Interview with the Bacon Brothers

If you have watched many movies in the last thirty years than you are undoubtedly familiar with the name Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon has starred in over 60 movies. Michael Bacon is a film and TV music composer who has composed hundreds of songs for movies and television. Something you may or may not know is that the two brothers are creating music together and have been doing so for a number of years.

Michael Bacon (the eldest of six children) and Kevin (the youngest) were both born in Philadelphia, PA. In 1995 The Bacon Brothers became a working band and their first album Forosoco was released November 4th 1997. The other band members are Paul Guzzone - bass/vocals, Charlie Giordano - keys, Frank Vilardi - drums and Ira Siegel - electric guitar. It has now been 14 years since Kevin and Michael put together a band and The Bacon Brothers have just released their 6th album "New Years Day" on November 11th, 2008. Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Kevin and Michael about The Bacon Brothers.

Michael and Kevin were open with their answers and it made for an interesting interview.

What inspired the both of you to form a band and go on the path of making music together with everything else you have going on in your respective careers?

Michael - We never really done a lot of planning. We've always played music together. Kevin played in my band for awhile and he played in lots of different bands So a friend of his put the possibility in our heads and said why don't you guys come down, put a band together and call it The Bacon Brothers and play for fun. That's how it happened. Timing is everything and at that time in our lives it seemed like a good idea so we did it. It worked out well to do it. It went on like that and we started putting on shows and pretty soon it started rolling on its own and now here we are 14 years later with 6 albums out.

How does creating music that you get to go out and perform live differ from what else you do? What does the live performance of music give you that the other things you do does not?

Kevin - For me I started out my acting career in the live theater. I love the live aspect and one of the things that I love about it is there is a certain element of danger. Because every night anything can happen live. Sometimes like at a Wednesday matinee you might have hardly nobody in the audience and then other nights you have a huge audience, which is a triumph. So sometimes you can't fall asleep because that memory of that time being up on that stage keeps running in your head. That is exactly what playing live music gives me. If something goes wrong you can't edit it, you can't stop and cut it. It is what it is. To have that in my life is very, very exciting and rewarding.

You have a New Album out "New Years Day", can you describe the music for someone who has not heard of The Bacon Bothers before?

Michael - All of the songs are originals. They sort of run the gamut from relatively hard rock, it's not heavy metal but it's some all electric, some tunes are more acoustic but there is a lot of harmony. Hopefully the listener will like the song and the quality. That's probably all we can tell you. There is a lot of music out there and the field is so competitive.

Kevin, I read that you do most of the writing of the songs that The Bacon Brothers sing, when did you realize you had a talent for writing songs?

Kevin - I started writing songs when I was very young and the first couple songs that I wrote I was like 12 or 13 and they were about love, they were romantic. I sang my songs over and over to myself and then I started bringing them to my brother who would help guide me and learn me about song structure, you know bridge, chorus and all those kinds of things.

Does being Kevin Bacon, the actor, interfere with the music or does the fame from that aspect of your life make it easier getting into the music side of things?

Kevin - I think it cuts both ways. I think certainty there is nights when people just show up, if we are going to play somewhere, a festival or something they show up to hear the actor sing. Then it becomes our job to try and turn them on to the music. We try to put on the best show that we can and hope that they like the music side of our life as well. On the other hand I think it becomes difficult because people are, or more importantly is the fact that people some times tend to lump us together with other actors, like "Oh that is another actor wanting to sing." So we go out and play and try to show them different, that it's not just another actor wanting to sing.

I think it is working. I don't know how I missed that there was a Bacon Brothers Band, but I just recently found out so the word is getting out there more and more.

Michael - I think a lot of people haven't heard of us. That is one of the challenges we face, we want to try and get the music out so people can hear it

The Bacon Brothers include fans in a lot of fun stuff, recently you had the dance contest where fans video taped themselves dancing to your song Go My Way for a chance to have the clip in your video for the song and 1 winner gets to dance with you at a show and now you are having a tee shirt contest for fans to create a New Year's Day themed tee shirt design. How did you come up with these ideas and what made you decide to include the fans in this?

Kevin - Fans are really important, the Internet is important. That's the aid for a band and their relationship with the fan base and a lot of times it is through the web. The video idea is that we had decided to get our friends and family involved and have them and us put on an Ipod and dance to the song and then we edited that into a video. Then one of the guys from our band said how about having a contest and see what kind of response we get. The response really blew our minds on how creative people are. Fans created 3 to 4 minute movies, editing them, adding titles and story ideas and they mean the world to us

Will there be more opportunities for fans to be involved?

Michael - Well yea the nice thing about the Internet is pretty much stuff that is fun, you put it out there and hope for the best reaction. We had a really good time doing a couple videos with the band and by ourselves also.

If the history books were to talk about The Bacon Brothers what would you want them to say?

Michael - Greatest band that ever lived!

What do you hope to see The Bacon Brothers doing in 5 years?

Kevin - I hope we are still writing. That to me is what keeps it moving along, is good song material. When we did the first record we used a lot of songs that we had laying around for a long time and I kind of thought well that raps up material for a second one. Whenever you get to the sixth one you kind of go "Wow that is the song writing in play." So hopefully we'll have enough material to keep going along.

What instruments do each of you play?

Michael - I play Cello and Guitar, Kevin plays Harmonica, Percussion and Guitar

Who are each of your musical inspirations?

Kevin - Well it started with my brother, and I listened to the music that he was playing and bands that he was in and all the music that my brothers and sisters would bring home. Eagles, Zeppelin and Dillon. Then on down the line as a kid growing up in Philadelphia we had a lot of soul music that was a really kind of important aspect of my childhood. Philly town and stuff, Motown and Springsteen.

Just a few questions for the fans to get to the know more about The Bacon Brothers.

Kevin can you share some funny or embarrassing incident about Michael?

Kevin - Well we had a little incident at a show where we had a little break between the first set and the second set and there was a little argument and by the time Michael walked out to do the second set he was playing his Cello all alone, so he started out playing the second set all by himself and we were standing backstage waiting to go on and he was very angry and we were afraid he was going to saw his Cello in half. A Cello is made out of carbon fiber.

Michael, same question about Kevin.

Michael - I think something that was kind of funny is that Kevin hit himself in the forehead with a microphone. that's something that is sort of hard to do. A girl in the front row said "Oh Mr. Bacon your forehead is bloody."

Kevin describe Michael when it comes to music?

Kevin - Michael is brilliant, a brilliant musician, brilliant composer, brilliant songwriter, plays everything, fantastic singer and has an immense amount of musical knowledge and know how.

Michael same question about Kevin.

Michael - Well one thing to define what Kevin said. I have played music all my life, I've graduated from college in music but people doesn't necessarily have to know anything about music. I have met a lot of musicians and a lot of them can't even read (music). Some people it is just something they are meant to do, they are born for this. Kevin is one of them.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to start out in the music business?

Kevin - Pick something else. I say the same thing with acting and the reason I say that is because it is something that is so difficult and so competitive. It has so much heartbreak and rejection. Only a hand full people are able to make a living with fame and fortune or whatever. It is an extremely difficult road to walk. So if somebody hears that advice and says "The hell with you, I'm going into it anyway." those are the people that should be doing it.The people that feel like in their heart of hearts they don't have a choice, people that feel like, I have to play music, I just have to, my life is not going to be complete if I don't. Those are the people that should do it.