Elvira Spektor, A&E Editor got the exclusive interview with The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger members, Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl.
Elvira Spektor (ES): Tell me about how you two met and decided to make music together.
Sean Lennon: We met in 2005 through Coachella [Music Festival]. I thought she was too young for me so we became friends first. Then we started falling in love… but it was a slow courtship. The music is nice for our relationship. It was just refreshing at first…now it’s a form of expression.
ES: The “Los Angeles Times” said that your record draws from “classic, vintage folk and psychedelia.” How would you describe your sound?
Sean: We write music that we like. I’d say we’re a fusion of jazz and psychedelic rock. We’re influenced by Celtic music.
ES: Charlotte, how would you describe your fashion taste?
Sean (jokingly): She looks like the Swamp Thing.
Charlotte: I like Mormon fashion. I’m really into the Victorian look. I like the trends of the 1800s. We really like Icelandic fashion.
ES: Any advice for students who like to express themselves by trying to dress “differently?”
Charlotte: Be different. Don’t be a sucker for brand names. Don’t be a billboard.
ES: Sean, how do you feel that being the son of such international icons [John Lennon and Yoko Ono] has influenced your professional career in music?
Sean: We try not to use that too much.
Charlotte: Maybe we should. We get some inspiration from the world of the 60s. We don’t really fit in at all.
Sean: I’ve been a musician since I was seven. It comes naturally. A therapist would probably tell me I was trying to become closer to my dad…closer to the family business.
ES: If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?
Sean: Stephen Colbert.
Charlotte: Tesla.
Sean: Yeah, Tesla.
ES:What message do you have for talented campus musicians who want a career in the music industry but don’t know how to get past that “basement band” state?
Charlotte: We don’t know the secret. We haven’t really broken through either… It’s like the whole industry collapsed. It’s the Wild Wild West for music right now.
Sean: I’d say don’t play music to become famous. Do it for the love of the craft. Don’t move to LA or New York. Stay in your own local scene…
Charlotte: …And think originally. Try to do live shows.