Creative inspiration is a bewildering beast, one that can strike in the strangest moments. Keith Richards wrote "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" after waking up in the middle of the night, Eddie Van Halen has said he's come up with some of his best material on the toilet, and artists from Bono to Michael Stipe have written lyrics on cocktail napkins.

Lenny Kravitz, who's known for meticulously toiling away in the studio for months at a time, actually planted the foundation for his new album, Lenny (October 30), when he jetted off to the Bahamas to get away from the pressures of working on a record.

"I wasn't there to write," he said recently. "I was just there to chill, sleep, get some rest. I had a guitar in a little shack I stayed in, and I just started sitting around strumming, and I started writing. It was kind of strange because it wasn't that I thought I was going in a different direction [with the record], but then these songs started coming out."

With the acoustic frameworks of four songs to work with — "If I Could Fall in Love," "Dig In," "A Million Miles Away" and "Yesterday Is Gone (My Dear Kay)" — Kravitz headed back to his Los Angeles studio and wrote the rest of the album. Like much of his material, the songs on Lenny are spirited and spiritual, ranging from the triumphant rockers "Battlefield of Love," "Dig In" and "Bank Robber Man" to transcendent lighter-raising ballads like "Yesterday Is Gone (My Dear Kay)." And while Kravitz incorporated a modicum of loops and samples, the record is more organic than his last disc, 5 (1998).

"This album just feels very straightforward," he said. "It's the first record I haven't used horns on. I just wanted it to be more stripped back and guitar-oriented."

The first single, "Dig In," is a driving song that echoes with optimism.

"It's just about going for it," Kravitz said. "It's about pushing fear out of the way and not letting that hold you back. We all have fears in life, and you have to really try to remove them."

The video for "Dig In" was shot in the Florida Keys by Samuel Bayer, who directed Kravitz's "Black Velveteen" as well as recent vids by Marilyn Manson and Aerosmith. Not surprisingly, the theme revolves around taking over the airwaves and spreading messages of unity and love through high-energy music.

"We're in this very removed location with a transmitting tower and we're pirating the airwaves and butting in, putting this message out," Kravitz explained.

Coming from a guy who preaches love, love and more love, it might seem strange that Lenny's opening track, "Battlefield of Love," starts with the sounds of helicopters flying and bombs exploding. But the sonic salvo isn't a call to arms, it's a subtle protest of the horrors of war.

"It's really sad to me that we're supposed to be so evolved, and we're geniuses when it comes to developing things, especially things that are destructive," he said. "I just think it's horrible how in all of this we haven't learned to settle a dispute without violence."

Lenny hits stores on October 30. Those who order the album at MTV.com can listen to the entire album in streaming audio before then.