A Conversation with Julian Lennon – HuffPost 9.4.13

Mike Ragogna: Hi Julian, how are you doing?

Julian Lennon: Hi Michael, good, good, good. It’s a pleasure!

MR: And it’s always a pleasure to talk with you, Julian. You know the phrase “The more things change, the more they stay the same?” I think that’s a bunch of crap! The more things change, the more things change. Right?

JL: [laughs] I think that’s confused me entirely! Especially as the first question. Oh my God, I’m not entirely sure. I think I’d need another cup of coffee to answer that.

MR: [laughs] And thus began the interrogation for your new album Everything Changes. Yay.

JL: Oh, yeah, well you know. [laughs] I tend to go for the obvious. Everything in its simplest form. I figure, why complicate issues?

MR: Indeed, Major! Julian, please would you take us on a proper tour of the album and its origins? Like, what were you feeling creatively when you first got into it?

JL: Well, for starters, fifteen years ago, I sort of gave it all up again. I keep having these fits where I’ve just had enough of the industry and I just want to run away. I went off to do quite a few other projects. I did a film called WhaleDreamers, which was about indigenous tribes and this, that, and the other, and now photography, I’m all over the place. These are all things I wanted to pursue outside of music, but the problem is I couldn’t stay away from it. I get twitchy. Being surrounded by musicians as dear and best friends is also a difficult thing, too, because if someone comes and stays, they’ll pick up the guitar and start playing and I’ll go, “Ooh, I like that!” and one thing will lead to another. How the album came about was not initially with the idea of doing an album again, because in all honesty, I thought, “I could live with Photograph Smile being my last album, really, if I just didn’t want to deal with this business anymore.” But I guess about ten years ago, I started twitching again and I bought a whole little home studio setup and started putting ideas down–some finished, some not. Slowly but surely, lo and behold, there’s enough for an album! It was quite different from the other albums; this was done the most organically, again, because I was not writing for the consideration of an album. It was just writing for the sake of writing and the pleasure of writing and the pleasure of expression through that medium. I remember how this actually came together. There was a great mixer that I’d heard of who did Sheryl Crow’s album Wildflower and I loved the sound of that album. It’s natural, it’s beautiful, it has new and old production a little bit, the mix is great on it. Anyway, I found him on MySpace or something like that. He couldn’t believe it was me. I said, “Look, there’s no other way I could contact you.” It’s the mixer Jeff Rothschild. I said, “Listen, I love your work, and I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff. Any chance that we could consider working together?” He said, “Well, listen, in about two months I’ve got a window of ten days.” I said, “Excuse me?” He said, “Yeah, I’ve got a window of about ten days.” I said, “Right, okay, I’ll get back to you over the weekend.” Okay! Crikey, if I’m going to do an album, I want him to do it because he was booked up months, if not years, in advance. “If I’m going to do this, let me really pull it together.” So I did. It was a lot of hard work finishing everything up and letting your baby go, so to speak. But we worked on it in London at Sarm Studios, it turned out great,,in my mind, and I couldn’t be happier with it. Next thing was, “Okay, how am I going to release it?” So I did a trial release in the UK with a few less tracks on it on an indie label. You know, I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s just the business, the industry, the people in it, but it just was not a working situation. I decided to pull out of that and I just sat back and decided to do a bit more work on it and then thought, “You know what, I’m just going to do it myself. It’s time to be truly independent. Enough.” So that’s what I did, and that’s what I’ve done. I’ve got to say, there’s a lot less stressors and strains doing it this way. But on another note, if you want people to know about it, you’ve really got to independently go out there and promote it. It’s completely different than how you would with a label. For me, it’s very much about stepping stones and word of mouth and slowly but surely. I’m not looking to have the next chart hit or success, I’m looking for longevity as an artist.

MR: How’s the reaction been?

JL: The reaction has been great so far. I’m happy with it all and happy with the way it’s going because I dip my toe in promoting it as and when I can, but this allows me also to get on with the other projects on a daily basis–the White Feather Foundation and photography. So it allows me a bit more breathing space as a human, too, which in the end, makes me a happier bunny.

MR: And adds to the creativity. Can it be argued that a well-rounded Julian, from doing your filmwork and photography, gives you a bigger perspective when you then approach your music?

JL: It’s certainly a different perspective. Just briefly, I’ve been working on a film set doing artistic stills for a film called The Price Of Desire, which is about a woman called Eileen Gray who was the first Irish female modernist in regards to architecture and design. Her life story is quite incredible. Her last piece of work, which was a chair, I think, sold for about twenty-three million. A lot of people don’t know about her, but she influenced design and architecture incredibly. Anyway, I’m working on stills for this and I’d been on set in Brussels–we haven’t finished yet, it doesn’t finish til the end of the month–but the director Mary McGuckian asked me in because she liked the photography she’d seen of mine. There’s anywhere between twenty and fifty people on set, people that work around filming and shooting behind the scenes of a production, and nobody apart from her and the producer knew who I was. I’ve got to tell you, being the stills photographer on a movie set, you are the lowest of the lowest in their eyes. Nobody knew who I was and I haven’t really been in the limelight or in the media a lot, so there were gaffers and people shoving me out of the way and pushing me, and I’m going, “Ow, f**k, I forgot what it was like to be down here.” You have to work your way up. I had to show that I was willing to be a hard worker before they even accepted me by doing the work and doing the graphs and then eventually getting to show some of the pictures so that they went, “Oh, well you actually do a pretty good job.” Even ’til the end, some people didn’t know. It was just an interesting going back to the roots of viewing the world. It’s good whether it’s a scenario like that or going to shoot refugee camps in Afghanistan or going out to Kenya or this, that and the other. It’s always important to not forget how far you’ve come and where you’ve come from and what other people are dealing with. I think those are some of the issues that are much more relatable to and I’m much more in touch with today than I ever have been. Sorry that was a bit long-winded, Michael.

MR: No, not all, Julian, it was a complete answer! But that also brings us perfectly to the White Feather Foundation. It’s obvious you have a global view, you’re more concerned with things beyond just music as we’ve been talking about and the White Feather Foundation is a perfect example of that. Can you go into the organization?

JL: Sure. I’ll try and keep it brief. When I went off and did this film called WhaleDreamers, how that came about was I was doing the promo tour, the promo tour on crack in Australia–the neverending promo tour–and I was in Adelaide and the hotel calls me up and says, “Listen, there’s an aboriginal tribe down here, they want to see you.” I said, “Excuse me?” and they said, “No, no, we’re very serious, Mr. Lennon, please come downstairs to the lobby, there’s an aboriginal tribe down here.” I’m going, “Okay, well, this is a weird one.” But I go downstairs and the elders come up to me and they present me with this incredibly beautiful white feather from a male swan. It’s beautiful. I used to carry it with me in my suitcase everywhere I went in the world, but I keep it at home now, just for nostalgia. But there are two points to this: The giving of the white feather to me and the elders saying, “You have a voice, can you help us?” They were being kicked off the land by their government and their story was, like so many, horrific. The other thing was dad always said that if there was something showing me a sign in regards to him being all right or everything being all right, it would be in the form of a white feather. I thought, literally, in that moment as I was being handed that feather, “Well I’d better step up to the plate here or crawl under a rock. It’s one choice or the other. Man up.” When I finished the film, I said, “If we make any money on this, how do I give it back to the indigenous tribes involved in this so that they can keep their culture alive, their education, their history and keep it moving forward and not lose this?” Because of those two points in particular, I thought White Feather Foundation sounded right to me. I’ve always associated a white feather with a dove, which relates to peace to me and love and respect and giving.

So that was that. I started the foundation where if anything was made from the film, it would go through the foundation to the aboriginal tribe and the other tribes around the world. Then I took it another step. I feel more than fortunate, so regardless of what people think I’ve been through or not been through or how much people think I have or don’t have, I want everything and anything that I do to have a portion of it go to White Feather Foundation to continue efforts to help aid those in need. We’ve rebuilt orphanages in Sri Lanka, this year we’ve been working with NGOs all around the world, specifically in Kenya. This is the year of water with regards to the UN, so that’s been our goal this year. We had our first ever White Feather Foundation event, raised a fair amount of money to be able to drill new boreholes and put in pumps for fresh water for villages and families initially in Kenya and throughout Africa, but really, all over. So it’s a daily commitment to keep on trying to raise awareness and raise funds. Voila.

MR: I remember in our last interview, you said you had started a label based on trying to elevate artists who you believed in.

JL: It never came to fruition, really. What started happening, as with my scenario exactly, was that although the idea of being independent even two years ago before that was a nice idea, the actual reality of it with regards to self-releasing and viral marketing and doing all the work yourself wasn’t quite there yet. That’s why in speaking with a lot of artists that I was considering working with, we all just went off and did our own things because we realized we were now able to do this through ourselves and our own means and our own websites. Now for the most part, really, our websites are our shop windows, so to speak, to the rest of the world. I think some people want to give their music away for free and that’s fine by them, but it’s not just the recording. You’ve got a lot of people behind all of that and if you need help in promoting or marketing it outside of your viral, then you do need people to help you and you’ve got to pay for that. Nothing is free, and I think now that artist can at least directly market to fans and directly have a relationship with people. I’m literally on Facebook probably an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening to communicate and keep in touch with my fans, not only on musical levels, but also on environmental issues around the world and projects and ideas. But you know, I’m not all serious. I do like a bit of a laugh once in a while. But I think it’s a far different opportunity and a far different situation to be in than even two years ago. So that’s the long version of the story.

MR: Once again, everything changes.

JL: In that respect, indeed. Well just to finish off, I think this way. The fact of the matter is the fans really do get to see who the real artist is. In many respects, a lot of artists’ images are fronted on social networking websites and they don’t really communicate directly with the fans and I think, after a while, once you see artists that are sort of true, as I feel I am as well as quite a few others, that you can actually reach and stay in touch with the artist yourself. I think that makes a huge, huge difference in how people look at you. You really are the person behind that and running the show. It’s a different day and age these days, and I think actually for the better.

MR: Perfect timing for my traditional question. What advice do you have for new artists?

JL: Well, I think that is it. I’ve got to say one thing, it’s much more difficult, in many respects, because there are so many artists out there today, we’re almost all drowning. Sadly, with regards to radio and many other formats and even TV, generally, the only people that get really seen and heard on that level are people that get signed up with labels that have money to be able to support the artists and put them in the public’s minds’ eye. So it’s a lot more difficult for you to be seen and heard, but as long as you’re willing to step out of the box a little bit and try and do what you can to be seen and heard, it’s a tough one. In my mind, it’s about being true to yourself. I certainly don’t want to sell my soul in any way, shape, or form, but I do want to let people know about the work that I’m doing. Then it’s in the ether; it can be taken from there. If people accidentally fall upon it or hear it from word of mouth, I think that’s where longevity as an artist lasts, in circumstances like that. I was new to Facebook about a few years ago and it’s literally been me near enough twice a day every day building my fans and audience up from initially about two thousand to over four hundred thousand now. That’s not using any gimmicks, any tricks, it’s the fact that I’m willing to be there. Almost grow with your fans in that respect. It’s quite unique.

MR: All right, we’ll wrap things up, but I just want to say that with Everything Changes, I think you did achieve what you were looking for, this organic sound meets modern technology, and you could tell from the fans’ reactions to all the songs that you touched a lot of people, especially with songs like “Beautiful” and the title track.

JL: Thank you.

MR: You’re welcome. Does this give you more creative energy to jump into the next one now?

JL: I don’t know…I honestly don’t know. I’m trying to take everything a step at a time at the moment. Again, what’s caught my eye for now artistically is photography. I’m probably going to go with the flow of that for a while. It depends on what happens with the reaction to the album. If I do hear murmurs and gurglings and the idea of playing live does finally hit me, then I’ll get up there and I’ll play, and the idea, of course, will be to write more in the future. But I have to say that I do enjoy the sort of sporadic workings with other people that I’ve come across. For instance, Tomi Swick in Canada, we did a song called “December Sky.” Just these little opportunities that come out of nowhere and you wouldn’t normally expect that make writing music a little more exciting. The idea of having to write an album, the drudgery of that in this day and age has really changed, although for me, an album is always a journey. There’s conflicting interest from both sides. It’s a question of figuring out what you feel like that day. I think it really does. I don’t want to force myself ever to write a song. I’ve done that before. This album was completely not like that. I would sense that it will naturally happen again.

MR: And everything changes.

JL: Indeed it does, sir, indeed it does.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne