Lenny Kravitz: Straight Cold Player

Kravitz gets down and gets nasty on 'Blue Electric Light'

E. E. Bradman / Jun 2, 2024

Lenny Kravitz: Straight Cold Player

Kravitz gets down and gets nasty on 'Blue Electric Light'

E. E. Bradman / Jun 2, 2024

Photo by David Hindley

Dig, if you will, a flashback: As the over-the-top, heavily synthesized 1980s come to a close, a dreadlocked flower child straight out of the ’60s steps onto the music scene. Like Prince, he grooves and solos with equal intensity on nearly every instrument, a throwback to warmer, pre-MIDI times. He excels at balls-out rockers, tender ballads, and everything in-between, and on songs like “Let Love Rule” “Fear,” and “My Precious Love,” his bass playing is loud and proud, the perfect melodic counterpoint to his instantly vintage guitar parts and sincere message of love and peace.

Thirty-five years later, Lenny Kravitz is still a bold dreamer and one-man rhythm section. Although he’s best known as a Grammy-winning, chart-topping singer, performer, and guitarist, Kravitz’s bass lines on songs like “Always on the Run” (Mama Said), “Thin Ice” (Circus), “Live” and “Fly Away” (5), “Stillness of Heart” (Lenny), “Sistamamalover” (Baptism), “Dancin’ Til Dawn” (It Is Time for a Love Revolution), “Black and White America” (Black and White America), “Sex” (Strut), and “Low” (Raise Vibration) prove that he’s dead serious about sophisticated rumble. Henry Hirsch, LeBron Scott, Tony Breit, and Jack Daley made early contributions in the studio, but Kravitz has played nearly all the bass on his albums since 1995, and he hasn’t brought in another bass player since 2011. The bassists who’ve joined him on the road, a select group that includes Daley, Fernando Rosa, Adi Oasis, and Gail Anne Dorsey, have made it a priority to reprise his signature 4-string style.

On Kravitz’s twelfth album, Blue Electric Light, his 4-string and synth bass lines are perhaps more confident than ever. Inspired by the early ’80s, when he briefly adopted the name Romeo Blue, Blue is a peek into his studio mind before 1989’s Let Love Rule introduced him to the world. The album opens with a thick, plucked part on “It’s Just Another Fine Day,” and its other low-end flavors include big, fat synth bass (“TK421,” “Human,” “Let It Ride,” “Spirit in My Heart”), nods to Prince (“Stuck in the Middle,” “Heaven,” “Blue Electric Light”), sunny bounce (“Honey”), key bass and plucks (“Bundle of Joy”), slick guitar/bass doubling (“Paralyzed”), and upbeat ’70s stadium rock (“Love Is My Religion”). Blue Electric Light, a thrilling, full-color ride that’s exquisitely paced, hints at what will surely be a knockout concert experience, and as Kravitz said before we began our interview, “The bass is essential.”

When did you get started?

I started with piano as a kid, then guitar, then drums, and then I went out and bought a bass in junior high. I never had any formal lessons. My lessons were records.

What bass players were you playing along with?

Verdine White, who has given me so much life. Bootsy. Paul McCartney. John Paul Jones. Larry Graham. I could go on and on. Great bass players come from all genres.

There are some moments on this album that reminded me of Rustee Allen, the great bass player on Sly’s Fresh album.

Fresh is a beautiful, beautiful record. When I was coming up, I not only wanted to be proficient at playing with my fingers, but also in popping.

You like to dig in, huh?

I play very percussively, very hard. If I need to play softly, I can, but I’m beating that bass like a percussionist.

How would you compare, say, Larry Graham and Louis Johnson-style popping?

Louis might be perceived as having a cleaner approach, not that Larry isn’t clean, but Louis came along later. If you listen to Louis on the Brothers Johnson records like “Strawberry Letter #23,” which is such a beautiful part, or on a Quincy Jones production like George Benson’s “Give Me the Night,” he’s just so clean and precise. When I think of Larry’s playing on the slower version of “Thank You for Letting Me Be Myself”—I mean, just gutbucket funky. They’re both essential parts of my vocabulary.

I can tell that you love James Jamerson, but it seems like you’ve chosen not to play the busy parts he was known for. Is that accurate?

It depends. I do like to move around a bit, but normally, I like to break it down and try to get it to its simplest form. I learned that from bass players like Aston “Family Man” Barrett with the Wailers and Bootsy with James Brown. Funk is where you don’t play. Funk is in the space. What’s the least amount I can play and move the thing the way it needs to move? You speak the language however you need to speak to get that expression over, you know?

Indeed. I also loved hearing your synth bass parts on this album.

Blue Electric Light is the record I didn’t make in high school. I was making music then, but I never put anything out; I was finding my way. Let Love Rule, which came out in 1989, was my true beginning, but a lot of the things you’re hearing on Blue Electric Light are the vibe I was doing back in 1980, ’81, ’82, ’83. I used digital effects, a Linn drum machine, a DMX drum machine, and real drums, too, as well as a Prophet V, a Minimoog, and an Oberheim. That was the vibe.

Did you also use classic basses on this album?

First of all, vintage basses just sound better, OK? I’ve collected so many instruments over the years, and the vintage ones always sound best.

Before we get into the list, what’s up with that gold Jazz Bass Adi Oasis and Gail Ann Dorsey have played with you?

I had Fender make for me. It’s not bad, right? The wood needs to dry—it needs to age. The pickups need to be played.

And maybe in 30 years, it’ll have the sound that you need, right?

A little sooner than that, I hope [laughter].

You have a great collection. Let’s start with your 1959 Olympic white P-Bass with rosewood fretboard.

It’s beat up and it has an anodized gold pickguard. It was on some Jackson 5 records. It’s one of my main studio axes.

You have a ’63 P-Bass with a natural finish, too, right?

Yes.

And a classic Music Man StingRay.

I have one of the old ones, from the first year they made them.

Are you a Jazz Bass dude or a P-Bass dude?

Primarily Jazz Bass, but I use Precisions a lot in the studio, as well. Every time I cut a track, I pick what I think is going to be the bass, and many times I’m proven wrong. I’m open.

You also a have blue ’64 Jazz.

That’s the bass on the first track, “It’s Another Fine Day in This Universe,” where I’m popping in the verses.

You only used it on the verses?

I used another bass on the chorus and outro. The sound is perfect in the verse, but I get to the chorus and it’s not quite cutting it.

Do you ever change techniques between verses and choruses?

Sometimes, I play the verse with my thumb and the chorus with a pick. If I’m playing with my fingers and it isn’t quite cutting through, I grab a pick. It still retains the bass, but it has a sharper, more percussive tone. That happens every now and again.

When you play that song live, will you ask the bass player to switch to a pick during the chorus?

Yes, and it can be quite difficult. The first note is with the pick and the thumb, then back to the index finger, and then the pick is back in by the time you hit the next downbeat. So you’re going back and forth with the pick in your hand the entire time you’re playing it. I’ll do whatever it takes to get the tone right on each string and on each part.

You took time to work it out in the studio.

That’s the beauty of recording. I’m constantly finding the tones that I need to fit within the tracks I’m constructing. It can be whatever it is.

And because you’re your own producer, you’re making all the decisions yourself.

I’m just listening and shaping. The basses, the guitars, the keyboards, the console, the outboard gear, the microphones—everything is an instrument, and I’m just coloring. I’m painting, I’m sculpting, I’m trying to make it come together. A big part of the puzzle is shaping tones and sounds.

Do you mostly go direct?

Sometimes I go direct, and sometimes I go through the Ampeg and mike it. Sometimes I’m splitting the signal. It depends on what’s going to work.

Where do you start?

Normally, I start with the drums—I’ll get the tones that I need, get the part down, and then I have to fit the bass on it. Because I’m doing everything one at a time, I don’t have the luxury of having the rhythm section all playing at once, where you can begin carving out the frequencies so that none of the instruments bump into each other. Sometimes, after I’ve layered things, I’ll go back and do the bass again, because now that I’ve added the Fender Rhodes, the Minimoog, or these two guitars, the bass that was originally poking through is now having a problem. I’ll have to go back, do the bass again, and dial in the frequencies or pick a different bass, one that’s going to cut through.

Something tells me you like flatwounds.

I have flatwounds on pretty much everything, and those strings have been on those basses for years. The older, the better. I love the way they sound when they get old. I got basses with strings that have been on there for 15 years. Every blue moon, I might do something with rounds, but very seldom.

I assume you plug into old-school amps, too.

Yeah. Fender, Ampeg, and Acoustic.

When you’re playing live, how important is it for you to replicate exactly what you did in the studio?

I try my best, but it’s not easy. In the studio, I can use ten different amps on ten different things and a ton of basses, but live, you’re trying to get as close to each tone as you can. It’s not like a band record where John Paul Jones is basically playing the same setup, maybe with a few tweaks, for the whole album. Each song is a completely new construction, so the tones are always changing, but we get pretty close.

Do you ever play bass onstage?

It’s been a while since I got up on the drums or picked up the bass or played keyboards, but this tour, I’m going to play a little bit of everything. –BM