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Bring on the Bacon! The Princeton Festival Features The Bacon Brothers · Jersey Arts Podcast

0:03
Gina Marie Rodriguez: This is Gina Marie Rodriguez, and you're listening to the Jersey Arts Podcast.
0:07
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Today I'm speaking with the Bacon Brothers.
0:10
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yes, that is Hollywood A-lister Kevin Bacon and Emmy Award-winning composer Michael Bacon.
0:16
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The siblings have spent the better part of three decades creating their own mix of folk, rock, soul, and country music.
0:22
Gina Marie Rodriguez: They call that diverse sound Horosoko.
0:25
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And it's taken them around the world, from headlining games in Japan to American performances at iconic venues like Carnegie Hall, The Grand O'Loffrey, and Green Hall.
0:36
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Their last album, entitled Ballad of the Brothers, highlights the differences between the two siblings.
0:41
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And their latest release, a single called People in the World, is an anthem highlighting the good in the world.
0:47
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And if you stay tuned for the end of the episode, you'll get to hear that song in full.
0:51
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The Bacon Brothers summer tour is bringing them to the Morgan Museum and Garden with the Princeton Festival this June.
0:57
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Stick around to learn more about the band and music and film as I chat with Kevin Bacon and Michael, who joins us a little bit later in the conversation.
1:05
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I wanted to start by asking you the tough question, and then we'll get easier from there.
1:12
Kevin Bacon: Okay.
1:13
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I know that you're from Philly, but I need you to pick your favorite thing about your neighbor, New Jersey, and tell me why it's your favorite thing.
1:21
Kevin Bacon: That's really easy.
1:22
Kevin Bacon: We have never, and it's totally related to the Bacon Brothers, we've never played a bad show in New Jersey.
1:29
Kevin Bacon: It's never been not great.
1:31
Kevin Bacon: And I don't can't really under explain that.
1:35
Kevin Bacon: I think that really early in with the band, we kind of had a drop-in relationship uh with WPLJ, which was a is a uh radio station in in New York radio station, but it had a big listening um base in New Jersey.
1:55
Kevin Bacon: And this is back when you know radio was like a thing, you know, before streaming and before the podcasts.
2:01
Kevin Bacon: And uh we just had a fan base and and have for for a long time.
2:09
Kevin Bacon: Now I would say if we've played a lot of states, I don't I don't I think there's a state we haven't played, maybe Alaska, but but I I mean I know we haven't played Alaska, but I'm I'm sure there's others, but but we've played most of them.
2:22
Kevin Bacon: And I in in my my opinion, New Jersey is is the best.
2:28
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, that's good to hear.
2:29
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And you picked the right podcast to say it on, so thank you.
2:32
Kevin Bacon: I'm not just and I'm not just making that up.
2:34
Kevin Bacon: I I always I always tell people that.
2:36
Kevin Bacon: Never never had a bad show in New Jersey.
2:39
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I think that's amazing.
2:40
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And you're gonna be at the Morvan Museum and Garden soon for the Princeton Festival, which I guess I just want to know what we can expect, what our audience is looking forward to from that performance.
2:50
Kevin Bacon: Well, you know, we've been making music for, I don't know, well, since 95, I think the band was put together.
2:58
Kevin Bacon: Um our stuff, you know, the when we first had the the our first record, I came up with this dumb, you know, name for the kind of music that we play, which is Furro Soko.
3:10
Kevin Bacon: And that was the name of the first record.
3:12
Kevin Bacon: And it stands for Folk Rock Soul Country.
3:15
Kevin Bacon: So essentially, it's a blend of the music that we kind of grew up with and enjoy and continue to uh listen to, and and um, you know, some of the songs you're not gonna get sort of like a sound of the band that's gonna stay for the whole show, you know what I mean?
3:34
Kevin Bacon: It's we we have a pretty big variety of uh stuff.
3:37
Kevin Bacon: Eclectic.
3:38
Kevin Bacon: Eclectic, yeah.
3:40
Kevin Bacon: And I think part of that is also because we have two writers in the band.
3:44
Kevin Bacon: So uh my stuff, there's there's a lot of crossover, but my stuff tends to be um sort of one way, and Mike's tends to be kind of a different way.
3:56
Kevin Bacon: And and we sort of split the set so that whoever wrote the song does the lead vocal uh generally.
4:03
Kevin Bacon: And you know, our band is fantastic.
4:08
Kevin Bacon: Uh some of the players have been with us since the band first got together.
4:13
Kevin Bacon: Absolutely incredible uh players.
4:17
Kevin Bacon: My brother and I are playing guitars, harmonica, uh percussion.
4:25
Kevin Bacon: Michael plays cello for a bunch of songs.
4:28
Kevin Bacon: He's a very good cello player.
4:29
Kevin Bacon: Um we have electric guitars, acoustic guitars, mandolins, ukuleles, drums, percussion, bass, keys, vocals.
4:40
Kevin Bacon: There's like it looks like a music store up there.
4:42
Kevin Bacon: Um so if you like live music, um we're not a cover band.
4:46
Kevin Bacon: That's that's one thing that uh you know we always have to kind of clarify.
4:51
Kevin Bacon: Uh, you know, it's it's really that's the assumption people make.
4:55
Kevin Bacon: Well, I think um I mean, I think that's you uh hopefully not at this point because we've been doing it for so long, but but I think that that sometimes people would assume that, you know, it's uh you know, there's a celebrity in the band, and you know, you're just gonna play Mustang Sally or something.
5:13
Kevin Bacon: I don't know.
5:14
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well Well, I mean I guess I can understand that apprehension, but I mean your music is wonderful, and I wanted to I I actually wanted to bring up people in the world, if I can, for a second, because I think as a world, we are going through something insane every day.
5:31
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The news is just frightening.
5:33
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Uh, and I find that song really emotional and inspirational.
5:38
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Um, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what that song means to you and what playing it feels like for you.
5:44
Kevin Bacon: Well, unfortunately, that's my brother's song, and he's not here.
5:47
Kevin Bacon: Um, but I I know you're in the video though, right?
5:49
Gina Marie Rodriguez: You play percussion, no?
5:50
Kevin Bacon: Yeah, I play percussion, yeah.
5:51
Kevin Bacon: I play I play percussion on it.
5:53
Kevin Bacon: Um, you know, he he he he brought that song um fully formed to to us and to the band, and it's it um it's kind of a collaboration between uh a young artist named Mayer, who uh is also in the video uh and plays in our band now.
6:14
Kevin Bacon: And so they yeah, so they do it as a as a duet.
6:18
Kevin Bacon: Uh and and yeah, I mean uh I mean it's such a nice nice idea.
6:24
Kevin Bacon: We just need more people in the world like you.
6:26
Kevin Bacon: I mean, it's it's a it's uh you know, it's a it's a positive, and I I people really like it and they really respond to it.
6:35
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, well, I mean, uh I'm sorry that Michael isn't here, but I did want to bring it up because in the music video, I believe you're also highlighting your organization as well.
6:43
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Six degrees.
6:44
Kevin Bacon: Six degrees, yeah.
6:45
Kevin Bacon: Yeah.
6:46
Gina Marie Rodriguez: If we could touch on what your organization does.
6:48
Kevin Bacon: Sure, yeah.
6:48
Kevin Bacon: Six degrees is something that I started uh many, many years ago.
6:52
Kevin Bacon: I guess I maybe 2007 we launched, and it was just kind of like a time in my life when I really wanted to, I don't know, kind of step outside of myself.
7:01
Kevin Bacon: You know, being an actor uh is a very self-involved kind of gig.
7:06
Kevin Bacon: You know what I mean?
7:07
Kevin Bacon: You really you have to if you want to make it, I think when you're young, you really have to be focused pretty heavily on me, me, me, me, me.
7:16
Kevin Bacon: And I think that at some point uh if you are a growing and evolving human being, you make a decision that you want to do something outside of yourself, you know, um, and your own self-interests.
7:31
Kevin Bacon: And so I decided to, you know, put something together and and there were so many things that I cared about.
7:39
Kevin Bacon: You know, you mentioned everything that goes on in the world, and they were so and it was hard for me to kind of like focus.
7:45
Kevin Bacon: And so I thought, well, why don't we it is eventually evolved into an organization that supports a bunch of different nonprofits that are smaller and probably don't get a lot of um help help either financially or from celebrities, you know.
8:02
Kevin Bacon: But it's people in the in communities that are doing you know great work.
8:07
Kevin Bacon: In you know, um children, environment, social justice.
8:12
Kevin Bacon: And I'm I'll give you a good example because it's it's Philly, you know, based.
8:18
Kevin Bacon: And you know, I I I think of South Jersey as like an extension of Philly in some ways.
8:24
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So do I, honestly.
8:25
Kevin Bacon: Yeah, yeah.
8:26
Kevin Bacon: I mean, we we used to we used to go down the shore as kids, and you know, that's where we went.
8:31
Kevin Bacon: And you know, we're right across the the bridge from from Cherry Hill, you know.
8:36
Kevin Bacon: So it's like you know, it's very I I I kind of put those things into one bucket.
8:41
Kevin Bacon: But uh this this organization called Rock to the Future uh is an organization that we kind of tracked um uh uh Stacy Houston who runs sixdegrees.org found them and uh we partnered with them on a song um and brought uh these kids into play on it.
9:02
Kevin Bacon: And it's a it's a fantastic group that puts uh music lessons and instruments in the hands of underserved kids.
9:10
Kevin Bacon: And music education is something that Michael and I have always been you know really fond of because you know, coming up through the public school system, we were given instruments.
9:19
Kevin Bacon: That was just a thing.
9:20
Kevin Bacon: They just put an instrument in your hand when you were a kid.
9:23
Kevin Bacon: You you either learned it or you didn't, but it was in that you had the opportunity.
9:27
Kevin Bacon: I don't I think that's completely gone.
9:29
Kevin Bacon: Like I don't know the you know, the kids that I know don't aren't handed a trombone or a or a unless they are they're wealthy enough to you know get pay for classes or or do things outside of of this.
9:40
Kevin Bacon: So this is an organization that um raises money to have these after-school programs for kids in in the Philly area who are uh you know playing music.
9:52
Kevin Bacon: I always like to say that you know when you're playing music, you know, people aren't getting hurt.
9:55
Kevin Bacon: So so that's a that's that's that's an example of of of six degrees, and and we have intersected with the band and six degrees for some time now.
10:06
Kevin Bacon: In fact, on this on this tour, we have a uh kind of like a tie-in, which is fun where you can nominate someone who you think is a good person in the world.
10:17
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I saw that.
10:18
Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's amazing.
10:19
Kevin Bacon: Yeah, yeah, it's cool.
10:20
Kevin Bacon: And and people are, you know, they come, they ticket to the show, and you know, come say hi.
10:25
Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's great.
10:26
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Do you get a lot of nominations for that?
10:28
Kevin Bacon: I don't even know.
10:28
Kevin Bacon: I'm not really even tracking it.
10:30
Kevin Bacon: But I'm I don't know.
10:32
Kevin Bacon: I don't know.
10:33
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, I think it's an amazing idea.
10:35
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And I love all of the work that Six Degrees is doing and that the band is, you know, jointly working on together.
10:40
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I thank you for that.
10:42
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I do appreciate it.
10:43
Kevin Bacon: Yeah.
10:43
Gina Marie Rodriguez: But I guess I should ask you what new music is on the horizon.
10:47
Kevin Bacon: Well, let's see.
10:49
Kevin Bacon: Uh, we're trying to put together a live record.
10:52
Kevin Bacon: Um, I think that even after all these albums, for me, the the you know, one of the things that you're always kind of chasing in the studio is is the feeling that you have when you play something live.
11:04
Kevin Bacon: And I think that especially in this day and age when, you know, people feel like everything can be fixed or created or done by AI or whatever it is, you know, to go out and hear a band and it's clearly us singing and playing our instruments, you know, is something that is hopefully not gonna get lost in the course of time, you know.
11:32
Kevin Bacon: So I think that that's part of why we wanted to do a live record.
11:36
Kevin Bacon: My brother's been really kind of like the champion of of this.
11:40
Kevin Bacon: And that is uh we we just recorded basically one show.
11:45
Kevin Bacon: Uh where were we?
11:47
Kevin Bacon: Some place I can't remember, someplace in the south, I think, or Texas, or I'm not sure.
11:52
Kevin Bacon: Uh and uh it's it sounds really good.
11:56
Kevin Bacon: So I I think that's gonna be next.
11:59
Kevin Bacon: Um uh I know Mike's got a new song.
12:02
Kevin Bacon: I'm having a little bit of a dry spell, uh, but I do have some things that I'd like to cut, a few things that I'd like to cut.
12:09
Kevin Bacon: Uh and you know, finding the time to get into the studio with our other busy lives is is always difficult, but I'm sure there's gonna be some new music down the pike.
12:19
Kevin Bacon: There there has been for so many years, you know.
12:23
Kevin Bacon: It's this process where you know you wonder why how you end up with so many records, and it's it's because you write the songs, it's actually the the thing that has kind of kept the band going is you write the songs, you play the songs, you go, hmm.
12:40
Kevin Bacon: I don't know, is this a good song?
12:42
Kevin Bacon: I don't know.
12:42
Kevin Bacon: I kind of like this.
12:43
Kevin Bacon: I don't know.
12:44
Kevin Bacon: Let me play it for my wife, and then she goes, hmm.
12:48
Kevin Bacon: You know, and then uh you play it for your brother.
12:53
Kevin Bacon: Both of us tend to demo our stuff uh individually because I think sometimes we'll just send it and share it, you know, really stripped down, just acoustic.
13:07
Kevin Bacon: But a lot of times when you write, you sort of envision a kind of feel and uh instrumentation and all that kind of stuff.
13:15
Kevin Bacon: Background vocals.
13:17
Kevin Bacon: Michael loves background vocals, and uh then we share it with each other, eventually we share it with the band, and they learn it, and then we put it out in front of the audience, and once you've played it and you say people are like, Oh yeah, I dig that.
13:34
Kevin Bacon: Then you want to cut it.
13:36
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, I mean, the process is fascinating to me.
13:39
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm not a musician, I can't sing, I can't play.
13:41
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, I sort of remember how to play Yankee Doodle one-handed on the piano, and that's that's that's my real claim to fame there.
13:48
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, it's a classic.
13:52
Kevin Bacon: Classic.
13:52
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Um, but I I like to ask every musician that I interview um what encouragement or advice you might give to up-and-comers, specifically like young people who are dreaming of being a musician.
14:06
Kevin Bacon: Do something else.
14:08
Kevin Bacon: I feel this way about when people ask me about acting as well, or or any kind of career career in the in the creative arts.
14:17
Kevin Bacon: If you can, if if I can tell you that you're making a mistake and you should go and do something else, and you can go, you know what, screw you, Kevin Bacon.
14:29
Kevin Bacon: I'm gonna do this anyway, then you're like the right person to do it, because you're signing yourself up for uh a lifetime of um struggle and no's and rejection and uh and disappointment.
14:46
Kevin Bacon: And and I and if if you're uh uh an actor and a musician, and especially if you're an actor who wants to be a musician, you're also setting yourself up for a tremendous amount of criticism, and especially in this in this day and age, you know, with um social media, because that's probably where you're going to you know put your stuff out, and probably where you're gonna get some you know really nasty, you know, comments.
15:14
Kevin Bacon: And so I would say do something else, but if you really have to do it, don't read the comments.
15:22
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I think that's all really valid at the news.
15:24
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah.
15:25
Gina Marie Rodriguez: But you also brought up something before about AI.
15:28
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I feel like now people are competing with AI, you're competing with like artificial music as well.
15:35
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I keep seeing that all over social media.
15:37
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Um, I think that new viral Puerto Rico song was AI created.
15:43
Michael Bacon: I might hi guys, sorry.
15:45
Michael Bacon: I had to take a delivery at the head, and it took longer than I expected.
15:49
Michael Bacon: I'm in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the woods.
15:51
Michael Bacon: Hi, Gina.
15:52
Kevin Bacon: Hi, how are you?
15:53
Michael Bacon: I'm great.
15:54
Kevin Bacon: I just got completely duped.
15:57
Kevin Bacon: Uh and it was it really bothered me because I heard this song.
16:04
Kevin Bacon: It was not just a song, it was a video of the artist doing it.
16:10
Kevin Bacon: And I loved it.
16:12
Kevin Bacon: And it was a song about growing older and and um and he was a great singer, you know.
16:20
Kevin Bacon: And I sent it to Kira, and she was like, God, that's a beautiful song.
16:26
Kevin Bacon: And then about 10 seconds later, she wrote back and said, I think it's AI, and I was like, Oh no.
16:31
Michael Bacon: How did she know?
16:33
Kevin Bacon: Uh she might have looked it up.
16:34
Kevin Bacon: I'm I'm not really sure.
16:36
Kevin Bacon: But she might have she might have looked it up.
16:39
Kevin Bacon: But it was it wasn't just a song, it was like the the video, the guy looks real.
16:45
Kevin Bacon: I mean, so it's it's uh I I you know it's it's one thing when you go, well, I don't use Chat GPT, you know.
16:53
Kevin Bacon: Uh you know, that's a personal choice.
16:56
Kevin Bacon: It's another thing when you without even realizing it, you it's fed to you and you you know absorb it.
17:03
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So yeah, it's disappointing when you realize, and I again I just said that I'm not a musician, right?
17:09
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I was wondering if there's a way that a musician can hear the difference, or if it really is that good that you're not picking up on it.
17:17
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And that's scary, honestly.
17:20
Michael Bacon: Well, I think it would be a lot like I mean, in music technology, there's always something like when music technology went from uh a tube to solid state, and all the the recording engineers would sit around after a couple of glasses of wine and talk for 12 hours straight about how they could tell a difference, and then it went to digital, and then they said, Well, the old analog stuff sounds better than the digital, and it's just it's always gonna be this way.
17:50
Michael Bacon: There's always gonna be something, and unfortunately, the pe the really the main class of people that suffer are live musicians, yeah, and that's um one of the things I feel so strongly about, and also that I teach my students is if you do live music, um whatever you do at that moment will never be redone.
18:13
Michael Bacon: I don't care if it can become part of AI, but at that moment, there's never been anything exactly like that and never will be in the future until it's ditch digitized.
18:23
Michael Bacon: But um I think originality is always the challenge in um any breaking into any kind of popular entertainment.
18:32
Michael Bacon: So um for me, the biggest challenge is I teach, let's see, about a hundred students a year that are in classes called writing intensive, which means I gotta hire they have to do a lot of term papers.
18:49
Michael Bacon: And it's completely obsolete.
18:51
Michael Bacon: There's no way, there's there's no reason even to assign them, except if you think, well, copying and pasting is a learning uh process, maybe it is, but it's just completely destroyed any kind of um writing uh pedagogy as far as I'm concerned.
19:09
Michael Bacon: Maybe I'm just not good enough at it.
19:10
Michael Bacon: Pedagogy, damn, that's a I don't what's that word?
19:14
Michael Bacon: Pedagogy, isn't it a horrible word?
19:16
Michael Bacon: It's sort of well, it's a method of teaching.
19:19
Michael Bacon: Um so if you if you were teaching someone guitar and you your pedagogy was flat picking or your pedagogy was um uh finger style, that would those would that's how that would fit in.
19:31
Michael Bacon: Yeah.
19:32
Michael Bacon: And you never have to hear the word again, Kev.
19:35
Michael Bacon: That's it.
19:35
Michael Bacon: No, no, I want to use it.
19:36
Michael Bacon: I want to use it.
19:38
Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's definitely an interesting sounding word, that's for sure.
19:41
Michael Bacon: I hate it.
19:41
Michael Bacon: It sounds awful.
19:43
Gina Marie Rodriguez: But I was gonna say, you you brought up a good point.
19:45
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I work in a university as well, and we used to assign papers for extra credit, and I we no longer do that, and we make the students submit basically video oral presentations.
19:56
Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's a theater class and they have to review theater productions.
20:00
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And it used to be a one-page paper, but I don't want to read Chat GPT papers anymore.
20:06
Kevin Bacon: Like that's that's kind of genius that they have to if you're not gonna write, you have to actually be you on talking on video.
20:16
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah.
20:16
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Are they you'd be surprised how they still use AI to do that?
20:20
Michael Bacon: Yes.
20:20
Michael Bacon: I wouldn't be surprised.
20:22
Michael Bacon: One of the things I was I was doing is assigning one major paper that I make the assignment freehand, and it's based on a um a webinar that I make them watch, and then they have to submit the papers in freehand on a with a pencil.
20:39
Michael Bacon: And as you said, Gene, probably they'll figure out a way of getting around that, but at least for the time being, it feels like they're having to do something that's outside of their their new their usual wheelhouse.
20:51
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah.
20:52
Gina Marie Rodriguez: For me, it's that they have to put energy into it, like additional energy into it.
20:56
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So hopefully it'll stick in their brain that way.
20:59
Gina Marie Rodriguez: But anyway, we don't have we don't have to talk about um teaching uh the whole time.
21:03
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I I know I only have a few more minutes with you.
21:05
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I guess one question I wanted to ask each of you is how do you feel that being a musician informs your worldview?
21:13
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Like, do you see musicality in everyday life?
21:15
Gina Marie Rodriguez: How does music affect your world?
21:19
Michael Bacon: Well, I guess I'm kind of like somebody from spaceship music.
21:23
Michael Bacon: I wouldn't know, I can't really uh compare it to something because I've just something I've always done.
21:28
Michael Bacon: It's always been the most important thing to me.
21:31
Michael Bacon: And um the thing that I love about being a musician that I don't think applies to every kind of um, you know, any every kind of career is you can never you can learn forever.
21:44
Michael Bacon: There's no limit where you all of a sudden you know everything.
21:47
Michael Bacon: And um, you know, I'm learning stuff from my students all the time.
21:51
Michael Bacon: I'm learning stuff from the band, from my film scoring, and uh, I just have a thirst for it, and I soak it up like And um as long as that keeps going, whatever music is, I'm happy to be a part of it.
22:07
Gina Marie Rodriguez: When you are, each of you, you're obviously involved in the film industry to one degree or another, but when you're watching a film that you were not a part of, do you ever listen to the score and find yourself saying, I would have done this differently?
22:21
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Maybe maybe I'm not sure.
22:22
Michael Bacon: Oh God, I've driven all of my students, my relatives absolutely insane from that exact thing.
22:29
Michael Bacon: It it it it just you go, what is that?
22:33
Michael Bacon: Why did they do that?
22:34
Michael Bacon: Why would a director think that that was enhancing the uh emotional and um creative delivery of this scene when the music takes absolutely no point of view and is just basically a bunch of marshmallows going by the ears.
22:50
Kevin Bacon: Yeah, I mean I find that it's it's it's one of three things.
22:55
Kevin Bacon: Either I am unaware of it, and therefore I think that's a win because I'm wrapped up in the film and watching.
23:04
Kevin Bacon: Um as as important as music is, you know, I'm a I'm a director as well as a musician and an actor, you know.
23:11
Kevin Bacon: I think that it's you know, it's it's the the the story and the development of the characters could have to be the most important thing.
23:22
Kevin Bacon: You could have a, I mean just throw Michael knows a lot more about composing than I do, but doesn't the birds have no music at all?
23:32
Michael Bacon: It certainly doesn't.
23:33
Michael Bacon: It's great for teaching film scoring because then you have a good film that has no cat music.
23:39
Michael Bacon: And just to follow up, Kevin, what um what you just said, that isn't to say that the music, good music for films, is supposed to be listened to for its own sake.
23:51
Michael Bacon: And one of the things I tell my students all the time is uh if you want to be an art composer, go be an art composer.
23:56
Michael Bacon: But if you're a really good art composer, you probably won't be able to take it because film music is craft.
24:01
Michael Bacon: And it's only as successful as it as it helps the director get back to their original vision of what the scene is gonna be from the time it went under the script to the time in the in pre-production, post-production.
24:16
Kevin Bacon: So and then the second reaction that you can have is oh I I love this, I love this music.
24:24
Kevin Bacon: It's kind of but I think mostly that's a little bit more I I I think that tends to happen for me at least a little bit more in needle drops than score.
24:38
Kevin Bacon: You know, you go, oh, this was a good this was a good choice, you know, even if it's like source background, what we call source, you know, something that's playing at a bar and that you're supposed to hear through the jukebox, you know, that was a good that was a good choice for the scene.
24:51
Kevin Bacon: And the third option is that you listen to it, you go, like Michael said, what were they thinking?
24:57
Kevin Bacon: This is taking me right out of the movie.
25:00
Kevin Bacon: I was uh I'm or or or not only is it taking me out of the movie, it's just not interesting.
25:07
Kevin Bacon: It's not good.
25:08
Kevin Bacon: It's it it it feels like the same crap that's you know been fed us, you know, so many times.
25:14
Kevin Bacon: And there's so you know, there's a lot of conventions in filmmaking um of you know things that we just kind of accept.
25:22
Kevin Bacon: Not to get too deep into it, but the whole idea of screen direction is completely made up of kind of a convention that our eye now thinks of as as as the right way that the films are supposed to look.
25:33
Kevin Bacon: But there's also a lot of conventions, musical conventions that you're you're kind of supposed to do this during this kind of moment, and when it's when you've seen it a zillion times, it it does get old.
25:47
Kevin Bacon: Except that it always works.
25:50
Michael Bacon: Yeah, but it doesn't always work.
25:51
Michael Bacon: I I don't think a pedal tone is always gonna work.
25:56
Michael Bacon: Because it's an invisible way of drawing the the uh viewer into it, and the brain, since the note never changes, let me give you an example though.
26:07
Kevin Bacon: So pedal tone works, but if I if I'm watching a movie and there's a it's it's supposed to be a sad moment, and once again they use a cello pedal tone, I'm like, can you find another instrument to make me feel sad other than a cello cello?
26:22
Michael Bacon: No, no, petal tone is a little bit different.
26:23
Michael Bacon: Like I'll give you an example.
26:25
Michael Bacon: In um uh what's the movie?
26:28
Michael Bacon: Oh god, here we go with it.
26:30
Michael Bacon: Anyway, it's a really beautiful score, and it has an A, A48, going through the piece for six minutes.
26:39
Michael Bacon: A lot of stuff going around around it.
26:42
Michael Bacon: There's and um but that note is doesn't change.
26:48
Michael Bacon: And what that does to the viewer, it allows the music to dissipate into the screen and sucks the viewer in.
26:55
Michael Bacon: And if you didn't keep that, the the psychologically the brain is gonna want something to hold you into the scene.
27:03
Michael Bacon: But I totally agree.
27:04
Michael Bacon: If you if you know cello, yeah, that's a dangerous instrument for for uh you know smalty um and oh my god, I I'm a college press, right?
27:15
Michael Bacon: Stop me, please.
27:16
Michael Bacon: Stop me.
27:16
Michael Bacon: We have another interview.
27:19
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I find this fascinating.
27:20
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm a filmmaker, I love film, so I find all of this really fascinating, especially as someone who doesn't have the musical ability.
27:27
Gina Marie Rodriguez: But I I have this reaction, and I'm the only person that I've spoken to who has this reaction so far.
27:33
Gina Marie Rodriguez: If I watch a horror film with a certain score, if the score is doing its job, like I will sound so stupid, but like I get nauseous because I can't I don't like being afraid.
27:47
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So if the music has done its job, like my whole body is reacting in a very negative way to that, which is the main reason I can't watch horror is because the music does some.
27:57
Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's not the jump scares, it's not the premise, it's the music that makes me physically uncomfortable.
28:05
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Um and I think it's fascinating that music has that capability to, and again, I don't know who else responds this way.
28:12
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm still the only person I know who gets physically ill, but I'm I'm curious if you've ever heard that or if you understand.
28:20
Kevin Bacon: James Wan is a very, very, very successful um scary movie maker.
28:25
Kevin Bacon: Um you know, he's made tons of very scary movies, and he has said that the number one uh thing that makes things scary or not is music and sound design, which are sometimes pretty much overlap, you know, in in in horror.
28:44
Kevin Bacon: There's a lot of that.
28:46
Kevin Bacon: And uh I I think you're I think you're absolutely right about that.
28:51
Kevin Bacon: He said more than camera, more than performance, more than you know, who needs actors.
28:55
Kevin Bacon: You gotta have great music and great sound design.
28:57
Michael Bacon: Well, Gina, the next time someone comes up to me and says, I saw your film with your music and it made me sick, I'll take the time from you.
29:05
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, it it will be.
29:07
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So you're welcome.
29:08
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Now you know you understand what that means.
29:10
Gina Marie Rodriguez: All right.
29:11
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I I've had a really great time talking to you guys.
29:13
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I appreciate it.
29:14
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Is there anything you'd like to say to your Jersey audiences before we sign off?
29:17
Michael Bacon: Love George, the bad gig.
29:19
Michael Bacon: Never had a bad gig in New Jersey.
29:21
Michael Bacon: Not one time.
29:21
Michael Bacon: We'll see ya.
29:23
Gina Marie Rodriguez: From now on, whenever I hear negative self-talk in my head, I'll be saying, screw you, Kevin Bacon.
29:29
Gina Marie Rodriguez: With love, of course.
29:30
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thank you, Kevin, for my new self-help mantra.
29:33
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And with that, the Bacon Brothers will be performing at the Morvan Museum and Garden as a part of the Princeton Festival on June 20th at 7 p.m.
29:41
Gina Marie Rodriguez: For tickets and more information about this show, be sure to visit PrincetonSymphony.org or baconbros.com.
29:49
Gina Marie Rodriguez: If you like this episode, be sure to review, subscribe, and tell your friends.
29:52
Gina Marie Rodriguez: A transcript of this podcast, links relevant to the story, and more about the arts in New Jersey can be found at jerseyarts.com.
29:58
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The JerseyArts Podcast is presented by Art Pride New Jersey, advancing a state of creativity since 1986.
30:04
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The show was co-founded by and currently supported by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
30:09
Gina Marie Rodriguez: This episode was hosted, edited, and produced by me, Gina Marie Rodriguez.
30:14
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Executive producers are Jim Atkinson and Isaac Serna-Diez.
30:18
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And my thanks, of course, to both Kevin and Michael Bacon for speaking with me today.
30:21
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm Gina Marie Rodriguez for the Jersey Arts Podcast.
30:24
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thanks for listening.
30:58
Bacon Brothers: This must be the worst of times.
31:01
Bacon Brothers: That's when we'll start thinking.
31:04
Bacon Brothers: Half the world's on fire.
31:09
Bacon Brothers: The other half is one of the biggest guys.