We find him in buoyant mood today. He relaxes into an over-stuffed white sofa in the garden and says things like, "I've rediscovered my zest for life," and, "I wake up these days just happy to be alive, to see the birds in the sky." The reason for such rhapsody, it transpires, is that he has only recently emerged from a crippling two-year depression that came upon him, unannounced, in early 2002. Its timing couldn't have been worse. He had just released an album, Lenny, and had committed himself to a long world tour that he couldn't back out of. It became the darkest period of his life.

"I just couldn't shake it off," he says. "See, at heart, I'm a very positive person, so to be so negative, and for so long, was very tough on me. The whole tour was awful. I'd arrive in each city, go straight to my hotel room, pull the curtains and hide under my bed until I had to be on stage. That was the only time I ever interacted with anyone - up there on stage." He shakes his head. "I hated every minute of every performance."

Under advice from his manager, he consulted a doctor, then a psychiatrist. Pills were prescribed, but because Kravitz is mistrustful of pills, he didn't take them. Instead, he smoked marijuana, a lot of marijuana. "I was giving Bob Marley a run for his money," he says of a habit that ran to an ounce every couple of days. "I actually employed someone on the tour exclusively to roll joints for me morning, noon and night."

Lisa Bonet Vanessa Paradis Kylie Minogue

For the first few months, he existed in a state of extreme paranoia, but soon the paranoia gave way to an enveloping numbness, and it was this, and only this, that allowed him to crawl from one day to the next. "I think the depression, in part, had a lot to do with all the psychological baggage I was carrying around with me," he says. "I'm the kind of person who gets very lonely very easily, and the fact that I'm not particularly good in relationships was slowly destroying me. You know, I wanted to meet the perfect woman. I didn't want just another girlfriend, I wanted a wife."

In 1985, Kravitz married Cosby Show actress Lisa Bonet. They had a daughter, Zoe, but divorced shortly afterwards. Kravitz, who has sole custody of his child, now 15, has been looking for love ever since, a search that has seen him date, and summarily dispense with, Vanessa Paradis, Kylie Minogue, Natalie Imbruglia, Madonna, Naomi Campbell and, most recently, Nicole Kidman.

"I find it very easy meeting women," he says, "but it's difficult to meet the right one. If I was looking for nothing more than sex, I'd be fine, I'd be set for the rest of my life, but I've never been that interested in sex."

Really? His reputation would suggest otherwise. "I'm serious. Sex doesn't do much for me. The last thing I'm interested in is a one-night stand, just some girl I can bring back here to ... to shag. What I want, what I've always wanted, is someone you can talk right through the night with, someone whose spirit connects, spiritually, with my own."