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Sean Lennon Discusses Les Claypool, Yoko Ono, and AI | Public Broadcast
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Welcome to Public Broadcast, the brand new podcast feed from Public Record Online, brought to you by listeners like you and our sponsor, Hello Merch. Formerly known as WASTOIDS, Public Record is your home for art, culture and music—not optimized for the algorithm, but optimized for care, preservation, and archiving.
This week: Sean Lennon. The son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Sean is a lifelong musician himself. In the ‘90s, he was signed to the Beastie Boys adventurous Grand Royal Records, which released his debut, 1998’s Into the Sun. He followed it up in 2006 with Friendly Fire, released on Capitol Records, and he’s played in a dizzying array of bands and projects, including Cibo Matto, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Mystical Weapons, and his mom’s band, the Plastic Ono Band.
He’s also in a group with Les Claypool called The Claypool Lennon Delirium, with Primus bassist Les Claypool. They’re out on the road now, a traveling circus of rock music that features Primus, The Frog Brigade, and the Claypool Lennon Delirium, which means Les is playing three sets a night, and Sean is playing two—as he’s sitting in with the Frog Brigade in addition to his project with Les.
Their new album is called The Great Parrot Ox and the Golden Age of Empathy, a psychedelic pop opus that’s also a concept album about the role of humanity in the age of AI.
Ahead of the tour rolling through Phoenix on June 30th, we caught up with Sean to talk technology, his mother’s art and the squares who still don't get it, and whether or not he has any plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his album Friendly Fire…but first…are we merely meat machines?
Let’s dive in and discuss. You can find a full transcript of this chat at publicrecord.online, where you can also scope our other shows, interviews, news reports, and more.