Sean Lennon

is an American–British musician, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist. He is the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and half-brother to Julian Lennon. Over the course of his career, he has been a member of the bands Cibo Matto, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, The Claypool Lennon Delirium and his parents' group Plastic Ono Band. He has released two solo albums: '' Into the Sun'' (1998) and ''Friendly Fire'' (2006). He has produced numerous albums for various artists, including Black Lips and the Plastic Ono Band.

Early life and education

Sean Lennon was born at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, New York City, on October 9, 1975, his father's 35th birthday. He is of Japanese descent on his mother's side and English, Welsh and Irish descent on his father's side. Julian Lennon is his half-brother and Kyoko Chan Cox is his half-sister. Elton John is his godfather. After Sean's birth, John Lennon became a house husband, caring for his young son until his murder on December 8, 1980. Sean attended kindergarten in Tokyo and, at his request, was educated at the exclusive private boarding school Institut Le Rosey in Rolle, Switzerland, and earlier at New York's private Ethical Culture Fieldston School and Dalton School. He attended Columbia University for three semesters, majoring in anthropology before dropping out to focus on his music and tour with his mother.

In October 1984, when Steve Jobs was visiting Manhattan, he attended a party that Ono was throwing for Lennon and Jobs gave him one of the first Macintosh computers as his birthday present. That same year, he sang "It's Alright" on the Ono tribute album ''Every Man Has a Woman'' for his mother.

His parents kick-started his musical career: his debut into the music world came at age five, when he recited a story on his mother's 1981 album, '' Season of Glass''. From childhood into his teen years, Lennon continued to collaborate with his mother, contributing vocals and receiving production credit on her solo albums '' It's Alright'', '' Starpeace'' and ''Onobox''. At 16 Lennon co-wrote the song "All I Ever Wanted" with Lenny Kravitz for his 1991 album '' Mama Said'', and worked with Kravitz on a cover of his father's "Give Peace a Chance" in protest of the Gulf War. By 1995 Lennon had formed the band IMA (with Sam Koppelman and Timo Ellis) to play alongside his mother on her album ''Rising''. Lennon also made appearances in film, featured in the cast of Michael Jackson's 1988 ''Moonwalker'' and portraying a teenager experiencing visions of various M. C. Escher prints in Sony's 1990 promotional short-film ''Infinite Escher''.

Lennon holds dual citizenship with the United States and United Kingdom.

Professional career

Performance

In 1996, Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto were invited by Ono to remix the song "Talking to the Universe" for a ''Rising'' remix EP ''Rising Mixes''. They met Lennon and invited him to join them on tour as a bass player. This eventually led to Lennon's contributing to their side-project Butter 08 and to his becoming a member of the group. He continued to play with them on tour, joining them on television and providing bass guitar and vocals on their EP ''Super Relax''. Through his association with Cibo Matto, Lennon was approached by Adam Yauch (of Beastie Boys), who expressed an interest in his music and persuaded him to sign a record contract with Grand Royal Records. Regarding Grand Royal, Lennon has said:

I think I found the only label on the planet who doesn't care who my parents are and what my name is. It's a good feeling to know that I wouldn't have gotten the offer if they wouldn't have liked my songs. That's pretty rare in the music business!

Lennon's solo debut '' Into the Sun'', was released in 1998. A music video for "Home", a single from the album, was directed by Spike Jonze and enjoyed extended airplay on MTV. The album was produced by fellow Cibo Matto member Yuka Honda, who Lennon claimed was his inspiration for the album, who he had begun dating at the time.

He went on tour (often backed by Cibo Matto) supporting ''Into the Sun''. During this period he appeared on radio programs such as ''The Howard Stern Show'' and KCRW's ''Morning Becomes Eclectic''. He later recalled promoting the album as a bitter experience due to the media focus on his family rather than his own music. In 1999, Lennon's EP '' Half Horse, Half Musician'' was released featuring new tracks such as "Heart & Lung" and "Happiness" as well as remixes of songs from ''Into the Sun''. Along with ''Half Horse Half Musician'', 1999 saw the release of Cibo Matto's second album '' Stereo ★ Type A''. Lennon stepped out of his traditional role as the group's bass player, this time playing a much wider range of instruments (such as drums, guitars, and synthesizers). Despite being well-received, ''Stereo ★ Type A'' was followed by an extended Cibo Matto hiatus.

In 2000, Lennon contributed vocals to Del tha Funkee Homosapien (a single stanza on the Deltron 3030 track "Memory Loss"), Handsome Boy Modeling School and Jurassic 5. In 2001 on national television, Lennon performed several classics by the Beatles, "This Boy", "Across the Universe" and "Julia" alongside Robert Schwartzman, Rufus Wainwright and Moby for '' Come Together: A Night for John Lennon's Words and Music''. In the following years, Lennon faded out of the spotlight to focus more on his role as a producer.

In 2000 Sean had a guest appearance on the Soulfly album Primitive on the song " Son Song"
After the folding of Grand Royal Records in 2001, Lennon signed with Capitol Records, yet afterwards no solo material surfaced until February 2006, when "Dead Meat" was released as the first single from his new album, ''Friendly Fire''. A promotional trailer for the CD/DVD package of ''Friendly Fire'' was leaked online in early 2006. The trailer featured scenes from the film version of the album, a DVD of music videos comprised into a film. The videos were actually screen tests for Coin Locker Babies, another project on which Lennon is working which became a cinematic counterpart to his new album.

''Friendly Fire'' was released in October 2006. The theme of the album is love and betrayal, and it is dedicated to the memory of a close friend who died. The night the album was released, Lennon made his first major television appearance in five years, performing "Dead Meat" live on the ''Late Show with David Letterman''. Lennon has since appeared on ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' and ''The Sharon Osbourne Show''. When questioned about the eight-year gap between solo albums in interviews, Lennon said that he did not feel like a solo artist during those years and that he wanted to experience music anonymously without the spotlight on him and his girlfriend.

Since the release of ''Friendly Fire'', Lennon has toured extensively around the world and while in France, he remixed his song "Parachute" in collaboration with French artist -M-. The remix is titled "L'éclipse" and was featured as a bonus track on the French release of ''Friendly Fire'', while the single "Dead Meat" was featured in an episode of the TV drama ''True Blood''.

With the release of new material and subsequent touring Lennon launched a website featuring music, videos, and a forum for his fans. Various members of the forum have created a fan-made cover album titled ''Truth Mask Replica''.

Muhl and Lennon premiered the band the Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger during a live performance at Radio City on Valentine's Day, 2008. The duo, commonly referred to as the GOASTT, released their debut single, "Jardin Du Luxembourg", on July 6, 2010, and their debut album, ''Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger (Acoustic Sessions)'', on October 26, 2010, both on Chimera, their own label. In conjunction with the debut, they performed six songs during an hour-long interview on WNYC and four songs for a Tiny Desk Concert on NPR. Lennon has also collaborated with Muhl with a group called "Kemp and Eden" who premiered at The Living Room in the spring of 2012. On April 29, 2014, the Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger released their most successful album to date, titled ''Midnight Sun''. The album was selected as one of the Top 50 best albums of 2014 by ''Rolling Stone''. The album's release was followed by tours with the Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, Beck, Florence and the Machine, Dinosaur Jr., and Primus.

At the end of 2018, Lennon collaborated with Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson for a cover of Yoko Ono and John Lennon's original Christmas song "Happy Xmas (War is Over)." The trio additionally performed the song at the Winter finale of ''Saturday Night Live''.

In 2015, playing lead guitar, Lennon formed the Claypool Lennon Delirium with Primus' lead vocalist and bassist Les Claypool. The following year, the new group released their debut album, '' Monolith of Phobos'', which reached the Top 10 of three ''Billboard'' charts, followed by a covers EP titled ''Lime and Limpid Green'' in 2017. Their second album, '' South of Reality'', was released on February 22, 2019.

Production and other contributions

While reestablishing himself as a solo artist, Lennon continued his work as a session musician and producer, lending his talent to the likes of Dopo Yume, Albert Hammond, Jr. (of the Strokes) and model/singer Irina Lăzăreanu. Lennon first appeared on the Soulfly album '' Primitive'', released in 2000, while in October 2007, Lennon joined Mark Ronson in the BBC
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