NEW YORK — The guy can't help himself.
Put Lenny Kravitz near a camera and a few lights, and the singer transforms himself into a crisply consummate art director. "How does the scarf look? And the pants?" he asks a stylist in a way that's precise but not precious.
Kravitz is, after all, known at least as much for his music as his punk/hippie/rocker looks: painted-on leather trousers, booties and a loose plaid shirt — plus the omnipresent shades and piercings. He's attempted to go incognito before, but it's pointless, so he no longer bothers.
"I've tried, but it doesn't work. I can cover myself up, have a hood on, but it's weird," he says.
His 10th album, the upbeat, catchy Strut, bows today on Tuesday, and Kravitz, who normally spends his days in blissful harmony at his pad in Eleuthera, in the Bahamas (just check his Instagram if you want to get a taste of his life), is back on home turf in New York City promoting it.
He created the music while playing fashion whiz Cinna in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
In the midst of shooting, "all of a sudden, all this music started coming into my head. I had to make a decision whether I was going to capture it or let it go," recalls Kravitz. "I was waking up at 5 a.m. for these ridiculous actors' hours. You're working all day. This stuff was just coming into my head. It kept coming. I basically stayed awake for two weeks. I slept maybe one or two hours a night sometimes. I got all the music down."
After he wrapped the film, it was back to paradise his home turf. "I went to the Bahamas and recorded it. There was no time to think of anything. It was just a matter of capturing it," he says. "It ended up what it is — a really up, energetic, fun record."
But he never collapsed from exhaustion? "If I look tired in that movie, you'll know why. I just kept showing up. It was fun. When you work hard and it's feeding you and it's creative, although it may be tiresome, it energizes you at the same time," says Kravitz. "It comes when it comes. The last record, I was just sitting at the beach, down at the Bahamas, taking my time. This was in a rush."
In fact, Kravitz says the same applies to his whole outlook. The singer won four best male rock vocal performance Grammys in a row, from 1999 to 2002, after breaking out with 1989's Let Love Rule and churning out hits including 1993's Are You Gonna Go My Way and 1998's Fly Away.
Yet instead of counting his royalty checks while gazing into glorious waves, Kravitz says he's a workaholic. "I'm always driven creatively. Now, all of a sudden, it's like bam. I'm hungrier than I've ever been. I have the desire to grow and to experience more and become better," he says.
That includes acting — Kravitz played one of the wait staff in Lee Daniels' The Butler, as well as Cinna in Hunger Games, and he's now looking at lead roles. With music, he likes to be in total control and lets only a few people into the studio with him. But on a movie set, says Kravitz, he has to let go — and he's fine with that.
He also has no desire to cut the line without paying his dues.
"I have to deserve it. I believe that I'll get what I deserve. There's no small parts. There's only small actors. You have to put the work in, so that's what I did," he says.
And then, of course, there's Kravitz Design, his interior décor firm.
"We're working around the clock. I'm really happy with where everything is going," he says. "When I first got my own place, I didn't have much money. I'd make everything or find it on the street. That's how it started. It started in my room when I was a kid. I was very particular about how my room was and the lighting. My mom would come into my room, there were posters everywhere and mood lighting."
Someday, if a project feels organic instead of forced, he'd like to collaborate with his singer/actress daughter Zoë, 25. But for now, he's content serving as her unofficial publicist.
"This will sound really cheesy, but I'm really into my daughter's band right now. Lolawolf," he says. "I've been going to the shows. It's my kid, but I promise you I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. I went to a show in Brooklyn. Anne Hathaway was there. She's like, 'I follow your daughter on the Internet and I love her music.' "
