The list of movie stars trying to be rock stars is nearly as long as the list of rock stars trying to be movie stars.
The jury's out on which is worse. At least a song only lasts three minutes - in a film you have to put up with Sting trying to act for 90 minutes - but ye gods, what songs. Read the list of shame and shudder at a rogue's gallery of cacophony: Mike Myers warbles What's New, Pussycat?, Bruce Willis sings the blues, Joe Pesci tries to imitate Harry Connick Jr., Phyllis Diller croaks (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and William Shatner sings Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. And don't forget that Keanu Reeves plays bass in a rock band.
Then we come to the Bacon Brothers, starring actor Kevin Bacon and his brother Michael.
Undaunted by articles that cite William Shatner, this folk-rock duo has not gone away quietly. Far from it. They've just released their third album, Can't Complain, and are currently touring with a nine-man entourage to support it. They have a tour bus and everything. A record deal, too. This isn't a vanity project for the star of Hollow Man. The Bacon Brothers are taking their music seriously.
"We're trying. All we ask is that people listen to the music," says Kevin during a conference call with older brother Michael yesterday.
Being the star of Footloose tends to help the size of the crowd, the 43-year-old actor admits. People come "just to see what a movie star looks like in person," and hopefully come away with a new-found respect for the musical skills of same.
What possesses a successful film star to head for the trenches with a travelling rock band? It didn't just come out of the blue. The Bacon Brothers have been performing and writing songs together since they were children. Michael, who's won an Emmy for his soundtrack work, teamed up with Kevin for a professional run at the music biz simply because they'd accumulated so many songs.
"Music is something that's always been in my life," Kevin says.
But it's more than that. There are no second takes in front of a live audience - and it's this danger that seems to lure so many actors to the concert stage.
Says Kevin, "There's a lot that can go wrong in a live show - strings breaking, PAs failing, hecklers, bar fights, feedback, forgetting the words. I love that. I still get a little bit of a feeling in the pit of my stomach before we go on, which is a great feeling, and you also get this intense rush coming off of the show. When I'm on a movie set, as much as I love making movies, that's not part of it for me anymore. The scary thing about a movie is when it opens."
Michael, on the other hand, has no desire to be an actor. No one is going to mistake him for a Baldwin Brother and run screaming from the movie theatre.
"We did a video once and I enjoyed acting in that," he says, "but I realized long ago that music is what I do best. It's the way I relate to the world."
The brothers share the writing duties on Can't Complain, again a sort of meandering mishmash of folk, rock and country music. Kevin, who writes his songs while waiting around on movie sets, came up with songs like Paris (a veiled complaint about being a movie star) and Bus, literally a love story about a bus; while Michael offers sobering songs like Don't Leave the Lava Lamp on For Me, a shot at '60s nostalgia.
"For me, the '60s was a very bitter and horrible time," Michael says. "I don't look back on it with any nostalgia."
As for Kevin, he's got a film opening this fall, but isn't working on anything at the moment. "It's kind of a weird time in the industry," he says.
He's referring to the motion picture industry, of course. The music business has always been weird. At least he's got something to fall back on.
