Lennon

By Alex Teitz

   There are few debuts that are worth a double take. Lennon is one of them. She is currently touring with Alice Cooper, but has also toured with Buckcherry since the release of her album 5:30 Saturday Morning. The album is, like Lennon, honest without being kind. It is hard and challenging rock that pounds at the listener.
Lennon’s story is unusual for this day and age. She learned piano from her mother, an aspiring songwriter. She attended high school while playing in bands, and being pitched to the industry. When she was getting close to signing, her mother passed away and Lennon took on the added responsibility of caring for her younger sister Mariella. Now she’s entagled in a custody battle. At a time when parenting is not a first choice of teens, Lennon has unflinchingly accepted responsibility.
Lennon is as uncompromising, as her music.

FEMMUSIC: Can you describe your songwriting technique?

L: Basically it’s….me just being bored and sitting at the piano. Then I’ll be screwing around and I’ll come up with a melody idea and then usually spend the next hour or so just writing the lyrics and the music altogether. Sometimes I’ve only had one song where it has taken a long period of time to write cause I spent a couple of weeks on the lyrics because I wanted to make it perfect. But usually it comes around in a day or so or in an hour or so. And everything is written on piano.
Then hopefully I remember the damn chords or anything. I’ve lost so many songs and so many lyrics that way. My theory is if I can’t remember something an hour later than it wasn’t worth writing in the first place.

FEMMUSIC: What was the biggest challenge making 5:30 Saturday Morning?

L: Trying to fix what the first producer fucked up. We made this album three times. We got an A-list producer to make this album and he’s done some of the greatest albums ever made. Dipshit doesn’t want to use a click, and as you can tell me have all programming in our songs. Well you can’t DO that.
So we spent four-five months in the studio that was basically shit. We fired him. We rented a house in Colorado and tried to fix the stuff ourselves. Said, “Forget this!” and let’s redo the entire album. The two guys who originally did the demo that got me signed, my manager and currently my lead guitar player, Scotty Smith, co-produced the album. We spent like a month and half making the album, mixing it, and done. Just trying to fix up everyone else’s screw-ups was the main problem.
We spent like eight months on this album. I recorded vocals on each song almost a dozen times. I got sick of singing after awhile. When we did it the last time, we’d work on instruments in the day and vocals at night. It was like twenty-four hours round the clock. It didn’t turn out too bad I guess.

FEMMUSIC: What was the best experience making 5:30 Saturday Morning?

L: WHEN IT WAS DONE. Clearly that was the best experience. It was interesting. We worked with a lot of different people all three times. In the end it was great because people who never made an album before were making this album. And it was real. It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t manufactured. And it was great to just watch the process and just be a part of it and know that this is something that is actually really happening not just technically made in someone’s mind and we’ve got to imitate that.

FEMMUSIC: How was it working with Jeff Pringle as Producer?

L: Brutal. (pause) He did vocals with me ’cause that was his main thing. ‘Cause he’s the only one who I really do vocals with. Basically the way he does vocals is he yells and screams at me. (laugh) You know, you get over it a little bit. It was interesting because it was twenty-four/seven around the clock. But (pause) he was learning. He almost threw ProTools out the window a couple of times. We had terrible ProTools problems. It would crash at least once a day. It was kind of funny.
He’s a hard worker and he expects that from everybody, and if you don’t deliver up to his expectations he lets you know it. He made things get done. First producer we had a lot of sitting around. We’d go in around twelve o’clock at night and he’d come in around three o’clock in the morning he’d say, “Let’s do something now.” Everyone’s asleep and not wanting to do something. It was very miserable. Jeff was a lot harder to work but a lot more stuff got done. And he’s a perfectionist and so that helps too.

FEMMUSIC: And how has it been on the road with him?

L: While I’ve about hit him with the trailer a couple of times. You can ask me, or any of the guys, we’ll all say the same thing, “We wouldn’t be able to be out here without him.” He’s been sound guy, monitor guy, tech, roadie, tour manager, road manager, production manager, anything you can think of he’s done the job of. He’s even done the agent job at one point before we had an agent. He’s going to kill himself of these days but…he makes everything happen. He helps us so much. We want to kill him half the time but we love him to death.

FEMMUSIC: Who have been your biggest influences?

L: Technically we grew up on Barry Manilow and Frank Sinatra. I love Nine Inch Nails. I love Korn. I love Manson. But I also love Harry Chapin, Tony Kroecke, and Morrisey. It just depends on my mood.

FEMMUSIC: What one thing would you like to change about the music industry?

L: Ah….All of it. It surprised me that music is in everyone’s lives you know. Everyone loves it. It’s there for people when they’re happy. It’s there for people when they’re sad. It’s always there. The industry itself is one of the cruelest and harshest industries in the world. It’s amazing that [something] so disgusting at some points can basically turn out something so great. It’s just all the industry bullshit. No one’s honest. Half the time people don’t know what the other person’s doing. If you’ve heard the album, ” Trying to Make Me” everyone’s always trying to make something that isn’t real. I just wish people would be honest. Just do what’s right….
I’m already bitter and disillusioned by the whole thing. That happened a while ago.

FEMMUSIC: As a woman in the music industry have you been discriminated against?

L: No. I don’t really have that problem. I hear radio like excuses like, “Oh, we don’t play women” but then they play Garbage or No Doubt. I don’t give a shit that I’m a woman. I don’t care. I hang out with the boys and I do my thing and I use my sexuality as much as possible because I know it’s helping to sell a lot of records. (laugh) For me I see the plus side of it. I have something guy’s don’t. If a guy’s ugly and he’s on stage he’s just fucked. I got tits. I can get away with anything. I have not been discriminated against at all.

FEMMUSIC: What advice would you give to an artist just starting out?

L: Quit. Quit now. You see my thing is I hate being in the studio I love being on stage. I feel, half the time we won’t go half a day without doing a show. We will book shows purposely every night. My advice is if you feel like there’s nothing in the world you want to do. You can’t live another day without being on stage, or doing music then go for it. Be careful. Half the time you’re going to hate your life in the end because it is a very cruel industry. Just be prepared. But if you feel like you could do something better, “Go do it!” Do something good for the world. Ugh! That’s my advice. Don’t get in it.