EXCLUSIVE: Bringing home the Bacon Brothers – Kevin and his brother Michael get ready to make things sizzle at Dosey Doe - The Big Barn

THE WOODLANDS, TX – In this long-established music duo, one is instantly recognizable on sight; the other you may not know by face, but you know by his music. The band is The Bacon Brothers, comprised of Golden Globe-winning actor Kevin Bacon and his older, Emmy-winning brother Michael. For 27 years, they’ve been making music and music videos, and this weekend they’re coming to Dosey Doe - The Big Barn.

Woodlands Online sat down with both Bacons recently to discuss their history, their divergent but related careers, and the importance of family. Though they’ve never played Dosey Doe before, Michael had a funny story about the name of the venerable venue.

“It’s funny; we were in California looking at the tour schedule and I noted the name Dosey Doe,” he said. “I asked the guys, ‘Do you know what a dosey-doe is?” and they didn’t. So I demonstrated it for them, but got it wrong, so Kevin showed them how it was really done. It’s humiliating to be out-dosey-doed by your brother.”

Michael has an extensive composing and scoring history in the film world. When he’s not teaching music at Lehman College in New York, he’s composing soundtracks and scoring films such as A Time for Justice, Losing Chase, The Jewish Americans, and The Kennedys, for which he won an Emmy Award.

“I’ve had a really wonderful career working on those shows,” he said. “First of all, most of what I know about history comes from scoring films and I come up with nuggets of information because I do so many different kinds of shows and information from each kind of sticks in my brain.”

We couldn’t help but point out that, upon our pre-interview research, there is a more notorious search result for the name The Bacon Brothers – a murderous trio of British Columbian gangsters. When asked if he’s ever had to explain to people that he’s not one of them, Kevin answered with a laugh, “Yes, especially if we’re in Canada.”

Next, we discussed the band’s latest EP, Erato, which features several songs that, while sometimes varying wildly in style, all have the same general feel of Americana. When asked about the diversity of styles, Michael replied, “The easiest way to answer that is we let the songs drive what they’re going to sound like. It’s more convenient for the entertainment business if you go through a sound style and you force your songs to go through a lens to fit into it. However, I’ve never done that. I’m nine years older than Kevin and I think a bit of that mindset rubbed off on him also when it comes to his acting styles. It’s not on purpose but we certainly accept that our audiences are sometimes kept guessing. It’s cool if we’re able to surprise people.”

While the music industry is chock full of sibling bands who end up hating each other, there’s definitely no danger from The Bacon Brothers ending up like Oasis. In fact, Kevin had a story about the time he and Michael had a group gig with The Bellamy Brothers.

“That came about because of a bus,” he said. “We were playing a motorcycle convention in South Dakota and they were playing there too. We went over and asked if we could check out their bus; we hit it off and got to be friends. They had an idea for a song that they thought would be cool to share with us. We put our voices on it, laid down a track, and did a video in Memphis. It was really wild; they shot it at a prison. When we got there, we saw all these guys in striped clothing and thought, ‘Wow, they’re really going all out with the actors and costumes,’ only to realize it was a real prison with real convicts. It was really fun, and we kept in touch with the brothers over the years, even playing the Grand Ole Opry with them.”

Next came a discussion about the band’s extensive history of playing benefit concerts for various charities and nonprofit organizations. “Some of those are a result of us being involved with my foundation, sixdegrees.org,” said Kevin. “Sometimes we’ll be playing a town and the people at the foundation will find something that we can explore of a charitable nature. We love to support causes.”

Taking a stroll down memory lane, the brothers reflected back fondly on their childhood home life. Though they officially formed as a band in 1995, for many years before that they played and made music together while still in school. According to nine-years-older-brother Michael, “From the time Kevin could walk, he and I and our sisters enjoyed a creative household with music being a huge part of it. Our father being an architect, our entire first floor of our house was basically one gigantic speaker. So we heard all kinds of music. The eclecticness of our music today probably has something to do with what we were exposed to as little kids.”

Michael did admit, however, that the desire to make music wasn’t always altruistic. “Kevin would sing me melodies and lyrics, and I would put chords and melodies to it, and we’d go into my studio and make recordings for primarily get-rich-quick schemes. In the ‘80s we did a song called ‘Eight-Wheeled Boogie.’ We’d take a trend and exploit that. Later, we were trying to get our songs into movies that Kevin was in and it would never happen. So when we put the band together in 1995, it was a logical extension of what we’d been doing all our lives. The only difference is that before that we’d never performed live; and Keven had never performed in front of an audience, so we didn’t know how that would go. But it turns out he was good at it. For me, music is this enormous task of trying to understand and master it, which of course you never do, but this band and our music helps me keep trying.”

Family seems to be a key component with the Bacons. Not only were the brothers (and their siblings) raised in a nurturing environment by a teacher mother and architect father, but both of them have each been married to their respective spouses for decades, a rarity in the entertainment industry enjoyed by precious few.
“I know it’s a cliche, but family is everything,” said Kevin. “We’re both pretty solid on that; our families mean the world to us. The opportunity to work with family is something a lot of people don’t want, but for us it’s something we look forward to. I work with my wife [Kyra Sedgewick] all the time, I work with my sons, I’ve worked with my daughter multiple times. And of course I have a band with my brother.”

Another rarity is to have two brothers equally talented in their disparate-but-still-related fields, to be known and lauded separately but also objects of fandom when they play together.

Michael said, “Whether it’s live music or in the studio, it’s all a challenge. It’s funny; I don’t have any acting talent whatsoever and I have no idea where Kevin got it, but fortunately the music talent rubbed off on him. I just want to be challenged; when I teach, every class is a performance. I have a cello concerto I’ve been trying to get off the ground, and I’ve been busy with my film scoring, along with songwriting with the band. So I say, ‘Bring it all on.’ Luckily I have the energy and health to go with that mindset, so here’s hoping it goes on forever.”

Kevin agrees with the passion and work ethic. “I just like to create, whether it’s writing songs or acting, or directing or even doing silly things on TikTok. I like to wake up and create something new; I always have and was encouraged to do so by our parents.”

The Bacon Brothers will perform at Dosey Doe - The Big Barn on Saturday, September 10. Doors open at 6:30pm with dinner served until 7:30 before the concert. Tickets can be purchased at this link: https://www.woodlandsonline.com/evps/evitem.cfm?evid=161693.

(photo credit – Jeff Fasano)