hungry for this and therefore I bring the fresh sounds. You can’t fake it. With me there’s no lying and I’ve been very fortunate that many times in my career, like now, I have that great feeling of getting a fresh start.
Lenny Kravitz is starting his tour in Europe with North American dates, beginning in Las Vegas, starting this fall. Electric Blue Light is out now. To stay updated on everything Kravitz, see LennyKravitz.com.
