Lenny Kravitz Discovered Weed and Led Zeppelin the Same Moment
Lenny Kravitz recalled how he’d just started enjoying his first high from weed as a friend introduced him to the music of Led Zeppelin.
The future star was hanging out with two school friends in an unused church during a break when the incident took place. In his upcoming memoir, Let Love Rule (via Rolling Stone), Kravitz told how the experience changed his life.
“During our escape from school, in the deserted courtyard, Shannon broke out a joint, lit it and passed it to Derek and me,” Kravitz wrote in the book, which will be published on Oct. 6. “I had tried weed a couple of times before, but never felt much. … I took a puff and exhaled. Still no effect. Shannon told me to hold it in longer. I did, and this time something shifted. At precisely the same time the head rush hit, Derek slipped a cassette in his boombox.”
Kravitz noted that "this was a moment. Maybe the moment. My head exploded. My mind blew up with the sound of the screaming guitar, the crazed vocal, the blasting beat. I was knocked on my ass. I hadn’t even heard of Led Zeppelin. I didn’t yet know the names Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. All I knew was that this music was electrifying every cell in my body. The mixture of marijuana and ‘Black Dog’ sent me soaring. The sky opened up. The world got bigger and more beautiful. I was fucked up.”
Kravitz recalled the experience of disguising the fact he was high when he returned to class. Having obtained a bathroom pass, he splashed water on his face and asked himself: “Will I ever come down from this?”
“Even though nothing funny had happened, I caught a case of the giggles," he said. "Then came the munchies. I could have eaten a mountain of pizzas. I went back to class, still high but able to hide it. On the first day of being stoned out of my mind, I learned to maintain, a skill that I would regularly employ for years to come.”
Kravitz reflected that "on the same day and at the same time, I turned into both a pothead and a Zep head. Before the end of the week, I’d bought every single Led Zeppelin cassette. Marijuana and rock ’n’ roll became my steady diet.”