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- [00:00]
Safeway/Albertsons Announcer
Save on holiday essentials at Safeway and Albertsons this week. Get USDA Choice Beef Bone in roast for $6.97 per pound with digital coupon and minimum purchase of $50 or more in a single transaction, excluding the price of the roast while supplies last. Limit one plus get broccoli, cauliflower, green beans or Brussels sprouts for 97 cents per pound with digital coupon. Limit six pounds and russet, red or yellow potatoes, yellow onions, yams or Sweet potatoes are 99 cents per pound. Member price. Visit safewaylbertsons.com for more deals.
- [00:31]
Electronic Payments Coalition Announcer
D.C. politicians want to enact harmful credit card mandates that could take away your cash back and rewards points, perks that stretch your budget and make life a little easier. Losing these benefits means less money for your family's everyday essentials like gas and groceries. The perks you rely on could disappear, leaving you with higher costs and fewer options. Tell Congress to guard your card and oppose the Durbin Marshall credit card mandates.
- [00:58]
Podcast Narrator
Paid for by Electronic Payments Coalition Foreign.
- [01:04]
Jeff Zito
Merry Christmas everyone. It's Jeff Zito. Thanks for checking out another episode of the Celebrity Jobber podcast and wherever you're listening, whether it's Apple, podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, please subscribe. We also love a five star rating and also please leave a review. You can go back and check out past guests and episodes online@celebrityjobber.com we examine the lives of celebrities before fame and everybody has a different path. And then there are some, like today's guest. You know, sometimes it just so happens to work out where you're born and you're famous. And that wasn't always the case for Sean Lennon, but it kind of was. He appeared on one of his mom's albums at a very, very young age and pretty much by osmosis got into the although he doesn't actually consider this a job. So we are not going to hear an episode of Celebrity Jobber which, you know, kind of talks about Sean Lennon before he was famous because he was always famous. He's the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. That's going to make you famous, you know, right out of the shoot. But we can talk to him a little bit about his early life, stops along the way where he's at today. Some of the things that he's working on, maybe some of the things he has planned for the future. I was actually a big fan of one of Sean Lennon's projects in the 90s called Chibo Matto. They were an Asian American alternative rock band from the mid to late 90s and Sean ended up joining that band and collaborating with them for a few years. But there, there's a connection that I have to Sean Lennon that happened to me at a very, very early age, which I want to share with Sean, which has to do with the day that I found out his father was murdered as a pretty formative memory in my life. So here we go. Merry Christmas once again, everybody. The son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon is my guest this week on Celebrity Jobber, the Celebrity Jobber.
- [03:27]
Podcast Narrator
Podcast with Jeff Zito. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, give a five star rating and leave a review. Check out all our past episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you put what if these celebrities weren't famous? What would they have become? What was their first job? We're about to find out.
- [03:46]
Safeway/Albertsons Announcer
Save on holiday essentials at Safeway and Albertsons this week. Get USDA Choice Beef Bone in Roast for $6.97 per pound with digital coupon and minimum purchase of $50 or more in a single transaction, excluding the price of the roast while supplies last. Limit one plus. Get broccoli, cauliflower, green beans or Brussels sprouts for 97 cents per pound with digital coupon limit six pounds and russet, red or yellow potatoes, yellow onions, yams or Sweet potatoes are 99 cents per pound. Member price. Visit safewayalbertsons.com for more deals.
- [04:17]
Jeff Zito
Sean, how are you man?
- [04:18]
Sean Lennon
I'm good. How you doing?
- [04:19]
Safeway/Albertsons Announcer
Jeff?
- [04:20]
Jeff Zito
I'm doing great. I just, I want to share something with you.
- [04:23]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
I have this connection with you, to you formative memory, if you will. We're the same age and we just passed the 45th anniversary of, of your father's passing. And I remember going to school, you.
- [04:38]
Jeff Zito
Know, it happened at night.
- [04:40]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
So we didn't learn about things back then like we do now on social media. I go to school the next morning and the teacher, Mrs. Begman, gets us all around and tells us what, what has happened. She tells the class that, that John Lennon has passed away and I'm five years old. And she said, you know, he has a little boy that that's your age and imagine what he's feeling right now. So that she's teaching five year old kids empathy. And it's just I remember looking over to this kid, Robbie Wardick, who lived.
- [05:19]
Jeff Zito
With his dad, who started to cry.
- [05:22]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
And it was such a formative memory for me at such a, a young age. So can you tell me a little bit about, you were so young. What, what were your thoughts on that.
- [05:36]
Sean Lennon
Day, it was a nightmare. I remember, you know, I remember a lot, man. It was, it was deeply traumatizing, but it also kind of forged my personality. I think, you know, the irony or the great paradox of, of life is that that which doesn't, you know, kill you really makes you stronger. And, you know, it's such a cliche, but I feel like if you can survive something, it actually gives you kind of strength and insight that you would not have had otherwise. I mean, that's what's so tragic about, about life in general. And I think you, you know, I think you find that with anybody who survived anything difficult if you ask them about it. You know, people who've survived cancer, they always say that they wouldn't, you know, do. Have. Have not gone through that because they felt it taught them something. And so I think, you know, with tragedy comes wisdom, and there's something bittersweet about that, but that's the way it goes, you know.
- [06:45]
Podcast Narrator
Celebrity Jobber the Celebrity Jobber podcast with.
- [06:48]
Jeff Zito
Jeff Sido What I was trying to.
- [06:50]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Get to at 5 years old, I mean, such a young, you know, didn't know much about anything at 5 years old. And I was, I was just wondering at that age if you had vivid memories of that time.
- [07:04]
Sean Lennon
I do, I do. Memories. I mean, I mean, there's actually a phenomenon psychologically that when you are traumatized as a child, you can, it can actually make your memory really good. And I remember, you know, 3, 4 and 5 better than I remember 13, 14. And. Wow. Be honest. You know, at the time, there were thousands of people outside. There were police barricades outside, you know, and there were thousands of people singing Give piece at chants and all these Beatles songs. And my window was right there. I mean, I, I couldn't go to sleep at night because there were so many people camped out in Central park, you know, singing my dad's songs, which, which, you know, there was something nice about it, but it was also a little bit scary, to be honest.
- [07:52]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Right. I could imagine. I can imagine.
- [07:55]
Sean Lennon
Especially since, you know, a member of the public had done that. So it was, it was a growing up time. I, you know, I have to be honest that I think I, I probably aged prematurely at that moment, you know, even though I was still in the body of an infant, I think it kind of. It woke me up in a big way. Yeah. I mean, and I think it's taken the rest of my life to sort of process it, and I don't think I'll ever be done figuring it out, to be honest, no.
- [08:30]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
And at such a young age you got into music and, and I'm a big fan of Chibo Motto. FYI. I don't know if you were on, I think you were, you played the Viva la Woman tour. I remember that was a crazy night for me. That was a Janice Lanning in St. Petersburg, Florida. But I can, you know, other than music. I know that you went to Columbia, I know that you majored in anthropology. Were you, were you thinking about another.
- [09:02]
Jeff Zito
Another life, another occupation?
- [09:04]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Or were you just young going, hey, I'm going to college, that's what we.
- [09:07]
Jeff Zito
Do when we're this age.
- [09:09]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
And what were you, what were your thoughts about life at college, at Columbia, what you were gonna do?
- [09:16]
Sean Lennon
Well, to be honest, I never got a degree in anthropology, it was just something I was interested in. But I left college to go on tour with my mom actually, because she, we had done a record together and I was a big fan of my mother's earlier work, the more experimental stuff like Plastic on Demand. And she'd been making all these pop records my whole life, which I really love, to be honest. But I wanted her to make a record in that old style of the, I guess that kind of punk rock, wilder style. And so I made a record with her while I was in college and I thought it was really good. It's a record called Rising and I still think it's a pretty amazing album. And looking back, you know, it was really cool of her to allow me to do that. It was me and my friend group who recorded the album and I, she essentially let me kind of co produce it, co write it with her. And looking back, I didn't appreciate it at the time, but you know, her bands for albums used to be people like Eric Clapton and ringo and Hugh McCracken and Steve Gad and you know, the greatest players of all time, Tony Levin. And I didn't, it didn't occur to me that how hip it was of her to kind of like let her weird 17 year old kid play with her or 18. I was, I went to college pretty young because I skipped a grade when I was little. But so I left college because of that, because it was like I started having so much fun playing music and I just thought, I don't need college, I'll go on tour. And you know, that's when I met Chibo Motto. That's when I started touring with Chivo Motto and then I met the Beastie Boys and that's how my whole career got started. But to Be honest, you know, young people out there. I would say that I regret leaving college because it just always sort of. It's a little, it's a little L. You know what I mean? It's an L in your life that you never, that never goes away. And I didn't realize it at the time, but you know, waiting another couple years to graduate seemed like forever to me. At the time I thought there's no way I can go through years of college when I could go on tour right now. And you know, looking back, if I just waited a couple years, I would have had a cool degree that I'd be proud of and I would have gone on tour two years later, you know.
- [11:32]
Podcast Narrator
Celebrity Jobber the Celebrity Jobber podcast with.
- [11:36]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Jeff Zito Music was always the plan, huh?
- [11:38]
Jeff Zito
Music.
- [11:39]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
I mean, your first job was in music. You know, you're five years old.
- [11:43]
Sean Lennon
Mother's season of I didn't have a plan, you know, and I think, you know, I, I don't, I don't know how 17 year olds have life plans, but I either, I guess they have really good parents or something because I, I didn't have a really good parenting. But you know, my mom is a loving and wonderful person, but she's not a conventional parent and she never ever talked to me about planning my future. You know, it wasn't something that I thought about. I was living in the moment as it were.
- [12:14]
Electronic Payments Coalition Announcer
Right.
- [12:14]
Sean Lennon
And the, in fact, you know, the example that my parents let left me was that they were always living in the moment and not looking back to the past. You know, they would just kind of move on to the next thing. And so I was very spontaneous and you know, I regret it a little bit, to be honest.
- [12:31]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Any other job other than music in your life? I mean, did you ever work at a pizza place?
- [12:38]
Jeff Zito
Have you ever had a job outside.
- [12:41]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Of show business and music?
- [12:44]
Sean Lennon
Not really. I mean, I don't even get paid for show. Businessman. So yeah, I wouldn't even call me being a musician a job necessarily because you know, I'm not like my brother who has a successful music career. I just do it for the love. For the love of the game, man.
- [13:03]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Well, you're, you're also involved with something that your dad did many years ago. I actually was on YouTube and, and watched this is animated film.
- [13:15]
Jeff Zito
Can you tell us about what your behind the scenes stuff? Really cool.
- [13:20]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Can you tell us a little bit about what you're currently involved with?
- [13:25]
Sean Lennon
You mean the War is Over film that we just put out?
- [13:27]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Yes. War is over.
- [13:28]
Sean Lennon
Yes, sir. You know, I made a short film. Well, I wrote a short film with a director named Dave Mullins, who used to work at Pixar, and he directed this. This animated short that is sort of an extended, I guess, music clip for the song Happy Christmas, War is Over. But the difference is between, like a regular video and this song is that this. This film is its own standalone narrative, and we worked really hard on it, but it won an Academy Award for best short, Animated short, and now it's available for the public to see. And I, you know, I'm really proud of it. We worked really hard on it and I. It would really mean a lot to me if people could actually go check it out. It's only 11 minutes long. It's on YouTube. It's on the John Lenvan Channel. If you just search wars over film, it should come up and it's free. But if you want to also donate to Warchild, which is a charity that we've partnered with who help children and families with children who are affected by war. It's a really good charity. So we're trying to raise money for World Child and we're trying to, you know, give people something to think about on Christmas.
- [14:41]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Sean, can you tell, we all know your mom and you have a such a great relationship and I love, you know, avant garde, you know, underground for. I mean, she's.
- [14:54]
Jeff Zito
It's so cool.
- [14:55]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
I mean, you got a cool mom. Can you tell us something about Mom?
- [15:00]
Podcast Narrator
The Celebrity Jobber Podcast with Jeff Szito.
- [15:03]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Celebrity Jobber can you tell us something about mom?
- [15:08]
Jeff Zito
Like.
- [15:09]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Like maybe that people don't know? They see Yoko and it's, you know. But tell me about Mom. Can you give me a little something behind the scenes about Mom?
- [15:20]
Sean Lennon
Something behind the scenes? Well, you know, I think people don't realize what her personality is really like. You know, she's very quiet and sweet and elegant and I would say very ladylike. You know, I think a lot of people think of her as the woman who screams on. On stage or. Or, you know, was standing naked with my dad on the Two Virgins cover. But she's actually very reserved and sweet and quiet and, you know, she's a very nice lady, but she's also, I think, very brilliant. And I think she was very misunderstood for. For many years. And I think her time has come. I think people are finally recognizing her for her own accomplishments and for the artist who she really is. And yeah, I guess the other thing I would say is that I think people think she only does the kind of avant garde music. But she also writes a lot of really beautiful pop songs. And there's a film that we did that I was a producer on called 1 to 1 John and Yoko. It was a. About the last concert they did in Madison Square Garden. And there's footage of her singing, singing a song called Age 39 Live at a feminist meeting at a university. And it's very beautiful and I highly recommend people go check it out because she sings great. You know, that's, that's what I think people don't know about her.
- [17:00]
Safeway/Albertsons Announcer
Save on holiday essentials at Safeway and Albertsons this week. Get USDA Choice Beef Bone in Roast for $6.97 per pound with digital coupon and minimum purchase of $50 or more in a single transaction and excluding the price of the roast while supplies last. Limit one plus. Get broccoli, cauliflower, green beans or Brussels sprouts for 97 cents per pound with digital coupon limit six pounds and russet, red or yellow potatoes, yellow onions, yams or Sweet potatoes are 99 cents per pound. Member price. Visit safewaybertsons.com for more deals.
- [17:30]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Anything in your future?
- [17:31]
Jeff Zito
As far as I don't want to.
- [17:32]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Say I know that Chiba Motto kind of reunited a few years ago, but yeah.
- [17:38]
Jeff Zito
Anything coming up? Maybe.
- [17:39]
Sean Lennon
I'm still very good friends with Yuka Honda from Chiba Motto. I just saw her husband Nels Klein last night. But yeah, I've got a band called the Delirium with Les Claypool from Prim. And we've got a double album coming out next year and we will be probably touring in July. I think. I'm excited about that record. It's our first double album. So it's a concept record. It has. It's basically a rock opera. It's got a story to it and I think it's going to be really fun. So look for that, please.
- [18:13]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Will do.
- [18:13]
Jeff Zito
War is over. Happy Christmas. You go to YouTube. It is a.
- [18:18]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
It's a free film, short film, like Sean said. It's 11 minutes long. It's really cool. And it's on the John Lennon Channel. And you also said that you can make a donation. Sean, could you tell us about that again real quick?
- [18:31]
Sean Lennon
Yeah. There's a charity called War Child that we partnered with and they're one of the best charities in the world for helping people's who are affected by war. They focus on children and we figured, you know, because this song is really, you know, a song where kids are singing and it's a cartoon film. That we made that we thought it made sense to partner with War Child because they help children specifically and families with children who are struggling in war torn areas.
- [18:58]
Jeff Zito (Interviewer)
Listen, I really appreciate your time this morning. It was a real pleasure getting to talk to you. Thank you so much. Have a great day.
- [19:06]
Sean Lennon
All right, later.
- [19:07]
Jeff Zito
So if you go to YouTube and search war is over film, you'll see not only the trailer, but the 13 minute animated short film and Academy Award winner, best animated short film, War is Over, inspired by the music of John and Yoko. Shawn also says they partnered with the charity War Child, which you can find online@warchild USA.org which is a great way to donate to a charity this time of year. And they have a donate button right there on the homepage again, warchild USA.org so, you know, usually the Celebrity Jobber podcast, we try to, you know, find out more about the celebrity before they were famous. Sean Lennon famous, like right from the beginning, from birth. Okay. When you're the child of the most famous people in the world, which, you know, I would say John Lennon and Yoko ono were probably two most famous people in the world back in 1975 when they had Sean. So a lot of people can't relate. Pretty interesting to grow up that way. You know, he doesn't know anything else. And I also thought it was interesting he didn't consider music a job. You know, he talked about his music career not being as successful as his older half brother, Julian Lennon. He said he's pretty much in the music business for the quote, unquote, for the love of the game. So I thought that was interesting. Sean also mentioned that he didn't have conventional parents, especially, you know, growing up with Yoko Ono being his mother. She, you know, didn't have that talk about his future and his path. It seemed like it was live in the moment was the message that, you know, she kind of passed on to her son. Is, is he. Does he regret not finishing college? He does. He regrets not finishing Columbia. He said if he just waited a couple more years, he could have gotten that degree that he would have been proud of and he could have continued to do what he quit school to do, which was go on tour with his mom. He said he was interested in anthropology, so I'm not sure he would have been an anthropologist or whatever else you would do with an anthropology degree. Yeah, I think music was always going to be it for Sean Lennon, but kind of interesting that he didn't really have to worry about that. You know, Sean did mention that, you know, his mom. Not a conventional parent, but a loving mother. And as I asked Sean to give me a little behind the scenes about his mom, he said very feminine, soft spoken, sweet, ladylike. And he also mentioned how she has a beautiful singing voice and something that we don't necessarily know either because of Yoko's avant garde underground style of music. So he's had no big break. He's the son of Yoko Ono and John Lennon. He appeared on one of his mother's albums when he was five years old. I guess we can consider that being his first job. He's never worked at a pizza place or gotten paid for any other job outside of the music industry, which he doesn't consider his occupation, which is pretty interesting. When you're that type of person, you don't have to worry about things like that. I'm sure he would trade it all tomorrow to have a relationship with his father. Thank you so much for listening and wherever it is you Listen, whether it's iHeart or Spotify, Apple Podcasts please subscribe. Would love a 5 star rating and please leave a review you can follow on Instagram. Celebrity Underscore Jobber podcast Also, the YouTube channel is YouTube.com theSign Celebrity Jobber. Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. We'll see you next week with another episode of the Celebrity Jobber Podcast. I'm Jeff Zito.
- [23:19]
Safeway/Albertsons Announcer
Save on holiday essentials at Safeway at Albertsons this week. Get USDA Choice Beef Bone in Roast for $6.97 per pound with digital coupon and minimum purchase of $50 or more in a single transaction excluding the price of the roast while supplies last. Limit one plus get broccoli, cauliflower, green beans or Brussels sprouts for 97 cents per pound with digital coupon. Limit six pounds and russet, red or yellow potatoes, yellow onions, yams or Sweet potatoes are 99 cents per pound. Member price. Visit safewayalbertsons.com for more deals.