Piers Morgan: Of all the things that you’ve experienced in your extraordinary career and life, If I could give you 5 minutes to replay one of them again, what would it be? 

 

Lenny Kravitz: A career moment, wow. You know, I’ve had so many where I had to pinch myself… Probably producing Michael Jackson. And there’s been a lot of great ones but that was something extraordinary 

 

PM: What made is so extraordinary? 

 

LK: Well, the fact that I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t seen the Jackson 5 when I was 6 years old. That was the 1st concert I’d ever been to, my father took me to Madison Square Garden to see them. And it changed everything. The universe was a different place the next day, I was completely blown away by the music, the talent, the whole experience. And here I am in the studio, I’ve written a song for Michael and he’s standing there telling me to be very hard on him: ‘I wanna do this exactly the way you see it, so stop me every time it’s not the way you want it and we’re just getting into it and working together and spending a week together in the studio and it was just unbelievable.

 

PM: What kind of man was he? For real

 

LK: First of all, just a beautiful being, extremely professional, a perfectionist. Still having the passion all those years later. You know, he would work all day and night, come back the next day, all day and night. He hand’t lost that… A great father, he was amazing with his children, I spent time with the kids and we were all in the studio so they would come and we would all hang out together, he was a very good father. And he was funny! Very funny, he laughed all the time… And he could eat more than you think

 

PM: He was an incredible talent

 

LK: Yeah, the greatest ever, I would agree with that 

 

PM: How did you feel when you heard what had happened to him? 

 

LK: I was obviously devastated, I was blown away, I found out on stage in Scotland as I was coming off and getting ready to go back on and they told me, and I had to go back out. It’s extremely sad, I was really looking forward to seeing him come back and do those shows. Even though I knew… wow 50 shows, that’s very serious.

 

PM: Do you think of our lifetime Michael Jackson was the best?

 

LK: Of course, you can’t touch him. And people think about Michael Jackson in his solo career, which is obviously phenomenal but the deepest genius I saw on him was when he was a child; he was a child that sang with the same talent soul and intensity of Aretha Franklin or James Brown or any great vocalist.

 

-Piers Morgan interview: Lenny Kravitz about Michael Jackson (2011)