by Chad Campbell, senior producer
NOTE: This is the blog post I originally wrote in December 2009 for Bob’s full hour interview with Sean.
When I opened a package last winter to find Sean Lennon’s soundtrack for an unreleased, independent, small-budget Shakespearean vampire comedy called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead, I was doubtful. It even featured this very “artsy” cover photo. I listened to the music and thought it would be good for future use as background music on our show. Then I started thinking, he is the only child of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, so maybe it would be worth an interview. Again I feared the worst, imagining a quiet, pretentious artist mumbling about little else besides his own navel. But Sean Lennon is not what most people expect. Bob enjoyed a wide-ranging discussion with Lennon about the record label he runs out of his kitchen (Chimera Music), writing, composing and recording the score for his friend’s aforementioned movie, producing his mom Yoko Ono’s latest CD (Between My Head and the Sky), her art (like the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland), the vivid memories of his dad, even though John Lennon was murdered when Sean was just five years old, the fact that he can’t really help LOOKING like his famous father, forming a band called The Ghost of a Saber Toothed Tiger with his model girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl (click here for some photos of the very stylish couple), on commonly being mistaken for his half brother Julian, on seeing posters of his naked parents hanging in friends’ apartments. Sean and girlfriend Charlotte recreated another iconic photo of John and Yoko. Click here to see and read a bit about that.
Click here to see a trailer of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead.
The movie is in limited release now and will be available on DVD September 21.
That interview was one of the most amazing things I have heard in a long time. What an incredible young man! I was drivin’ and cryin’ all the way home. What struck me was his utmost respect for his mother and her talents and her craft. She clearly has done a fabulous job of raising a son in the midst of her own heartache. Thank you so much for giving us insight into such a wonderful, caring human being and the mother who showed him the way. My opinions of both of them have been forever changed.
NOTE FROM THE PRODUCER: when i heard sean say he remembered what his father told him at bedtime, i immediately thought of that song and every time i heard it as i put the piece together it made me tear up too. glad to know the emotion came across.
-chad
The segway from Sean Ono Lennon talking about what he remembered about his father and the Lennon song Beautiful Boy was flawless, emotional and provocative. And it made me cry. Just beautiful! Thank you.