Episode 318 - Sean Ono Lennon

Introducing Sean Ono Lennon

0:00Hello, and welcome once again to Soda Jerker on Songwriting. It's Brian and Simon here, and joining us this time round is a British-American musician, songwriter and producer who's enjoyed a wildly eclectic career spanning three decades and counting. This prolific, multi-talented and

0:32intensely collaborative fellow has worked with the likes of Lady Gaga, Lenny Kravitz, Lana Del Rey, The Lemon Twigs, Marianne Faithfull, Albert Hammond Jr., and Mark Ronson, to name just a few. Along with Primus' bass-wielding frontman Les Claypool, he's also one half of psychedelic prog-rock duo The Claypool-Lennon Delirium, and their third studio album, snappily titled The Great Parrot's Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy, dropped just a couple of weeks ago. A sprawling sci-fi concept LP about the ominous rise of AI, with accompanying comic book,

1:02it's an incredibly entertaining, not to mention deeply thought-provoking piece of work. And to talk about the creative process behind it, we're super excited to welcome the excellent Sean Ono Lennon to the show. Sean was born in 1975 in New York City to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, you may have heard of them, on his father's 35th birthday. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he felt a deep connection to music from a young age, but it was only in the years following his dad's death, when Sean was only five, that he gravitated towards playing guitar as a way of staying connected to him. Meanwhile, his mum introduced him to classical and avant-garde composers.

1:35From the age of 12, he attended a Swiss boarding school, and later enrolled at Columbia University to study anthropology, but dropped out after a year to pursue a music career. He kicked things off by appearing on Yoko's 1995 album, Rising. In the late 90s, while Sean was playing bass in Chibo Matto, the Beastie Boys' Adam Yauk signed him to his label Grand Royal Records, via which he released the charming 1998 debut LP, Into the Sun. His hugely underrated sophomore effort, the self-produced Friendly Fire, arrived in 2006.

2:06Together with his partner, Charlotte Kent Mule, Sean formed the psych-pop combo The Ghost of a Sabretooth Tiger in 2008, and their recorded output over the next few years included 2014's critically acclaimed Midnight Sun. During the same period, Sean joined his mother in a new incarnation of the Plasticono Band, as well as making his first forays into composing for film. More recently, he's collaborated with John Zorn and Laurie Anderson in an improvisational trio, and in 2024 dropped his third solo effort, the experimental instrumental record, Asterisms. It was in 2015, while on tour with Ghost and sharing the bill with Primus, that Sean first

2:41connected with the aforementioned Les Claypool, which ultimately led to the formation of the Claypool-Lennon delirium. Inspired in part by XDC's psychedelic alter-egos The Dukes of Stratosphere, the first fruit of their partnership was 2016's Monolith of Phobos, followed by South of Reality in 2019. In addition to all of that, Sean is also now the curator of his parents' legacies, and has worked on various projects to promote understanding of their work, including the 2024 one-to-one documentary and last year's Power to the People box set. If you're new to Soda Jerker on songwriting and you enjoy this episode, then make sure you

3:15follow, rate, and review the show on your favoured pod platform, and check out our ever-growing archive of songwriter interviews dating back almost a decade and a half. You can support this fully independent and ad-free show at sodajerker.com slash donate. Just before we move on, our thanks to Liv for her help setting up the chat. Right, we hope you enjoy this conversation with the marvellous Sean Ono-Lennon. I'm guessing they may not be so innocent as they'd have us believe.

3:51What do you believe? And every day I got so much to say, but I've been biting my tongue. Better bite your tongue, cause trying to navigate through the internet is like Swallowing poison, poison, poison, and it makes me want to hide some time.

Building a sci-fi concept album

4:16Well, welcome to the podcast. Great to meet you. You too. How you doing? Not bad. I know you were going to have less, and that I'm your second choice, so I hope... No. I'm not disappointed. No, that's not the case. I can see it in your face.

4:33No, we were definitely keen to talk to you. Okay, well, I know a thing or two about a thing or two.

4:40Happy release day, anyway. Thank you. We love the record. You do. Good. I'm glad you do. And this project's probably your most ambitious yet, I would say. A 14-track concept album with its own mythology and characters and its own world. Yeah, it actually was kind of a monumental undertaking for us, even though it's fun and silly, actually. It took a lot of work, it's true, to kind of try to manage to get all of the plot into the songs and have the sequence of the songs lyrically pertain to the actual story.

5:15It's an extra layer of work that we're not used to as a band. And so that did make it much harder, actually. Yeah, because I think Les said it was the most labor-intensive recording he's been involved in. Yeah, well, actually, the songwriting is quite easy. Like, we have a pretty fast musical relationship, and we usually bring in a couple songs already. So, you know, our first album we did in, like, a week, basically. We'd written the whole thing. But this is the first time we actually had to agree on a storyline that had nothing to do necessarily with writing a song.

5:51It was like we were writing a script, kind of, and that actually was really hard, because it's hard to kind of sit and do that at the same time with someone, and you have to both agree on everything as you're doing it. Whereas with the songs, it's usually kind of like, I'll have a song that's mostly finished, and if he likes it, then he'll finish it with me, and vice versa. He'll write a song, and I'll just kind of help him finish it off. But when you're writing a story from scratch, it's very, I don't know, it requires a kind of seriousness and cooperation that prolonged, probably, the process by quite some time, I would say.

Paperclip maximizers and internet rabbit holes

6:28And it's kind of underpinned by that paperclip maximizer thought experiment as well, isn't it? Were you both familiar with that idea? Well, the history of the Delirium songs, many of them come from me sort of just bringing up weird articles or things that I see or read on the internet. So, for example, the Monolith of Phobos was our first record. That was me kind of showing less this video of Buzz Aldrin saying that there's a monolith on the moon of Mars. I don't know if you've ever seen that video, but it's really funny.

7:00And I was just showing it to him, like, look, check this out. There's another song that we have on the last record called Amethyst Realm, which is actually this British TV show that I saw, where this woman basically left her fiancé for a ghost. And I think she said that she never wanted to have sex with the living man again, which I thought was really funny. So I showed that to Les, and we turned that into a song. So this was another one of those things. I had been reading about AI. Obviously, it was kind of a topical thing at the time. And there's this thought experiment in computer science where it's sort of a cautionary tale about what could go wrong if you program a supercomputer to make paperclips, for example.

7:39If you don't program it with enough safety mechanisms or parameters, it could actually just take it too seriously and turn everything into paperclips. And if it was too clever, it might actually be unstoppable at a certain point. And, you know, it could just turn the whole planet into paperclips and then turn into a spaceship and then go to every planet and turn the whole universe into paperclips, right, if it was smart enough. So I just always thought that was funny. I showed him an article about that thought experiment, and we thought it would be a funny plot line, basically.

8:12And you've said, I think, What a Predicament, that was one you brought in, and maybe something like Troll Base is one that Les comes in with. Can you talk about how the writing actually begins?

Jamming with Les Claypool

8:23Will you each tend to bring in a fairly developed idea, or is it more like just sort of raw material that gets worked on? I'd say it's both, you know. I mean, in the case of What a Predicament and Meat Machines, I kind of had them mostly fleshed out, where I adapted them to fit into the story. Story, Troll Bait, for sure, was a Les song. But then other songs like Melody of Entropy or the Golden Egg song that Willow sings, they were kind of just like half and half.

8:54With Melody of Entropy, I just was showing Les how this pedal worked, actually. This very strange pedal on the beginning of the song that sounds like a kind of warbly tremolo. It's called the Tremopolis, and it's this very rare, strange guitar pedal that actually you can't find anymore. Because the person who made them was this madman who kind of disappeared. And I was just trying to show him how it worked. And that just turned into us jamming. Like the first thing I ever played on that pedal for him was that guitar track, and he just played along on the bass. And then we turned that into a song because we liked it.

9:26But that was something we just kind of jammed together in real time. And then I kind of finished off the lyrics. For Golden Egg, I actually had this kind of chorus, chords, and melody. But Les came up with this insane bass line, right, which was super funky. And so he kind of took that song and wrote the lyrics for that song. And that was actually kind of out of character for us. Because normally, the songs that I write, the music, I'll write the lyrics and vice versa.

9:57There are some we do it different ways, you know. But for the most part, I'll bring in an idea, and I'll finish the lyrics of my idea, and I'll sing it usually. And Les will do that for his songs. I was going to mention that Golden Egg bass line. Actually, it's filthy. Yeah. In the best way. Well, I've never played with anyone like him. For instance, that song, you know, I just kind of had a simple chord change. It wasn't really a song. We had no lyrics. It was just a little melody in the chorus. And I just remember saying to him, like, hey, why don't you start it off with some, like, crazy funk bass line?

10:32He was like, all right. And he just went, and I was like, that's it. And I didn't even know we were going to use it. Because we have a lot of jams that we don't use, you know. So that was just us messing around. And as soon as he played that, I was like, now that sounds like a real song. He has such a unique style, and he plays with such confidence.

11:12Everything he does is first take as well. Like, I've sort of begged him to, like, redo certain songs with me. And sometimes he will. Maybe three or four times he's allowed me to re-record a song with him.

11:45But for the most part, he just wants to do the first take. And honestly, I think it's because he plays so well. So for him, he's not used to having to redo anything. He doesn't even really know what I mean. I'm like, why don't we fix it? He's like, what do you mean? Like, he looks confused, you know. Because when he records, it's just one take. But for me, I like to redo things, you know, until they feel right. So I'm kind of more, I'm more of a studio musician.

Studio perfectionism versus first takes

12:09Like, I don't think I play well enough to do everything first take, you know. Yeah, I did read that somewhere, that you would like to maybe labor over things a little bit more, particularly lyrics. So does his fluidity spare you on to maybe work in a slightly different way? To be honest, my first record, which was called Into the Sun, it was many moons ago, I was more like that. I just improvised everything. And I didn't spend any time on the lyrics. And I just did everything one take on the vocal.

12:40And it was very spontaneous. And I think I kind of learned that from my mother. And ever since then, I've regretted that. So I think it's more me sort of realizing that I didn't really like the result of that. It was like I didn't work hard enough on it. Every lyric that I just kind of wrote quickly and didn't think about because it rhymed and it was good enough. For the rest of my life, whenever I hear those songs, I just, oh, God, it just bothers me. So I think having that experience made me want to work harder on things before I put them out.

13:12Whereas Les, I think, has the opposite experience. You know, the first song he wrote was Too Many Puppies. And he wrote it in like two seconds, recorded it on his four track. And like, it's still the song people beg him to play at his shows. Meaning it's not something that he's like, I wish I hadn't done it that way, you know. So I think that's where we get the different mindsets. You know, I think I was too spontaneous for the beginning of my career. And I have a lot of regrets because of it. Because I don't really like listening to the stuff I did in those days.

13:42And from the lyric sheet we saw for the album, it looked like Les's contributions are all in caps and yours aren't. I'm not sure if that was deliberate, but it certainly felt like two identities coming together. You get to a certain age, I think all caps is just easier. I'm approaching that age, I'll be honest. I really tried to resist making the font bigger on my phone. For so long, I had it on the smallest font. And I love that because I could see a whole article just in one page. But I finally had to click it up a notch because I just can barely read anymore.

14:15I will say in my case, I'm 50. I do think my eyes are a bit more dim now than they were before. And they were never fucking great, let's be honest. I feel your pain. Yes, good. I feel seen or not seen, actually. I feel unseen.

Writing characters and plot lines

14:32So when you're working on a sort of a narrative piece like this, does the story drive the way that you write the songs? Or do the songs that you're writing kind of give you the story? It's a bit of all of the above. Because, you know, for example, I had this song Meat Machines, which was not exactly the way it wound up being. But there was this kind of concept at the heart of it, which was a sort of cynical reaction to this short story that I read, where basically it just says that humans are simply biological machines.

15:06And I really didn't like that. I didn't like that concept. And a lot of people think that way. And so I had this song, but it was a bit less fun. It was kind of like a moodier piece. To me, it was like the perfect song for this story. So I did sort of transpose that song into the album, whereas other songs were just written purely for the story. For example, Wake Up Call was a song that Les basically wrote that was really to set the opening scene

15:38where the father, Hippert Sr., is fighting with his son, Hippert Jr., because Hippert Jr. wants to be a painter, and he doesn't want to inherit the paperclip empire. And his dad is really pissed at him because he's like, you don't appreciate what you have, and you want to just spend your time painting stupid pictures when I've built the paperclip empire and you should be more grateful and want to work at the paperclip factory. And his mom was sort of protecting him. Let him be a painter if he wants. And anyway, we knew we wanted to open with that scene,

16:11and so we had to write a song for that. So it depends, essentially. It was a bit of a collage of things that worked and then things that were bespoke, as it were. Yeah, right. And do you find it easier to write when maybe you're passionate about a topic or maybe frustrated or angry about it? Yeah, I think so, actually. I never really thought of it that way. And I feel like when you're really depressed or really sad or really upset or angry, music tends to come out or songs tend to come out.

16:43But also when I'm really feeling good, I feel like music comes out too. Actually, if I'm in a real depression, like something that's quite dark, that's sort of preventing me from bathing or leaving the house kind of depression, I think, actually, that is an unproductive kind of depression. I think it can get to a point where you just don't want to do anything and it isn't inspiring. But for the most part, I do think strong emotions tend to make you feel a song coming.

17:15So yes, to most emotions, I guess I would say. I think the worst is just feeling listless.

Empathy for artificial intelligence

17:22There's quite a lot of shading in there emotionally, though, I thought, like Melody of Entropy, the idea that maybe machines, when they're conscious, deserve some kind of consolation. Yeah. I thought that was really a nice idea. Is that something you had to sort of look for so it wasn't so black and white? Yeah. There's something strange about that song because it was a song that I just made up to show less this pedal. I don't even think he realizes that that's what I was doing because I was like, hey, man, check this out. And I started playing.

17:53And he just played the bass along and it sounded great. I laid the drums down. And then we had this kind of instrumental thing that essentially we just jammed. It was one of the songs that had no lyrics. So I just said, well, let me just go to my hotel room and see if I can write something for it. And I really felt like emotional about it. And I don't know why, because it wasn't like one of those songs that I was thinking about a breakup or something and wrote a song with that in mind. It was a song that I was like thinking about

18:24pretty big topics. I mean, I don't want to sound pretentious, but I was thinking about, you know, what is life? And like, what's the point of everything if we all just are going to disappear? You know, that's why I was talking about entropy. You know, entropy means that everything just dissipates. And I was thinking about how, you know, if everything in the universe is entropic, then what is life? And I was like, well, life is sort of like the music that entropy makes on the way to nothingness, you know? And so then I just wrote this song in my head.

18:56I was singing to the robot when it had awakened, you know? So I guess in my mind, it wasn't like I was having empathy for the robot but it was that the robot had become human, meaning it had feelings now in the story. In a way, it was almost like a father to a son saying like, this is what life is like, you know? It's going to be painful. But the pain is sort of part of the beauty and like you can't separate that. And everything dies, not just you, but the whole universe is going to end.

19:27And you can't be sad about that either because it's beautiful, you know? Something like that. And I actually felt very emotional when I sang the song and I remember Les, I swear, when I finished the vocal, he was like, God damn, Shiner, you're going to make me cry or something because it was like weirdly emotional. So I don't know where the emotion came from that song, but a lot of people say it to me, like I kind of got choked up in that one. I'm like, yeah, I know. It's like, it's weird. I don't know. I was just trying to wrap up the whole thing because I wanted a song about the robots

19:59when they finally awaken into personhood. It still kind of gets to me. It's a sweet song. Time may fly Time may crawl But time will crouch We love some of the word play on the record as well.

20:49You know, you've got the word manatee that feels like humanity. You've got Paradox. It sounds like Paradox.

Character names and linguistic wordplay

20:55Yeah. How much of that linguistic construction is yours and how much comes from Les? Well, Paradox was Les. We were sitting around working on the script. It wasn't about a song yet. And we had the outline of the paperclip robot out of control. And I think we had the idea of the dad would be this kind of tech mogul character. One of the billionaire class type people. And we had the son. And I think Les wanted to make the son

21:26kind of want to be an artist and not be understood by the dad. And I was like, okay, well, that's your life because I don't relate to that. Like, my mom was just kind of the opposite. She assumed I was going to be an artist and she would have been like mad at me if I'd been a banker or something. So that was taken from his life. And then we were just like, well, we want different characters to populate this world. Like, can we just come up with some ideas? Especially because Les is a very good cartoonist. And I draw quite a bit myself. So we were just kind of sitting around thinking about who could populate this universe.

21:58And he goes, how about a parrot ox? A parrot ox. He's like, half parrot, half ox. I was like, dude, that's fucking hilarious. And he's like, and I keep thinking about this golden egg. An egg, like a magical egg. And I remember he wasn't even sure. Like, he was just riffing. And I said, listen, man, if I went into a record store and I saw some weird garage band or some weird psych band and it said the great parrot ox and the golden egg of empathy, I would fucking buy the record. I wouldn't care what the music was.

22:28Like, I would just want to own that album. And he's like, really, Shiner? And I'm like, yeah, man. We have to call the record that. He's like, are you sure? It's kind of crazy. I'm like, dude, we're definitely. So I was gung-ho on calling it that. But he came up with that concept. And I just thought it was great. He just wanted it to be like some character on the side of the road. I was like, no, dude, that's the main event. So that one was less. I mean, you know, the whole AI think, therefore AI am song, which is called Heart of Chrome, which is basically the main robot is kind of wondering

23:00if there's any point in living if he doesn't have feelings. That was me. And I think that's a pretty funny one. I mean, you know, the thing that's greatest about the delirium is like everything is kind of a little bit of a joke, even when it's serious. So that allows me to just do stuff that I probably wouldn't normally do. Because obviously saying AI think, therefore AI am is ridiculously silly. But I just think it's really funny. And I really imagine him singing, you know, the robot singing this song and kind of coming to terms

23:31with what it's like to be able to think but not to feel. So I do kind of take it seriously. Like I think of it as an actual soliloquy, like in a musical or something. But it's also goofy as hell. So we both do wordplay a lot, I think. But I think Les's wordplay is particularly his style. You can probably guess which ones are his. We love that he calls you Shiner, by the way. I think you refer to him as the Colonel. Yeah, Shine Lemons. Well, it's funny because it really is kind of what people call me now.

24:05And I never minded because I was never a big fan of Sean. Honestly, I always thought Sean was a bit of like a kind of wimpy sounding name. Even when I was a kid, I just never quite liked it. But my mom always said, Sean is Irish for John. So your dad named you after him. And I was like, oh, that's cool, you know. So I didn't want to change it. But when Les started calling me Shiner, I didn't mind because it's like, it gives me a kind of a hipper name. So if you come to the Delirium tour, everyone calls me Shiner. Like nobody calls me Sean.

24:36Like the crew, the band, the fans. And it's cute. It's sweet. But Les is one of those people. He's like George Bush Jr., you know, famously nicknames everybody. It's like an alpha move, you know. It's like naming people, sort of like a power move, I think. But, you know, it's cool because he's pretty funny. And he has good nicknames for everybody. And everyone does call him the colonel. Like he finds it weird if I call him Les. He just gets uncomfortable. And it's cool. By taking on those character names, you kind of become part of that fictional world in a way, I think.

25:10Yeah. And I do think about like the way I am in the Delirium is a little different from the real me. It's like a little goofier or something. It's a little more whimsical, the Shine Lemons versus Sean Lennon. Yeah. The wordplay's great. It just works so well. Like that line from It's a Rap, when the media cowers under meteor showers. Yeah. Is that something you would deliberate over? Or is that just off the cuff kind of stuff? Honestly, that song is so saccharine sounding.

25:41But I also kind of felt the lyrics a little bit, you know. I kind of felt that they had some meaning to them. Like just the idea of the end of the world, you know. And I have a little bit of healthy contempt for mainstream news media at this point. I just feel like it's gotten a bit out of hand in terms of the lack of journalistic integrity. So I just was thinking about when the end of the world is happening, you know. I could just imagine some news reporter trying to report as like

26:13meteors are just destroying the earth behind them. And they're cowering under like an umbrella or something. I really was thinking about that. Basically, will I regret the things I haven't said and the things that I haven't told you? And I was just thinking about when the world was ending, how I would feel like, you know, I wish I'd shared more with the person that I love. Especially when you lose somebody, I think you understand that. Even though the song sounds kind of like a joke as well. And it is also a joke. I think that's why I enjoy this band because I'm like able to just joke around.

26:47But I also still kind of can put some things that I really feel in the words anyway.

26:56Was it all a waste of time? Should we call it a lie?

27:17Should we close it all down?

Collaborating with Willow and Gabby Lala

27:22Another key moment in the album's story is the Willow feature on Golden Egg. Yeah. Did you write that track with her in mind? No. That was the one that I was saying where I had the chorus kind of, which has the pedaling chord thing. And I was just showing Les that idea. And I was like, hey man, why don't you play like a funky bass line to open it up? And he played that and that sort of really became the main part of the song.

27:54And because of the fact that he kind of took over that song with his amazing bass line, he wound up taking that song home and writing the words for it. From the perspective of the paradox, singing to young Hippard that he needs to take the golden egg of empathy to the robots to give them a magical dose of empathy and love. So he wound up writing that, which is an exception to the rule. Usually when he brings in a song musically, he'll finish off the lyrics.

28:26And usually when I bring in a song, I'll finish off the lyrics. But sometimes we switch off, you know? And sometimes we write the music completely together, like with Melody of Entropy. We just jam that together live. You know, we write in different ways. So you just sort of cast Willow as the voice of that afterwards? Yeah, well, we really wanted to have guest singers because we were thinking about Tommy, you know, or like a rock opera or like a musical or something. But then actually it became kind of hard to find the right people.

29:00And at some point we were like, maybe we should just sing it all ourselves. And then maybe we could do a live show where we have characters or something. But then, you know, I asked Willow and she was down and she's a friend. We've done quite a bit of recording together, most of it which hasn't even been released. But I've known her for many years at this point. And yeah, I mean, honestly, she's a big Primus fan as well. So I just thought, you know, she's going to want to do it because she loves less. And she was a big fan of the ghost. My band was Charlotte, my partner.

29:32In fact, that's how we met. Like she used to post ghost songs and stuff on her Instagram. And I was like, hey, what's up? So I think that's kind of how we met. So I told Les, I was like, you know, I know Willow. She would want to do it. And of course she was really psyched. And in the press release, I don't know if they ever put this out, but I actually wanted to like, she thought it was funny. I was like, can I tell everybody that you spent three months living as a parrot in the Amazon to research this part? You know, because she comes from an acting family. So that's sort of the lore is that she had to actually live as a parrot for months just

30:09to prepare for that one scene.

30:12And then we have this other woman who's a sitar player and a good friend of Les. Her name is Gabby Lala. And she's playing the part of Hippard's mom, Hippard Jr.'s mother or Hippard Sr.'s wife. So we needed some characters. So that's who we got. And I think the album was recorded partly at Les's studio and partly at your place in New York. We always record at Les's studio. I just did a couple things after the fact because he gets kind of bored of me wanting to do my vocal tracks and my harmonies.

30:44And I like to double the harmonies and all that stuff. And he's not used to that. Like he just does bass drums, guitar, and then he'll do one vocal and he's done, you know. So I want to stack four harmonies. Each harmony has a double. That's eight tracks. He's just like, what's going on, man? So I did a lot of the vocals at my house just because it's easier to do my vocals and send it to him sometimes. But 99% of the stuff we record is at his place called Rancho Relaxo, like a studio by his house.

31:15He's really into tradition in terms of the recording. He likes doing things in a way that he has developed over the years that he thinks works. You know, he has the same drum kit and the same API console and a lot of the same, you know, stuff that he made his famous records on. It's all set up. So we always work at his place. Yeah. And you seem to divide up the playing as well. We read that on Mantra of the Manatee. You're actually both playing drums on that on different sections. Is that true? You know what it is? I think it's because the chorus of Mantra of the Manatees is kind of this swingy feel

31:50that he likes when I play that. It's kind of... And so I think he likes when I play it because I have kind of... He always says I have a lopey feel on the drum. So I think the first part, it's like a straight beat.

32:09That's him playing. And then when the bing-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding comes in, the kind of more retro thing, he wanted me to play that. So yeah, it's a rare thing, though, that we switch off in one song on drums. But on that one, we did, for whatever reason. But for the most part, it's just the two of us. Nobody else plays on this album but Les and I, except for a couple songs Gabby is playing sitar. And then, of course, singing in Willow Sings on Golden Egg. But we played everything else. If happiness were at the lanes that overflowed the emerald lights with all the slight tears

32:43of breath and joy, for the mantra of the manatee is living, let those be to me, avoiding those determined to employ. When the referees of society get your heart descending, the mantra of the manatee can guide you through around the city.

33:15There's some lovely touches synth-wise on meat machines as well. Thank you. Yeah. Well, we finally upgraded to a Moog Model D, which is the classic Mini Moog. All the other records we used, a Sub 37, this record, we only used the Model D for the synths, and it sounds so much better. And I'm thrilled that we have that thing in his studio. And so that's on meat machines, that little kind of Wendy Carlos synth sound is the Model D.

33:46And when you look back at the previous Delirium albums, would you say anything's changed in how you work together since then? Or is there a kind of continuity there? There's a real continuity. We have a kind of chemistry. I was saying the other day that I feel like the reason this record took so long is because of the story and the narrative arc. But if we just had to write instrumental songs, for example, we could do six songs a day easily. And we have done. We have probably 50 recorded songs that just never went anywhere.

34:18But we make up music very quickly. Between he and I, there's like enough musical shit going on that we can sort of throw out ideas really fast. So we have this chemistry, and I think it feels pretty easy. The only thing that was different this time was that I've been really busier than I used to be, because I have all this other stuff to do, you know, with the family business stuff. So that actually made it more infrequent, you know, the times that I could actually go and work with him at his place, and then also I had less time when I did go.

34:52So that's what sort of prolonged it. And yeah, I think it would have happened faster otherwise. And he was very busy too, because he had to find a new drummer for Primus. That whole thing was unfolding, and that was very distracting. So yeah, but generally speaking, I would say we have a natural chemistry. We're kind of like the odd couple, you know. We have very different styles of approaching music, but we really enjoy playing together. So I remember on the first record, he was like, Shiner, just sit down on drums, like I have a bass idea.

35:23And I remember just thinking like, does he know I'm shit at drums? Because all of his drummers are just like, you know, they're like Olympic level athletes of the instrument. You know, I'm still fascinated by it, because whenever he plays with anyone else, like they have to be just very, very top level. But I think that Delirium is sort of fun for him, because I'm not like that. So I was actually very nervous at first, to be honest. The very first few songs we wrote, I was like, fuck, man. Like, I'm not a real drummer.

35:54And I kept saying, should we bring in some session guys? And he's like, nah, man, you sound lopey. I like your lopey style. So yeah, I've actually wound up being mostly the drummer and keyboardist for the Delirium. I think I'm pretty good on keys, but you know, drumming wise, I mean, I'm not like a real drummer, but he likes it. I think for him, the novelty is interesting to not have it be crafty musicianship. It's more about just song ideas, feelings, or vibes, you know, musical vibes.

36:25There's a definite chemistry between the two of you, isn't there? And I guess a lot of the melodic ideas must come out of his very particular style of playing as well, because he's got that quite aggressive style, isn't he? Which kind of pushes melodies to the forefront. Well, his bass lines are very melodic, you know? It's interesting though, because there's like a way that he plays where he approaches a song in a completely unique way on the bass, where he plays something that you would never imagine any other bass player playing.

36:55Like if I have a chord change or something, when he comes in, I'm just like, wow, that's crazy. It's like completely surprising. But actually, then sometimes, he can actually play bass in a completely traditional way. Which most people are surprised, but you know, sometimes he'll just come in and he'll play with his fingers like the normal way. He'll just do these kind of retro 60s things. And I'm very surprised when he does that, but he does do it. You know, like on the chorus of Mantra of the Manatee, he's just playing a kind of straight ahead thing. And so he actually can do like the regular bass guy thing, but he just doesn't normally.

37:31And often, for example, on Meat Machines, that's an example of a song where he came in on the bass on that. I was like, whoa, that is not what I was hearing, but that's fucking cool. It was almost like its own little melody. He was feeling it on the second half of the bar kind of thing, or on the upbeats, in a way that I just, I didn't hear it that way when I wrote it. So yeah, I mean, he has a very unique style and it's melodic. But then surprisingly, he can also do the more traditional stuff if the song really requires

38:04that it's interesting to us because you've always sort of worn your collaborative nature

Navigating collaborative tension and family legacy

38:26on your sleeve. But when it comes to your parents' work, they were quite different in how they approach things, weren't they? Like, I think your mom sort of favors isolation when she's creative and your dad was famously pretty collaborative. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of the way that I talk about my own collaborations is a result of having grown up seeing all the tension in my parents' generation around collaboration and who did what or who gets credit for what. And I think that stuff always seemed stressful.

38:58So I think I grew up just thinking, you know, when I do it, I'm just going to share the writing credit because we were all there, you know. Even if one person really did probably write more or something, I'm fine with sharing credit, you know, whereas I think it's not just my parents, it's that whole generation. You know, it was very businesslike. Miles Davis, for example, taking Little Church from Ayrta Morera on Live Evil. He just walked in and Ayrta was whistling a song and Miles just said, like, that's my

39:29shit. And that was it. And it was written by Miles Davis for, I think, 30 years until there was some court case and he had to admit that he didn't write the song. Now it's credited to Ayrta and Miles. That whole generation, it was something that there was a lot of trauma around, actually, I would say. And there were a lot of friendships that were tested by it. And I think I just really want to avoid that kind of energy in my life, personally. And also, I think it's really helpful that my music never went platinum because I think

40:01as soon as you have a record that goes platinum, probably that's when the credit seems to matter more. I've never had that problem. That's interesting too, isn't it? Because I know you came to music in a very pure way, didn't you? Just as a kind of way to stay connected to your dad. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I always say that because it's true. I mean, in a way, I kind of feel like I came to music from the wrong direction because of that. There's something sweet about that. But I definitely didn't play music because I had talent or something, which I think is

40:35a much better way to come to it. I mean, the truth is, is that I only played because my dad was a musician and he was gone and I just, it was sort of like my way of figuring him out or something. And so I think I wound up kind of not really developing my skills in the right way. I didn't really nurture myself musically in the right way. And I wasn't really interested in getting better at music. I was just sort of interested in like learning his songs and playing guitar, like trying to

41:05understand what the Beatles chord changes were like and stuff. I guess what I'm saying is because a lot of my friends who wound up being successful in music, they were doing it for the joy and the love of music and they weren't doing it to like fill some weird hole in their life. So I do think it was healthier in their cases, I'll say. Yeah. And I think quite naturally, it was your mom that ended up teaching you the most about music in sort of a practical sense, wasn't it? By sort of including you on her projects and essentially kind of teaching you studio craft.

41:38For sure. It's because my dad wasn't around after I was five. I mean, I do remember them making Double Fantasy though. But most of the records I saw getting made were my mom's records. And so I spent a lot of the time in the studio with her and she is the one who taught me how to use a compressor and what delay was and what tape slap was. And she even showed me how like my dad used to fix his voice on the Pubu-san or his producer engineer would, you know, they had like early pitch correction and stuff.

42:09And it's funny, everyone gets all very judgy about using pitch correction today, but they don't realize that they really did have that already in the late seventies. It wasn't perfect, but they were already fixing flat notes very early on. And I guess she taught me about songwriting because she wrote so many songs when I was growing up. And I do think that part of the reason my first album was so spontaneous and unpolished and unthought through was because that's how my mom likes to work.

42:42She always used to say it just came out of me that way. It just comes out like that. There was just a vision, you know, the whole song or the whole album or the whole art piece, you know, she really believes in sort of inspiration from above. And so I kind of thought that was the only way to do it. I never got to see my dad, you know, belaboring the string parts on mind games or something. And I don't think he was very belabored ever, actually. I mean, I know he did Strawberry Fields again, but generally speaking, I think he was more of a one or two take kind of guy, according to the Beatles historians.

43:16But I think I did try to play music and write songs imitating my mother at first, which was just to go in the studio with no idea and write a song that day and finish it and it's done. And every song on Into the Sun, my first album is like that, except for like one or two, I worked on like two days or something, but most of the songs I walked in to the studio, I would start playing something and then I'd record it and then mix it that day. And that was it. You know, maybe I would try one more mix in the end, but I was very obsessed with them

43:51spontaneity. If it ever gets too rough, don't give up, just be tough. If you ever think you must join with them or get with us, just be careful before you give your job. I have to say, we're big fans of that album.

44:23We think there's some lovely stuff on it. Thank you. But I think if I could record any of my old songs today, they would sound much better. Let's put it that way. I don't know. I was so shy and I didn't want to sound like my dad. So I was trying to kind of do something else. And I think trying to not sing like my dad was really dumb because my voice, if I do sing with my full air, you know, really sing, it starts to sound very much like him. It's not exactly like him, but it's got some of that tone.

44:55And I used to really try to hide that. And I think that fucked me up. It made me sing two whole solo records where I sing very whiny. And it's because I'm kind of holding back, kind of whispering, and I hate the sound of it. So now I just don't give a shit anymore. And I just try to sound as best as I can sound. And that often sounds a bit more like my dad. Yeah. I guess those genetics are inescapable, aren't they, to some extent? I think so. I mean, I do sound a bit like my mom too, which is probably why not everyone loves my voice.

45:28I love my mom's voice. I'm not even kidding. I do have a bit of her thing, but it's not as universally appealing.

Broad musical influences and eclectic tastes

45:36And you've talked about Jazz Fusion being an influence too, like Mahavishnu Orchestra and that sort of thing. Does that feed into what you're doing these days as well? Because obviously there's a certain intensity, isn't it, the delirium stuff that feels a bit like that? Yeah. I feel like inspiration is like a big well, you know, that you have to fill with water and that's how you get fuel for creativity. So for me, it's like, I listen to so much music. I love so much music. And certainly Mahavishnu Orchestra and King Crimson, like that period of kind of 70s British

46:11Prague music. Well, I guess Mahavishnu was considered fusion, but it's all the same kind of gang of people, really. As a young New York fan over here, it feels like they were in the same universe anyway. But I love so much music. I mean, this sounds so cheesy. In fact, a lot of people criticize me. I did like my Desert Island LPs or something and they were really weird. You know, they were like Live Evil by Miles Davis. And I remember seeing people's comments like, oh, what a pretentious asshole. Like, fuck him. And I'm kind of like, I'm sorry, but I really do have fucking weird taste, you know, in terms

46:45of the broadness of it. I really do love classical music probably more than rock and roll. To be honest, if I had to have one song or one album to die to, it would probably be Moonlight Sonata or something or something by Bach or Beethoven or even Wagner. Some of his stuff is so beautiful. But that music is, you know, it's the highest level. But I also love indigenous music. I love Indian classical music.

47:17I'm a huge hip hop fan because I grew up in New York in the 80s. It was like the golden era, the 80s and the 90s of hip hop. I even heard my dad say this in an interview the other day that, you know, people make fun of disco and that he thinks it's fucking cool or great or something. And I was like, yeah, that's how I feel. You know, it's like people who got mad at disco in the 70s, they were just fucking squares, actually. I've never been one of those people that is loyal to genres. And to me, pretty much every genre has some incredibly sublime music.

47:49Like, electronic music, EDM, all sorts of stuff. I really do find music inspiring. And in terms of influences, it's just like I try to listen to as many things as possible and read as much as possible and watch as many films as possible. And so I think if you really consume a lot of art, you're always going to be inspired. I know a lot of musicians who try to pretend like, oh, I'm not influenced by anybody. I just, I only am influenced by my own work, you know? I know people like that. And I just think it's bullshit.

48:20I really do. I think even the most innovative musicians of all time, whether it's John Lennon or Beethoven, they completely felt indebted to people that went before them. I mean, Beethoven even put quotes of Mozart symphonies into his songs just to sort of say, like, love you, man. And then the Beatles famously did start covering a lot of American rock and roll and R&B stuff. So I'm all for being a devotee of other people's music.

48:51And I think it's at least as important as making music. It's just appreciating other people's music. Absolutely. Well, Sean, our time's up. But thanks so much for coming on to talk to us. And we promised you we're in our second choice. And I'm kidding about that. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks, guys. Bye. Bye.

49:38That was Sean Ono Lennon, a.k.a. Shine Lemons, talking to us about the new Claypool Lennon Delirium record, The Great Paradox, and The Golden Egg of Empathy. What fun that was, Bri. Oh, yeah. Never mind vocal timbre of that dry wit.

50:10Obviously runs in the family too, doesn't it? Definitely. It occurred to me afterwards, actually, that John had a bit of a knack for odd time signatures, didn't he? And changing time signature within the same song. Maybe it was written in the stars that Sean would eventually make a prog album. Well, I did enjoy hearing about the inner workings of that partnership with Les Claypool. Yeah. There's a lot in there to unpack, isn't there, about how songs and records are built? Yeah. Whether it's the way in which they introduce ideas, the particular style and feel of the playing, the conversations about interesting developments in the world.

50:44Or just a clever wordplay and characters and stuff. Exactly, yeah. Sean described them as an odd couple, didn't he? But I guess they don't allow their differences, like Sean's love for vocal tracking, to hinder their progress. Yeah, they just take care of that stuff outside the main work time, it seems. Yeah. They're amazing to seize upon an idea or a sound, aren't they? Even if it's just demonstrating the guitar pedal. That can be the impetus for a new song idea. Yeah, they're obviously both spurred on by each other and seem to have found just a brilliant

51:15chemistry. Sean was very frank about his early solo material, too, wasn't he? He was. I thought he was a bit harsh on that first album. I think there's some great things on there, you know, like that song Q and Home. Yeah, I agree. But from there, he's clearly come up with a new way of working collaboratively, hasn't he? Which speaks to his strengths. Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, most of his projects since those days have been collaborative. And being collaborative opens up those opportunities, doesn't it, for emotional interaction with other people? And you can hear that in the empathy that emerges in this new record, especially on stuff like

51:48Melody of Entropy. Definitely, yeah. And as Billy Bragg said on one of our recent episodes, empathy is the currency of music. Hear, hear. Yeah. And for all of the hijinks on this record, I think at its core, there's a really important message there about maintaining our humanity, isn't there? Yeah. I love the AI angle on the record. It's quite profoundly done. Yeah. I like that he remains open to outside input, though. You only have to listen to that list of things that he's consuming there at the end to know that he's processing music and ideas from all over the world, isn't he?

52:19Yeah, and it's feeding his creativity all the time. So thanks to Sean for the delightful conversation. The Great Parrot Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy is out now. Try asking for that at your local record store. Cheers again to Liv for organising, and we'll be back with you soon. Bye for now.