Aside from being the scion of one of rock’s most legendary couples — John Lennon and Yoko Ono — Sean Lennon has enjoyed the taste of quiet fame and critical acclaim in the last 15 years for his own musical endeavors. But with his new band, Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, he’s been photographed with remarkable frequency. He owes the fact to his bandmate and girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl, since she’s been a model since childhood.
“I haven’t just crossed over into his world of music, he’s crossed over into my world of fashion magazines,” Kemp Muhl observes of Lennon. “Every time I do a shoot now, I try to incorporate my band into it. I try to just do jobs that are promoting our band.”
It’s undeniable that the two make for a good-looking pair — appearing together as the face of a recent Zadig & Voltaire fashion campaign — but their talents are equally harmonious. Kemp Muhl has long been an aspiring poet, which complements Lennon’s musical talents on their first album, the intimate “Acoustic Sessions.”
“We wanted to start with an acoustic record partly because we wanted people to know what the lyrical personality of the band was,” Lennon explains.
After a few tours with this material, they are eager to get into a more flamboyant sound — each references psychedelia as a key influence. As a matter of fact, they seem to agree on most everything discussed in the interview. But it makes sense, since Lennon tends to collaborate mostly with the important women in his life, like previous girlfriend Yuka Honda and his mother, Ono.
“I tend to think of work and music as a personal thing,” says Lennon. “It’s not something I look at as separate from my personal life. I feel lucky to be able to work that way.”
