The tragic punch line to this romantic soap opera is that LeRoy is now dead. “Dead meat,” he croons over a disarmingly sweet music-box melody. Lennon, heartbroken at being betrayed, poured his anger into a bitter song called Dead Meat, now the opener on his album. Friendly Fire is a collection of songs about the end of his four-year relationship with the actress and musician Bijou Phillips, after she slept with his best friend, Max LeRoy. Today, at the age of 30, he’s made a new album that is certainly provocative, though in a very different way. “I think when you’re young, you want to be provocative.” Does he regret that now? “I’m sure I will regret having said most of the things you’re going to bring up,” he sighs. It failed to make a lasting impact on the public, other than some headline-making comments from its author about his father having been assassinated by the American government, and having been a bit of an “asshole” and “macho pig” in his private life. It’s been eight years since Lennon released his debut album, Into the Sun, which fused his paternally inherited pop sensibility with a maternal experimental influence, incorporating elements of hip-hop and jazz. He has tousled jet-black hair that hairdressers might call “unmanageable”, and a few days’ growth of beard. He’s wearing a pinstriped trousers and waistcoat ensemble with a smart shirt and tie, and big dark glasses. His clothes seem to have been picked with a similar attention to detail. Until he opens his mouth, when he speaks slowly and quietly in an all- American accent, choosing his words with great deliberation. Sitting in a room at the Beatles’ old label, Parlophone, just down the corridor from where his dad beams out from a Let It Be poster, Lennon also looks like his father. Which is weird, because Lennon was born and raised in New York City, was five when his father died, and went to boarding school in Switzerland, which is generally a Scouse-free zone. Even the pronunciation - “loovin’ you” - suggests a Scouse upbringing. The gentle rasp when he extends his range is pure John. It takes exactly 20 seconds of Sean Lennon’s new album to reveal his biggest problem in pursuing a pop career - he sings exactly like his father.
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