February 2001

      Film star KEVIN BACON and his equally accomplished elder brother, MICHAEL BACON, will be jetting to Chicagoland for a pair of shows at the House of Blues and Star Plaza Theatre, respectively, on February 16 and 17.

     With two albums to their credit and a career as musical duo that stretches back to the very early 1970s when they performed shows around their native Philadelphia – both brothers have found enjoyed success in the arts. Yet despite their individual accomplishments and glory, the biggest thrill
for each is to get together and jam the way they used to do as starry-eyed siblings.

    Midwest BEAT Magazine had the good fortune to chat with the Bacon boys about their music, their individual accomplishments, their favorite charities and other things.   Here’s what they had to say...

BEAT –– Given your busy respective schedules, how much time do you guys get to spend on the road?

KEVIN –– It’s a juggling act. You’ve not only got me and Mike with our schedules, but also the guys in the band too. They’re not sitting by the phone waiting for the Bacon brothers to play again, they’re all either studio musicians, producing their own stuff, writing jingles, or going out with other bands. It’s a bit of a nightmare, but it’s our manager’s nightmare.

BEAT: Are all the songs you’re doing from the two CDs or are you road testing new material?

MICHAEL –– Definitely road testing, one of the things that I think really keeps the energy going is constantly putting new stuff into the set. It’s challenging for us and for the band. We’re about a third of the way through our third CD so the more we play the song live the better it gets in the studio. We’re playing as much new stuff as the audience can stand.

BEAT: When will the CD be out? Is there a title yet?

KEVIN –– No title yet. We’re shooting for May or June.

BEAT: What determines which of you sings lead on what song?

KEVIN –– Generally, it’s who ever generated the song. The way we write these days is mostly separately. We bringing a song to the other guy to see how he feels bout it and maybe needing some help to put a bridge on this or to see if a solo works here or whatever. Usually, we sing the ones we wrote. There are a couple songs on the new record where we're kind of splitting verses which is fun.

BEAT:   Michael, a lot of people don’t realize that you’ve done a lot of work with film, television, and even had a major label contract. What’s your proudest moment?

MICHAEL –– When I go back through all the stuff that I’ve done in the past,trying to sift through it to find things that might fit the general idea of a film or whatever I’m working on at the time. As I start listening to things I’ve done, I’ll find something that was really good that I’d forgotten I’d even written. Something that’s so good, that I don’t know if I could write it now. That’s my biggest sense of pride, finding the stuff that I feel is good music that I’ve written. I can’t say that I do a lot of listening to the old records I’ve made (laughing)...I find that a little more painful.

KEVIN –– Laughs…that's like me watching old movies.

BEAT: Kevin given your musical ability and love of music, why have you never portrayed a musician on film?

KEVIN –– There’s not a lot of those kinds of films that work. I’ve read some rock ‘n’ roll movie scripts and a lot of time people will come to me with something, hoping that because of the music I’ll be more interested in it. Rock movies are a very, very difficult and usually unsuccessful genre. This past summer’s Almost Famous is really the exception to the rule, because
they really got it right.

The movies that tend to work in the music genre are usually about real life people. My own theory about why they work, is because the records were already hits. So that when they get to that big scene, and its inevitable, where they play their big song, the audience already has a really strong emotional attachment to that song. That makes a world of difference I think, opposed to having somebody play a song for the first time and you’re supposed to really believe it’s a smash.

BEAT: What’s the age difference with you guys? Was Kevin the pesky kid brother or were you intentionally nurturing his musical interest?

MICHAEL –– I’m nine years older. Definitely the latter... I can’t remember a time that I didn’t want to do something with Kevin musically. We wrote songs together when he was probably only 11 or 12. Later on, he got interested in percussion and drumming and he played in my band for a couple of years just gigging around our hometown area in Philadelphia. So music is
something we’ve always shared. Kevin has a tremendous interest in music and a lot of innate talent.

BEAT: The media has always been hard on actors who try to balance a screen career with music and vice versa.

KEVIN –– This is a source of chagrin to my manager and my brother...but I don’t read reviews. I haven’t for a long time. I don’t read them about my acting and I don’t read them about the music. If they (the media) have a problem with what I’m doing, it doesn’t help me in anyway to know that.

Certainly there’s a lot of skepticism and I don’t blame people for being skeptical. I’m skeptical too. When I see an actor put a band together, I just find myself... even with the situation I’m in... rolling my eyes (laughs) and going – ‘Oh please, could this guy be any good?’ That’s just the cross that we must bare. I don’t pretend that that’s not the reality of the situation. It is. We just keep playing and keep writing and keep trying to do the best that we can. I think the thing that has really affected us,
more than the press being skeptical, is that radio and record companies are even more skeptical. I don’t think that they have any real precedent for success with someone doing what it is that we’re doing.

You know there’s people that have had obviously pop success, you know Eddie Murphy had a hit record, Jennifer Lopez is sitting on another one. That’s a real different kind of thing than me being a singer/songwriter with a guitar and a rock band.

The upside of having an actor in the band is that we get people like you Tom to come and talk to us and we can get some people in the seats that maybe we wouldn’t be able to if I wasn’t an actor. That’s fine, because while they are here, they get a chance to hear our music and that’s the bottom line.

BEAT: Musical parents? Is music in the Bacon genes?

KEVIN –– No. Our father is definitely not musical. He can’t hold a tune. He whistles and nothing comes out (laughs). Our mother played a little bit of mandolin and she was a big fan of music. But they were both incredibly supportive of anything that we would do that was creative and music was part of that.

BEAT: You both donate a portions of your royalties to charities. Michael to Cystic Fibrosis and Kevin to the Northern Lights Alternative. Why those charities?

MICHAEL –– Well, for me a really dear friend of ours had twin daughters who died last year. I guess they made it to about age 23. C F is a horrible, horrible disease. It’s kind of like a slow death by drowning. Just watching those girls who were very close to my wife and I, made me feel that I just had to do something. I wanted to give back something and C F was close to my heart.

KEVIN –– Northern Lights Alternative is an organization that my wife and I learned about when we went to a benefit event ten years ago. They're real small and real hands on and frankly they need us to give them support. There's very few people and there's not a big infrastructure. There are a lot of places you can give your money to and this is one where I've seen the
donations working in a very specific way. The dollars are helping kids infected or affected by HIV and Aids.

BEAT: What’s next on for you Kevin as far as acting?

KEVIN –– I haven't worked since "Hollow Man." I don't have anything set yet, but I’m ready to get back to work.

BEAT: What is your proudest accomplishments?

KEVIN –– Ummmm… Murder in the First I was very proud of... and something I did that no one saw called, Lemon Sky . I was very happy with that one too. In terms of the music, I’d have to say I’m most looking forward to the next record. I think our best stuff to date is there.

BEAT: Best advice to aspiring young talent?

MICHAEL –– Don’t have a back up. Don’t go and get your law degree first and then go into music. You have to jump into it with both feet and you have to be willing to sink or swim. If you have any kind of back up, believe me you’ll take it.

KEVIN –– There’s nothing more annoying to my brother and I than seeing an actor or musician that says, ‘Yeah, I thought I’d try the music thing for a while (laughs) or try the acting thing for a while.’ You’ve got to put everything you have into whatever you do. Like Michael says, it’s gotta be a ‘sink or swim’ situation to bring out the best in you.