The Bacon Brothers, Kevin & Michael, talk about their inspirations & tour headed our way

With an autoharp now in their arsenal, the Bacon Brothers head back our way, bringing star power and a collection of original "Forosoco" songs ― a description the siblings coined for their meld of folk, rock, soul and country-flavored tunes.

"We haven't played for a while, so it's going to be good to get out," Kevin Bacon, the film star and co-lyricist/vocalist with brother Michael Bacon, said. "We've been making a lot of music, and putting recorded music together, so live is great. I think we're going to try to work in some new stuff. It's always a good test for new tunes."

The Bacon Brothers' most recent recording, "Philly Thing," is a playful ode to their hometown, with shout-outs to the greats (Teddy Pendergrass, Hall & Oates, Joe Frazier) and the city's traits (Kevin soulfully singing "ask me sometimes why I don't think before I speak/Ask me why I've never learned to look before I leap ....")

Ahead of that November release, last spring, came the Bacon Brothers' five-song EP, "Erato," featuring the stripped-back soul of "Dark Chocolate Eyes," the acoustic-based "Karaoke Town," and the sun-kissed island-pop of "Let Me Happen," which had begun as an instrumental passage composer Michael had written two decades ago for a TV show. For one of the rare times in their 10-album history, the Bacon Brothers collaborated with a songwriter, notably hitmaker Desmond Child (Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer,") on the pop-rocker "In Memory (Of When I Cared)."

Any one of those songs, and an unreleased tune or two from their forthcoming release, could pop up in their upcoming run of shows that kicks off April 28 at Jergel's Rhythm Grille in Warrendale, Pa.

Further ahead is April 30 at Center For The Arts in Homer, N.Y. ; June 1 at Bottle & Cork in Dewey Beach, Del.; June 2 at Sugar Loaf Performing Arts Center in Chester, N.Y.; June 4 at Point of The Bluff Vineyards in Hammondsport, N.Y.; June 9 at the Milford Theater in Milford, Pa.; June 10 in the Newton Theater in Newton, N.J.; and a four-show run June 16-17 at Rams Head on Stage in Annapolis, Md.

"We've written a shocking amount of songs about Philadelphia," Kevin said in an April 17 phone interview. "We've got a song we do in the show called 'Picker' I wrote about Michael being a kid and walking around Philly and seeing a guitar in the window and wanting to be a musician. We've also got a song called 'British Invasion,' which I also wrote about Michael's childhood, strangely, of him going to a British Invasion rock show and falling in love with a girl. I wrote a song, 'New Year's Day,' about a kid who was the son of a Mummer. The crazy thing is I'm really a New Yorker. I moved there when I was 17 and so the amount of time I spent in New York is way, way longer than the time I spent in Philadelphia, but those are formative years and I have very fond memories of the city."

The Bacon Brothers proudly represent their upbringing in "Philly Thing," a song with a charitable component benefitting Rock to The Future, the organization that provides musical instruments and recording opportunities for under-served kids in the Philly area.

"It's music through education, which is something near and dear to our hearts, so it was great to work with them," Kevin said.

On April 29, the Bacon Brothers will appear, though are not scheduled to perform, at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia for the Rock to the Future Ball fundraiser.

The Kevin-written track "Dark Chocolate Eyes" suggests a '70s Philly soul influence.

"I think it's not so much of an homage as it's just in me," he said. "It's just there. I just like it. When I was a kid, I liked folk music and rock music. a lot of stuff; I wasn't as influenced as much by classical and show tunes as my brother is, but soul music was really huge to me. That's what I listened to, a lot of on WDAS in Philadelphia that played Philly Soul and Motown. I love those kinds of grooves. The first thing I played was percussion, so that was a time in music when a lot of people were using conga drums and all kinds of hand percussion. You don't hear that as much anymore in pop music."

Kevin wrote "Karaoke Town," with its key lyric about a person dropping a plastic microphone and leaving a karaoke bar, looking to conjure the courage to step out of his or her comfort zone.

"I don't like to be too mysterious, because I find that kind of irritating, but that one's almost hard for me to really put my finger on," Kevin said. "It's about my children; the first verse is about my daughter, the second verse is about my son. Both of my children grew up in Manhattan. They were dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers. And both of them ended up in Los Angeles. And karaoke, to me, is a really fun thing. I don't like it myself, but a lot of people get pleasure from it and obviously, it's very popular. But to me, it's the antithesis of the karaoke process because you're not picking up the instrument and playing something. You're not creating something. and both of my children are intensely creative in the things that they do. And I think that song is about embracing that individualistic creativity, but also individualism of how you live their life. And to pick up and make a big change in their life, which they both did."

Kevin's son, Travis, produced "Karaoke Town," and tweaked its sound to add atmospherics.

"I wrote it as a Neil Young, acoustic-driven thing but I felt what I had wasn't enough and that there was another place it could go, and I knew Trav would have a very interesting take on it because he thinks electronically," Kevin said.

Able to join the phone interview for a few minutes, Michael said one of the duo's forthcoming new songs he wrote "doesn't really fit in any category though maybe it's reminiscent of 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia,' in that I'm a cellist and the hero of the piece is a cellist. It tells the story of these two nerdy brothers who take a road trip to Texas and they play this roadhouse my brother and I have played many times. I think it's the oldest dance hall in Texas."

Why do the Bacon Brothers feel it's important to embrace so many musical styles?

"It's not that it's important, it just keeps happening," Kevin said with a laugh. "I don't really know how to stop it. We just don't write in the same style every time. We like to experiment with new instrumentation. When we wrote 'Erato' my brother said, 'You know what this needs? An autoharp.' I was like, 'An autoharp? What, now? We're going to have to start carrying around an autoharp?' Sure enough, he went out and bought one and we take it along on tour, and it's great for the song. Having two different songwriters definitely works in that way. He just makes it more melodically and harmonically than I do, I think more rhythmically. Our sound is a lack of a sound, I guess."

The "Erato" title track takes its name from the Greek muse of poetry, music and eroticism, and finds Kevin singing for inspiration to break a writing dry spell.

"It's a silly notion but it really is true," Kevin said. "I was doing a movie in a little town in Georgia, and I was in this tiny, tiny apartment and for whatever reason I didn't bring a guitar down with me. I thought I'll just pick up something cheap. I hadn't written a song for a long time. The tap was dry. And I have this fear that every time I write something that's the last one I'm going to write. I don't know where I saw or heard about Erato, it might have been a crossword puzzle or something like that. But I found a local music store half an hour away and bought a guitar for $150 and all of a sudden just thinking about her and thinking about this idea that there could be such a thing as a muse ― I'm not a spiritual person; I don't believe in ghosts and a lot of stuff ― though I think it was just fun. And kind of ironic that the first thing that I wrote when I got back to it was a song inspired by a mythical creature. Pretty much right after that I wrote 'Dark Chocolate Eyes' and began demo-ing those songs and working on them at a really great studio in Atlanta."

Featured on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" and in the Grand Ole Opry's 20th Anniversary Sept. 11th tribute, the Bacon Brothers tour as a five-piece band.

Concertgoers can expect a few quick stories on the genesis of Bacon Brothers songs, "but it's not (VH1) 'Storytellers,'" Kevin said. "We like people to have a good time. We know they traveled a long way and go through a lot to get there and spend their hard-earned money."

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In their 2008 show at The Palace Theatre in Greensburg, Pa., when the Bacon Brothers announced they had one song left to sing, the enthusiastic audience shouted for "Footloose," though the band performed its cover of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" as planned. Fast forward to this past July, and tour dates in New England, where the Bacon Brothers setlists ended with "Footloose," the Kenny Loggins theme from Kevin's breakout film.

A case of ask-and-you-shall-receive?

"It's kind of strange because when someone screams for 'Footloose' it almost feels like that was our hit song, which of course it wasn't," Michael said. "Our connection to it is completely different. But I look at it as when we play the song, it just makes people happy and makes them smile and they get very excited, and we are entertainers. We do it because it's really fun for the audience."

Michael said six songs are written for the next album, "and when it's all done we'll figure out when it comes out, but we've definitely got a lot of new stuff. I think we'll try to do (a new one) on this tour. We do have a rehearsal in a week-and-a-half."

"We definitely have to work on 'Philly Thing,'" Kevin added. "How do you think that'll play in Pittsburgh?"

Hmm.. maybe if they also name-drop Gritty, the Philadelphia Flyers mascot whose likeness appears in the song's video.

"Yeah," Kevin said. "That would go over really well."

Scott Tady is entertainment editor at the Beaver County Times and easy to reach at stady@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: The Bacon Brothers, Kevin & Michael, talk inspirations & tour launch