Julian Lennon Starts A Revolution

Using the span of the Internet and a power-shifting business model, musician Julian Lennon and digital pioneers Michael Birch and Todd Meagher recently announced the launch of theRevolution LLC, a full-service, artist-focused, music services company, with a portion of the proceeds from their first LP going to fight lupus.

“A couple of years ago, I started writing again, and an album came together slowly but surely, and I was looking around over the past couple of years to try and find a new way forward,” Lennon said, “A few of us, who are now the founders of theRevolution, were literally sitting around the table discussing all of these issues. And we just felt that maybe we could come up with a newer model that would work for all of us — that would allow the artist more control over what’s happening to him on a creative level and on every other level, too, whether it was looking after their brand or looking after their management or protecting and developing them, looking after the recording and publishing with them, licensing, touring, you name it.”

The company’s first release is a four-track EP titled Lucy which is available at theRevolution’s Web site, as well as iTunes, with a portion of the EP’s proceeds going to St. Thomas’ Lupus Trust and the Lupus Foundation of America.

The title track was written and performed by Lennon and James Scott Cook and is Lennon’s first single in 10 years. The inspiration for the EP came from the two Lucys in their lives, who were both affected by Lupus. Lennon’s childhood friend Lucy Vodden, who inspired the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, recently died of the disease, and Cook’s grandmother, also named Lucy, is battling Lupus.



“There was no effort about it, about putting the song together, about putting the idea together, about the history of it or where it all came from. It just felt a very, very natural thing to do and almost to a certain degree, felt like I was closing a circle in many respects,” Lennon said. “Show me a person who’s not affected by music or lyrics one way or another. But from my perspective, obviously, I try to use that for positive use. It’s always trying to either make people aware or enlighten them or tell them a story so that they can make decisions for themselves about trying to drive forward in a positive way.”