Hello Sean. Eight years between albums!? Writer's block, or could you just not be arsed?

It's funny. People think I had writer's block or that I was scared or something... but there's a specific lifestyle that's entailed, when you put out a record, that isn't how I want to live. The first time I did it, it just wasn't fun. So I didn't want to do it, basically. I was doing other things. Putting out a solo record means you have to be subjected to a very specific sort of scrutiny. It's intensely uncomfortable. And I'm going through it again right now.

Well, you've made us feel really bad now.

I'm sorry. I just have to be honest though. I like touring and I like recording music. But everything else, I really dislike. I don't feel like a rock star, I don't have any ambitions to be one. This time I thought it would be different... But I love playing music and I feel stupid not putting out records. So I have to do it.

We'll try and make it as painless as possible. What's your earliest childhood memory?

I think when my Dad died, somehow I remembered everything that happened before that. So I actually have memories of being in Japan when I was two years old. I know they're real because I would ask my mom questions about the colour of a couch or a chair and she'd say, "Yeah, that's where it was." My mom and dad moved to Japan for a few years and I went to kindergarten there. We lived in a hotel in Tokyo. Japan is like living on another planet compared to the West. I think that shaped a lot of my tastes, in terms of food. My greatest joy is eating miso soup. So when I really feel ill or I'm gonna cry, that's what I want: miso soup. As opposed to chicken soup which is what my friends in America would want. I don't know if that was interesting or not...

It's always interesting if it's the truth.

Really? Is that a rule? That's so funny because I find the opposite to be true. That's why I like art, because art is a lie. Even paintings are illusions and that's what appeals to me about them. Even documentaries are, on some level, just symbolic compared to reality.

That's too much for our brain at this time of day. How about you play us a song?

Sean Lennon 'Tomorrow'