JOURNAL EXCERPT: Siblings, Collaborators, and ND Guest Editors The Bacon Brothers Share a Passion for Storytelling

EDITOR’S NOTE: Below is an excerpt from a story in our Spring 2024 issue of No Depression, featuring the issues guest editors, The Bacon Brothers. You can read the whole story — and much more — in that issue, here. And please consider supporting No Depression with a subscription for more roots music journalism, in print and online, all year long.

Michael and Kevin Bacon have been playing music together for their entire lives. The acclaimed creative duo — older brother Michael is an Emmy award-winning film and television composer; younger brother Kevin is an A-list Hollywood actor and Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award-winner — have been writing and performing songs as The Bacon Brothers for nearly 30 years.

Their 12th studio release, the rollicking, yet reflective Ballad of the Brothers, comes out April 19. According to Michael, the title track “Ballad of the Brothers (The Willie Door)” — a honky-tonk-style tale about two “city slicker” brothers who bring down the house at the famed Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas — is semi-autobiographical.

Two East Coast brothers hit the road in an Edsel station wagon
They flipped a coin and they headed west to a random destination
If they saw this great big world, they’d get their lives on track

“One of the things I love about being in the band is traveling and taking everything in,” says Michael. “We end up in places you’d never be, like New Braunfels, and I love to wonder what life is like in those towns.”

Of the historic dance hall there, Michael continues, “Gruene Hall is this really idiosyncratic, historic place. … There’s no artist entrance, so you climb up some stairs and through this open window to get on stage.” The so-called “Willie Door” is named after legendary singer-songwriter and frequent Gruene Hall guest Willie Nelson.

As for the song’s genesis, Michael recalls, “The last time I was there, I was thinking of [me and Kevin] as two guys from Philly being in Texas, and this fantasy of two brothers who have nothing going for them and are total nerds taking a road trip and end up at Gruene Hall, and this Faustian kind of thing came to me.

“They don’t play guitars or have anything — all the sudden they transform and become these rock-and- roll stars,” he says of the song’s fictional brothers, whose moment in the spotlight mirrors the Bacons’ real-life fame.

Band of Brothers

Kevin and Michael’s transformation into professional musicians was much more gradual than the semi-autobiographical version in “Ballad of the Brothers (The Willie Door).”

Initially, the Bacon brothers followed different creative paths: Michael as a full-time performing musician, then a staff songwriter for Combine Music Publishing Co. in Nashville before becoming a composer for prestige projects such as Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. on PBS; Kevin as an in-demand Hollywood actor with roles in acclaimed films like Footloose and Apollo 13. But they continued to make music together and officially formed their sibling band, The Bacon Brothers, in 1995.

Kevin plays guitar, harmonica, and percussion, while Michael plays cello and guitar. The pair take turns singing and songwriting, occasionally working with co-writers, including for “Take Off This Tattoo” and “Losing the Night” on the new record.

The co-writing process reminds Michael of his early days as a staff songwriter: “You can be in the thick of songwriting with one or two people you’ve never met, and they ask you really personal questions, like, ‘How do you feel in your relationship when this happens?’ and it can be an uncomfortable thing,” he says. “But when you come up with a great song at the end of the day, it’s a really good feeling; strangers are no longer strangers, and you really have a bond.”

Despite Michael having the established career in the music industry, Kevin is actually the more disciplined writer of the two. He often captures inspiration in the moment via voice notes on his phone but jokes, “I never label them, so sometimes I go back and run through them just to hear what’s up.”

One of those ideas resulted in “Airport Bar,” a lush track about a doomed relationship, and the first song Kevin wrote for the new album: “I was walking through an airport with my bro and seeing people drinking at 9 a.m., waiting for the future,” he says. Another song, “Old Bronco,” is a tongue-in-cheek meditation on aging that took inspiration from his vintage 1969 truck.

Although Michael wrote “35 Cents,” that song is partially about his brother. It’s about “a songwriter and the person who has to live with them,” Michael explains. “A real songwriter never lets anything go; they can be walking down the street and see a sign and have an idea and stop and pull out their phone to capture it. My brother is really good at that.”

In addition to “35 Cents” and the title track, Michael penned “Let It Be Enough,” a tight harmony tune he says the brothers often sing as a pre-concert warmup along with vocal exercises to keep their voices sharp.

Like their voices, Michael says the brothers’ songwriting and musicality have only improved with time. “When I first started writing songs with Kevin, he didn’t even play the guitar,” he says. “He’d sing the melody, and I’d help him turn it into chords and charts.”

Now Kevin is a proficient guitarist and has a recording studio in his home. The two frequently pass tracks back and forth to share notes and arrangement ideas. And while Michael takes pride in drawing out his brother’s musical nature, The Bacon Brothers’ collaborators note their combined impressive technique and captivating style.

“Michael has this classically trained background that he uses to really stretch the musical aspect of a composition, and Kevin has a unique ease of painting pictures with lyrics to tell a story,” says Kimberly Kelly, who co-wrote “Take Off This Tattoo” with the brothers and her husband, fellow Nashville-based songwriter Brett Tyler.

“I a big fan of their writing and how … stylistically across the whole spectrum the music is,” says vocalist and violinist Brian Fitzgerald, who has recorded tracks with The Bacon Brothers since 2019 and is featured on “Take Off This Tattoo” and “Ballad of the Brothers (Willie Door)” on the new album. He’s also played a few live gigs with them over the past couple of years and notes that “the band is super tight with truly killer players, too.”

Business and Pleasure

Michael says that growing up, the close-knit Bacon family often played and listened to music together. His first family musical collaboration was a jug-style band with his sister, Hilda. The family listened to a wide range of music, from radio broadcasts of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra to 1970s-era singer-songwriters like Jim Croce and James Taylor to rock bands like Led Zeppelin and local Philly soul music.

These varied genres influence the duo’s unique sound, an amalgamation of folk, rock, soul, and country they call “forosoco” — also the title of their 1997 debut album. Like that first LP, Ballad of the Brothers reflects those diverse influences, from the folk-country sound of the title track to the Motown-inspired soul of “Put Your Hand Up” to the alt-rock edge of “Take Off This Tattoo.” The latter was produced by Kevin’s son, Travis, a composer and member of industrial band Contracult Collective.

Originally written as a country tune, Kevin says they felt the track “could be a rocker,” and Travis infused it with his “very modern electronic sensibility.” The song also features a fiddle solo — an unusual choice for a rock song, and another example of the brothers’ energetic, genre-defying sound. As Fitzgerald, who played the solo on the record, says, “I decided to lean into a gritty stankface kind of fiddle thing, and the live audience reaction to the song has been awesome.”

Touring can be difficult for two well-established creative professionals, though. Dates have to fit in between Michael’s teaching and composing projects, Kevin’s filming schedule, and the other band and crew members’ obligations. Still, like the record’s titular brothers, Kevin and Michael have headlined shows at Gruene Hall as well as storied venues like Carnegie Hall and the Grand Ole Opry. This summer, they also have some gigs confirmed in upstate New York.

“When you’re in business with someone, one of the basic necessities is trust, and with a family member, that’s embedded in the whole relationship,” explains Michael. “Most people mine and Kevin’s age are not going to spend three hours alone together driving to a gig, so this band gives us lots of opportunities other brothers don’t have time to do.”

The brothers savor every chance they get to play live together. “We travel with nine people and everyone has to be healthy, and some guys [in the band] have other jobs, too,” Michael says. “It’s kind of a rolling circus, and we couldn’t do it without fantastic management, agents, publicists, and a great group of musicians.”

Supporting the Next Generation

Already successful in their own lives and careers, the unadulterated joy of making music together keeps The Bacon Brothers going. Additionally, their passion for music education and integration shines through all their work.

That strong musical foundation the Bacons formed at home was also reinforced in the classroom when they were growing up. “We went to public school, and music, lessons, and instruments were part of the curriculum back then,” Kevin says. They remain committed to that cause.

In 2019, The Bacon Brothers served as ambassadors for the Grammy Music Education Coalition and hosted dozens of local high school musicians at a pre-show soundcheck to talk about their careers in music. They also want to make sure budding musicians get access to instruments. In 2022, Kevin wrote an ode to his hometown, “Philly Thing,” with proceeds from the digital track and music video providing $15,000 worth of instruments to Philadelphia-area children and teens involved in Rock to the Future, an organization that offers free student-driven music programs. In the past, they’ve also worked with New York City-based classical radio station WQXR to distribute donated instruments to student musicians in city schools.

The joy they found in music in their youth keeps them returning to the studio and the stage, even after 12 records and nearly 30 years of touring. Says Michael, “As long as we keep collaborating and writing songs and working with these guys in the band, and it’s something we both really enjoy doing, we’ll get up on that stage for an hour and a half and play.”