More than three decades have passed since Kevin and Michael Bacon first performed as the Bacon Brothers. And as they reached that milestone, the brothers say they never envisioned this musical venture would last three decades or produce as much music as it has.
“For me, I don’t know, I didn’t really have a grand plan in the same way that I did for my acting, you know what I mean? said Kevin Bacon — yes, the A-list actor known for roles in such hit movies as “Footloose,” “Mystic River” and “A Few Good Men” — in a recent phone interview. “It was kind of like, well, let’s do this show, and then that show turned into another show.
“Of course, I would love to have success and a hit record, and that would be really fun,” he said. “But it’s really been more kind of driven by, oh, we wrote this song. You want to play it for somebody. Oh yeah, we want to go to the studio. We played it for somebody. It feels like it’s getting good. Let’s go in. Let’s record it, you know, and put out the record. Getting something played widely has always been sort of elusive, you know. So it’s hard to say if it was what I envisioned it because I didn’t really have that much of a wider vision for it.”
Kevin Bacon’s answer makes sense, considering the idea of being the Bacon Brothers literally did start in the most modest of ways. The brothers had played music together since childhood without ever planning to do music together professionally. That began to change in 1995, when a longtime friend in the brothers’ hometown of Philadelphia, who heard Kevin and Michael play, offered to book them for a one-off gig at the local venue.
The show went well, and word got out about the brothers, who each had successful careers underway, with Kevin, of course, as an actor, and Michael as a songwriter, solo artist, and writer of scores for film and other projects. More offers to play shows came in, and eventually the brothers decided to continue writing music and performing as the Bacon Brothers. The duo will be performing at Ivan’s House Live in Laguna Beach on Thursday, June 25.
Their first album, “Forosoco,” arrived in 1997, its title an acronym for the styles of music their songs encompassed — folk, rock, soul, and country. They’ve gone on to release nine more albums since then, while building an audience that now enables them to play large clubs and theaters across America.
Joining his brother for the interview, Michael Bacon said a few factors have helped give the Bacon Brothers the longevity they have enjoyed, beginning with a shared focus on writing good songs, as opposed to emphasizing solos or other elements of the music.
“Both of us are always in pursuit of writing a great song,” he said. “We’re not in pursuit of shredding (on guitar), you know, or of more octave range or whatever that happens to be. We’re in pursuit of writing a great song and then trying to put those songs across. So that’s the thing that’s really similar in terms of both of us. We have different ideas about music, but we both love songs, yeah, well that’s kind of the thing you’ve always kept at the core.”
As that last quote suggests, Kevin and Michael Bacon are not musical clones, which Michael Bacon said has given their songs contrasting qualities that seem to appeal to their fans.
“I think that one of the differences that we’ve talked about is Kevin tends to be a groove writer and finds a drum track or a percussion track and develop the song out of that, whereas I tend to be more music focused where I want to try to find some kind of a progression that is a little bit different and I’m often accused of being too complicated — guilty as charged,” Michael Bacon said. “But I think that’s kind of the difference. I tend to look at songs more in terms of beauty and I think Kevin being nine years younger and even a half generation different, I think he tends to see it more in terms of the physical, like danceability or groove is the only way I can put it. That being said, there are examples of things that fly in the face of that. But I think if you want to make a generalization, that’s probably what our differences are. And I think that as partners and also for the audience, being two brothers, I think that people appreciate how different we are as well as how similar we are. We’re certainly not twins.
“I think that the reason we’ve been able to keep this going is somehow we really can stay in a very wide (stylistic) spectrum, which is what I want to see when I go to a show,” he added. “The songs are never going to be all the same. They’re always going to be incredibly different because we’re two writers, and we’re also writing with other people and writing together. So I think that thing that I’m really proud of the band is that you come to see us, you see some really rocking stuff, and then I’m going to go over to the cello and play some intimate stuff, but then also some really rocking stuff on the cello. So it’s what I like to see, and I think that’s what we do.”
Like their previous releases, their most recent album, 2024’s “Ballad of the Brothers,” showcases this musical diversity. Its range spans stripped back folk-centric material (“Dreams of the San Joaquin,”), cello-laced pop balladry (“Airport Bar”), a country-flecked examination of aging (“Old Bronco”), a bouncy pop tune (“Put Your Hand Up”), full-bodied mid tempo tunes that split the difference between rock and folk (“Losing The Night”) and the bluesy standout (“Live With The Lie”). And that’s not mentioning the album’s boldest song, “Take Off This Tattoo,” which gets some EDM touches via the production from Kevin Bacon’s son, Travis, while featuring a stinging violin solo that further energizes the song. Overall, “Ballad of the Brothers” isn’t soft and, in fact, is a bit more robust than the brothers’ other albums.
With the Bacon Brothers back on tour, and with a new single “People in the World” having been released, fans will see the brothers front what they feel is a first-rate band. While the brothers have performed as a duo, Kevin Bacon said he prefers the band format.
“It takes the pressure off of us a little bit when you can, let’s say, concentrate on the vocal a little bit and not be trying to think so hard about what you’re playing, or you can just kind of lie out and sing,” he said. “So there’s that consideration, too.”