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Great music is timeless. While the best albums -The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds; Marvin Gaye, What's Going On; Prince, Purple Rain; The Clash, London Calling; Carole King, Tapestry - or great bands - Zeppelin, Stones, Public Enemy, Sly & The Family Stone -- can define an era, to those hearing it for the first time today it feels just as fresh today as it did then.
So, when hearing Lenny Kravitz's Circus album on its thirtieth anniversary, songs like "Rock And Roll Is Dead" and "Can't Get You Off My Mind" feel as powerful and compelling as they did three decades ago.
Released originally September 12, 1995, Circus became Kravitz's first U.S. top 10 album and cemented his status as a rock star of the Nineties. Now the album is being celebrated with a deluxe edition that includes bonus tracks and several live cuts.
I spoke with Kravitz and his long time guitarist, as well as more recently his engineer, Craig Ross, about revisiting the record three decades in.
Steve Baltin: After 30 years does this feel like a new album to you guys?
Lenny Kravitz: Yeah, the music is always changing even though you know it, you recorded it, you wrote it just because your perception changes and your sensibilities change. It's like a familiar piece of your past, like a photograph. It's a record that I'm very fond of. Right now, we're just playing one song from that album. We're going to be incorporating some more on the upcoming legs but as of right now we're just playing one.
Baltin: Have you been surprised by how the songs have held up?
Kravitz: I don't know if I'm surprised, I'm thankful. That was part of my intention when making the album. When I make the albums, I have no preconceived ideas. I channel the music, it comes to me, I'm the antenna. But as far as the recordings go, the technical aspect, I was making music that way from Let Love Rule on up purposely because I knew that when I put the record on 10, 20, 30, 40 years later, I don’t want it to sound dated. And that was an intention. Why I was thinking that I don’t know. But that’s what I was thinking. So that’s why I recorded in a very classical sense, a very pure sense, real instruments for the most part. That was the blueprint, to use my hands, for us to play these instruments.
Baltin: With your hunger for music still strong, is the passion for knowledge just as strong as when you were starting?
Kravitz: When I'm on the road, which I am now, I don't get to play all the instruments because obviously I have a band, and I can't play all the instruments live. So, when I get home, it's all about just getting back in the studio, getting on the drums, getting on the keyboards, getting on the bass, getting on the guitar. Craig's always playing. Craig always has a guitar with him. Craig is also now, for the last couple albums, our engineer. So, we're always looking for new ways to do things. I think when you have the student mentality that's what keeps you going. As I said before, this is for life; this is not for business; this is for pure pleasure.
Baltin: For both of you, talk about what you've learned this year; your biggest lesson this year.
Kravitz: I think for me just realizing that I've been on the right path because I can question myself a lot. "What am I doing?" Trying to figure it out. I'm still here and the only thing I can tell you that I've done to remain in this place is to just be myself and to not question and to really just follow inspiration. I think I've become more secure in that as I see how music has continued to live and breathe through these beautiful people that support music and come to live shows and buy records. It's been a beautiful thing to experience and learn; it's getting better. I would have to say that on this tour for Blue Electric Light I've had the most fun of any tour. I think that's just because of all that I've gone through and where I am.
Craig Ross: As far as learning something, it's just coming to the realization or the awareness that you're on a path; things just continue. We've been at this for so long now but it still seems every day something new is happening or we're expanding in some way. So it's just going back to what BB King said: it doesn't stop. Your age or whatever doesn't dictate that somehow you've got to stop doing what you're doing or expanding. That's something in the last couple years I've realized. It's exciting that every day you can still wake up and try to figure out something new.
Baltin: What memories does Circus bring you back to?
Kravitz: When I think of Circus, there were three locations that album was made. It was made in New York, well, in Jersey at Waterfront Studios where we made the first few records.
Ross: It's kind of the end of that, right?
Kravitz: Yeah, it was turning into the end of that because I built my own studio then next year after that to make Five. We also rented a chateau. We rented a big chateau about two hours outside of Paris and set up all of our equipment in this gigantic cold dusty place. We also worked in Bahamas so those were our three locations at that time. They were all quite different but beautiful experiences. Being on island working at Compass Point which is first time we worked there where so many legendary records were made,and of course,in country where my mother's family is from.That was beautiful.And then being outside Paris.Also one distinct memory at that time which was very difficult,my mother had cancer and was going through that whole journey.She actually came out Bahamas stayed us for little bit spent time us.But they’re all very beautiful intense memories.
Ross: It was like a big period of discovery in a way,right?In the end we’re back in Bahamas recording a lot,we’re in Paris recording a lot.And that was beginning of all that,like branching out from just being one place
Kravitz: True,because this was before I lived in Paris before I had my house.It’s before we moved to Bahamas.Yeah.So,it was sort of setting the...
Ross: Template...
Kravitz: ...Yeah,for what our future life was going to be.
Baltin: When you were setting the template, so to speak, did you have any idea? Did you feel instantly the connections with these places that you would end up there?
Kravitz: The Bahamas, I've always been spending time here because of my family going down there for holidays and for summers. But I think being down there and recording the process was so vibrant. We're in the middle of nature, floating on this rock in the middle of the ocean. And the music just comes so easily there. Even to this day, I feel that when I get home. I knock the dust off of me from being out in the world and I take off my shoes and I don’t wear shoes even if I’m down there for six months; I don’t see a pair of shoes for six months! I walk in dirt; I walk in grass—and once you ground yourself place like that? The music comes easily! This vortex just opens up and flies at you! I can’t even make it through night sleep really without being awakened 3:45 morning song head! So yeah—the Bahamas has always been really rich! And I have my house Paris; we have our sister studio there house.
Ross: We get a lot done there.
Kravitz: Yeah—completely different vibe. Because we’re in a dark box. We don’t have windows in that studio. Whereas in the Bahamas—we’re in the middle of the bush on the beach and we can see the bush in the sky from the studio because there’s a lot of glass in there. They’re both completely different dynamics but as Craig said we get a lot of work done in both of those places and it’s the place where we keep our equipment because we’re very specific about our equipment and how that works and our speakers and how the room is tuned. So yeah—that was the beginning of us creating our atmospheres where we were going to make music.
Baltin: When you look at those artists who have done the 30, 40, 50-year careers and have been able to continually evolve, who are those artists that you admire?
Kravitz: [David] Bowie, who changed every album; changed everything about himself; Joni [Mitchell]; Prince; Stones; Pink Floyd; Neil Young—there are so many artists that have been blessed to have that time. Robert Plant obviously who’s gone on to keep evolving and doing his thing is a great example.
Baltin: Plant went from Zeppelin to doing an album with country artists. So is there that one style for you that you’ve always wanted to try?
Kravitz: What I have thought of is doing a very traditional spiritual album like gospel old school. But there are elements of that on one of the records we have coming out soon. I’ve always loved that. It’s a lot of the music that my grandmother used to play and has always been inspiring. And it’s the root of rock and roll and blues and so forth.
Baltin: When you listen to Circus what do you take from it now 30 years later?
Ross: I think there was a lot of freedom.That’s what I hear back from that record.We were able to go in a lot of different directions and we were exploring space—which is why we’re in a castle or why we’re in New York or ended up in Bahamas.
Kravitz: We’ve always been free.But you have to remember this came after Are You Gonna Go My Way—which changed everything.And I think that the label and people expected more of that record,and we just turned it in another direction which was beautiful that we did not fall for that.And you’ve got these songs on this record that have nothing to do with what was going on commercially,but we never did that.We just kept going down that road of being free and trusting the inspiration that comes to you.