Eight years after Into the Sun, Sean Lennon is not heading into the sunset.
Instead, the son of Beatles legend John Lennon has announced that his second solo album, Friendly Fire, is due out Sept. 26 on Capitol Records.
"There was a long period after the first album [which was released in 1998] where I felt disillusioned with the machinery of the industry," Lennon said in a statement. "It's not that I stopped recording, playing and performing. I did all of those things, just more discreetly."
The 30-year-old musician kept busy collaborating on projects with Ben Lee, Thurston Moore, Ryan Adams and his mother, Yoko Ono, among others, and released an EP compilation of outtakes and remixes from Into the Sun called Half Horse, Half Musician.
"Friendly Fire is an experiment to see what it might be like to do music more publicly again," Lennon said.
And more public it will be, considering which friends were on board to give him a hand.
Lennon has made a companion short film about love and its limitations to accompany each of Friendly Fire's 10 tracks, featuring appearances from pals like Lindsay Lohan, Bijou Philips, Asia Argento, Carrie Fisher, Devon Aoki and Jordana Brewster.
Pretty attractive ladies, you might say.
Lennon plays various characters, as well, including a valiant swordsman and a skate-rental shop employee. A trailer is available for viewing on the singer's website.
"Music is invisible," Lennon said. "I spend a lot of time in the studio with my eyes closed. This, thankfully, was not the case with the film."
Also contributing to the eyes-wide-shut experience are Philips, Jon Brion, session drummer Matt Chamberlain, Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda and Paul Simon's son, Harper.
Speaking of musical and visual combinations, Lennon accompanied his mother on June 30 to the Las Vegas premiere of Love, the new Cirque du Soleil show inspired by the Beatles' vast catalog. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison's widow, Olivia, also attended the opening.
McCartney gave the appreciative audience--which included Virginia Madsen, Billy Crystal, Lauren Hutton, Helen Mirren, Megan Mullally, Gina Gershon, Steven Van Zandt, Scott Weiland, Roberto Cavalli, Brian Wilson, Kevin Nealon, Jason Patric, Michael Richards, Deborah Harry and Wayne Brady--another thrill (in addition to the high-flying theatrics) when he jumped onstage with Ono, Olivia and Starr and shouted, "John and George, this is for you!"
Since Love was in the air, Ono was in agreement. "The only thing I regret is that John is not here," she said. "He would have loved this."