Q: The DVD is packaged with the CD when you buy it?

A: Uh-huh.

Q: As a lyricist, you have this beautiful keen eye for detail, which may be why some of the songs resonate in the films. In Spectacle, some of these lines -- you sing about the woman in the song giving you her T-shirt, how she spilled her drink, but she didn’t mean to. (Sean laughs.) Those things really struck a chord. Do you jot stuff down all the time or maybe come back from a party where those things happened and write the details down?

Well, that song specifically is -- it’s about Bijou (Phillips) and what a spectacle she always was, and is. And she’s -- you know, she’s such a beautiful girl and she just kind of sparkles. But this spectacle of her sparkle was so hard for me sometimes when I was dating her, because it just felt like I was always in some sort of chaos. You know what I mean? And so that’s what that song is about. It’s about how she’s always such a spectacle and how I love that about her, but that that’s also what I felt was almost like impossible for me to deal with
But the truth is, any song -- and I want -- I want Bijou to know this -- it’s not a documentary. It’s not a biography of what happened. It’s not a truthful detailed account of the truth. It’s a dreamlike interpretation. And it’s something completely different from reality. It isn’t reality. And none of my songs are. And the film isn’t reality. I’m not trying to say that this is exactly what it was like. I’m saying that I went through these things, and then I fall asleep and I dream. And my dreams reinterpret them and they come out as a sort of -- they come out as art. And art isn’t life. That’s why I’m interested in it. I’m not here to make documentaries. I’m not here to write the memoirs of Sean Lennon. I’m here to reinterpret things the way that dreams do. And music is a dream to me. And the head of one person can wind up on the body of another person in the world of music.
And that’s what this is. This is something that is supposed to go beyond the relatively meaninglessness of my life and my experiences. They’re not that interesting to me. What’s interesting is taking those experiences and finding the inspiration to make something that transcends my personal experiences. I want to make art that’s more interesting that me. And that’s why I do it. Songs are much more interesting that what actually happened. And they aren’t what actually happened. They’re a mythological interpretation of many things. And every time I write a song, it’s not just about one girl. It’s about lots of girls. And girls I’ve never met and imaginary girls and dreams and ghosts. It’s all -- it’s all this sort of intangible world. It’s the language of dreams. That’s what art is. And I just want to make sure that that’s clear.

Q: Is that why Bijou felt comfortable being in the films?

A: (Pauses). I think that Bijou’s such a talented person and that when she knew that I was making a film as my friend, I think she knew that she had to be a part of it. I don’t think it was easy for her. But it just had to be that way. She was the one who had to play the part.
And -- again though, she’s not playing herself literally. She’s playing a dream about things. That’s not specifically relating to my life and my mind. And there’s that famous scene in (Woody Allen’s) Hannah And Her Sisters when Mia Farrow is mad at her sister because her sister has written a book that involves a lot of personal things about their life. And she’s confronting her in the kitchen and she goes, “I’m really upset by this, you know. It’s like, I can’t even believe it.” And, you know, “How would you even know the details of these conversations?” And it turns out because she’s been sleeping with Michael Caine, who’s her husband. She doesn’t -- Mia Farrow’s character doesn’t know that. And she’s just really upset. She’s like, “I’m really hurt that you wrote this. You know, this is my life and you’re writing about it in a book.” And I just always really related to that. And I assume, I imagine that Woody Allen must have experienced things like that and that’s why he wrote it into the script, which is that feeling of, okay, if I’m an artist and you’re in my life and I’m going to I’m going to regurgitate you and everyone around me in my life into art. But you shouldn’t be offended by it, because I’m not saying that this is you. I’m actually just saying that I’m using this as material. These are the building blocks for the sculpture of my piece, of my artwork.
And I have a lot of experience with that, with people -- with people kind of feeling like, “Well, why did you write that? I mean, that’s not what really happened.” And I’m like, well, it doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to say that this is what happened. I’m not a journalist. But if you’re in my life, you’ve got to be prepared to wind up in a song.

Q: Sean, you’re whole new album talks about romance. And you’ve had some pretty high profile romances, if we can believe some of the things printed in the newspaper.

A: It’s all lies.

Q: It is all lies?

A: I think so.

Q: How do you deal with being under the media microscope because you’re the child of Yoko Ono and John Lennon?

A: Well it takes a lot of work to subvert people’s idea of me. And that’s what my whole career is about is subverting that misinformation. And it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, but because my dad’s famous, my mom’s famous, there’s this sense of who I might be, which has nothing to do with who I actually am. So my whole career is designed to subvert that misunderstanding.
And that’s why Into the Sun was such an eclectic and homemade and understated record, because I was basically rejecting peoples’ expectation for me to sign a huge record deal, get a big producer, get a bunch of songwriters to write me some hits and try to make money. And that is so far from what I’m interested in. Like, it’s the opposite end of the world for me. And I thought it was really important for me to sign with an indy label and make a record on my own, like a handmade kind of homemade brownies. And just kind of be like, look, I know that my dad owns the biggest restaurant in the world and you expect me to be a chef in that restaurant and make some kind of whatever fancy soufflés, but I’m not going to do that. I’m going to make some cookies and they’re going to be oatmeal. And there’s only going to be 12 of them. And that’s what I’m about. I want to make them by hand. From the ground up.
And I think that a lot of people think like, oh, well, Into the Sun wasn’t a number one record and it didn’t sell millions of copies and so “Do you feel disappointed, Sean?” And I don’t at all, because that was - my intention was to not do that, was to make a point that my personality, my interests and my aesthetic is real. I’m a real songwriter. I’m not here to exploit some sort of nepotism. I’m here to represent myself as an artist, because that’s what I am.

Q: Might have been easier for you if you just were a chef (laughter)

A: Well, I’m actually a pretty good cook, to be honest.

Q: You work with, on this album and in the films, Harper Simon, Bijou Phillips, both musicians whose parents were well known musicians, too. And I saw you sing with Rufus Wainwright a few years back. Does the situation you share with those folks make it easier for you-all to click as friends?

A: You know what? I would say no. I would say that my relationship with Harper and Bijou and Rufus is completely independent of our musical ancestry. It really doesn’t matter at all. I’ve met -- I’ve met a ton of people that were sons and daughters of musicians that I didn’t relate to in any way. I think people try to make that connection and it frustrates me, because, again, it’s a misrepresentation of who I am. And it’s a fantasy of who we are. It’s this fantasy of like, “Oh, the children of rock all get along” or, “Oh, wow, you know, John Lennon’s son, he’s going to sound like his dad.” Whatever it is, you know. It’s a fantasy. And it has nothing to do with reality.
And my relationship with Harper is based on friendship and integrity and respect. I mean, the guy’s a deep, deep guitar player and a deep songwriter and incredibly talented. And that’s the same for Rufus, man. I mean, I didn’t care about his dad’s songs when I went on tour with him eight years ago, whatever. I mean, I – well I cared about his songs. And I know that Rufus certainly isn’t so superficial that he’d be hanging out with me -- and we lived together in LA for like a few months - he wasn’t there because of, you know, our dad’s were songwriters. It has nothing to do with that. It’s about -- it’s about people meeting each other and real connections.
And that’s why I felt so uncomfortable with that Rolling Stone cover that I was on, because I just felt like this really isn’t representative of anything. It’s like you make a headline and then you do interviews with people and you try to make those interviews support your headline that you’ve already conceived of. But it’s so forced and contrived, because, we’re not children of rockers. We’re each of individual people. And we either get along or not, but it has nothing to do with our heritage. It really doesn’t.

Q: I was surprised to see you on that cover of Rolling Stone. But at the same time, I think it served a purpose, because if people see that and then decide to listen to Friendly Fire….

A: Well, you know what I mean, it’s -- it was an opportunity that Jann gave me to be on the cover of the most important music magazine. So what am I going to say? I just mean the premise of it makes me uncomfortable. And he knows that. I told him, I said, “I don’t feel comfortable with this premise.” But it’s not like he was offering me the cover alone, so, I’m thankful that he gave me that chance. But I just mean, I think it’s dangerous and I think what it does is it supports this kind of fantasy about who I am, versus supporting this reality.

Q: You have such strong ideas - strong ideas about recording, strong ideas about making films. Do you have equally strong notions about how to put the internet to work for you, either artistically or promotionally?

A: Yeah. Definitely. I mean, my whole intention in making a multimedia album, which is what I’ve done. It’s not just music, it’s not just a film. It’s something in between. It’s a hybrid of those two worlds. It’s a multimedia package.
My intention was to try to overcome whatever difficulties people are having selling CDs in the traditional way because obviously, that’s just not working anymore. It’s working for about five artists a year. And for the rest of us, we have to figure out something else. And, yeah, I’m very much interested in trying to kind of figure out new ways of taking advantage of the way things are going, instead of trying to fight the way things are going.
And Friendly Fire is something that you can download individual songs off the internet. You can download the whole thing. You can download the movie with it. You can download individual films within the movie. And it’s going to be available as a DVD. It’s going to be available as a Quick Time file on my website.
So, yeah, I think it is kind of -- I mean, not to sound pompous or something, but it’s on the forefront of that kind of new media thing. And I am really interested in that, because I feel like in the future the technologies that kids are using today, which are, let’s say those MP3 players that you can play Quick Time movies on. I mean, it’s going to be cheaper and cheaper and easier and easier to get that much information onto those little players. So in the future, I imagine that you’re not going to be able to release a record that doesn’t have accompanying visuals, because you’re going to feel ripped off, because your little digital watch or your, whatever it is, your car is going to have this thing that you can plug in music and also watch a movie. So why not start now with marrying visuals and music. And that’s what I’m trying to do.
And I feel like it was really successful. And the thing that I love about it most is that it’s shown me that I can do something like that and that one can do that. You don’t have to be a filmmaker. You can actually just sort of take your dreams and put them into like some sort of filmic reality. And it works. And it’s cool. And I’m going to do it more. And I don’t think I could make an album that didn’t have visuals anymore, because it’s just so much more fun.

Q: How about old school touring? Are you going to go on the road to play the Friendly Fire songs?

A: Yeah, sure, I’d love -- I mean, you know, I’ve toured a lot. I mean that’s the other thing that I wanted to make clear is that instead of signing the big record deal when I was 17 or 18 and going on some sort of glamorous pop tour that was trying to market me as some sort of sensation, I really rejected that. And I joined Cibo Matto. I went on the road. We were in a van. We drove back and forth across America ten times. We didn’t have a roadie for the first ten tours. And I was the roadie, man. I was carrying the equipment. We were playing in little clubs all over America, all over the world. We went to Japan three or four times. We went to Australia. We went all over Europe.
And that’s who I am. I wanted to be a real musician. I wanted to actually play music from the ground up. I didn’t want to just go straight for this sort -- this illusion, which would have been totally contrived and fake to just suddenly come out with this big presentation and hit people over the head with like (adopts deep announcer voice) “here I am”. It’s embarrassing and it’s not me and it’s fake. And people might not know about me as a musician because I did it in a very small, grassroots way. And I was touring with Cibo Matto for five years. On my first record, I went around the globe three or four times, just for that one record. And I’ve toured a lot. And of course, I’m going to tour in the future. And it was completely invaluable. I mean, it was the most important thing I did was touring, because it’s what -- it’s the difference between just being kind of an amateur musician and then being a professional and really knowing what I’m doing. If I hadn’t done it that way, I don’t think I would have been in a position to do anything meaningful now.

Q: With Cibo you played bass and sang backups. On Yoko Ono’s Rising tour, you were playing some amazing electric guitar. You were sitting down at the piano. So there’s this wide spectrum of the way you’ve played on stage, with Cibo, with Yoko, as a solo artist. So with Friendly Fire, these songs are tightly constructed.

A: Yeah.

Q: Do you think you’ll have room to wiggle around with them when you’re on stage?

A: Yeah, I can’t wait to play these songs live, actually. I can’t wait because I feel like all those experiences that you’re talking about: touring with Cibo for years, touring with my mom, doing my tour -- I got a lot of experience on those kind of tours and it was really fun.

Q: But you can see these songs, which as I said, are very tightly constructed, you can see them growing and moving in different areas on stage?

A: Yeah. I mean, it’s always better live. It’s like the studio is so final. It’s so rigid. It’s like it’s on tape and then it’s done. It’s on the CD and you can never change it. Live is so much more organic and you actually are singing to real people in the room. And I prefer it. It’s a better way to play music.

Q:I think the most epic part of Friendly Fire is the last song, Falling Out of Love. It ends the album. And like the album’s beginning, the finale seems to be the ending of a relationship. So it’s a pretty dark notion. I mean, are there no winners in love?

A: Well, it’s more than that. It’s not just the end of a relationship. Falling Out of Love is more like -- what it’s saying is, -- just forget me. Don’t let me into your heart because the one thing I’m afraid of is falling out of love. So it’s almost like suggesting that there’s a new relationship coming, but that you’re so damaged from -- from the disintegration or the hurt that you feel, that you don’t even want to consider love again. And that’s kind of where I’m at right now. I just feel like I don’t even want to go through it, so just stay away from me.