Perhaps no other band has gotten more mileage out of the element of surprise than the Bacon Brothers. "We've been chipping away at that awareness, chipping away at the fact that most people think we're gonna suck," co-front man and global film star Kevin Bacon says, reflecting on he and his brother Michael's first 11 years as a band.
In a recent interview with Kevin and Michael Bacon we talked about their uniquely different careers and the closeness they share with their family. One of the brothers' four sisters known as "the blondes" is Hilda Bacon who heads special events and outreach programs for Bancroft NeuroHealth located in Haddonfield New Jersey. For the past 3 years the Bacon Brothers Band bring out their best to perform for this incredible facility. Bancroft offers a wide range of state-of-the-art services to children and adults with autism, developmental disabilities, brain injuries and other neurological impairments. Services include educational, vocational, residential, rehabilitation and therapeutic interventions based on the individual needs of each person the organization serves.
Founded in 1883 by Philadelphia special education pioneer Margaret Bancroft, the organization began as one of the first schools for children with developmental disabilities. Today, Bancroft NeuroHealth is a multi-faceted organization with facilities in New Jersey and Delaware. Based in Haddonfield, NJ, the organization serves more than 1,000 individuals and families annually.
There is a strong Philly history with the Bacon family.Their father Edmund N. Bacon was a noted American urban planner, architect,
educator, and author. During the 1990s he proposed new concepts to improve Philadelphia landmarks Independence Mall, Penn's Landing, and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway .
Long before Kevin became a household name he was writing songs on his own, and playing percussion in Philadelphia coffee houses with his brother and other groups. Meanwhile, Michael, nine years Kevin's senior, had already established himself as a professional musician. "A lot of times people assume that I write all the songs," says Michael, "that I arrange them and I stick Kevin up there as kind of a puppet or something. It's absolutely not that way. In fact, he writes probably 60 percent of the songs and I write probably 40 percent. In fact, he doesn't need me to write with anymore. Maybe a long time ago, he did, but he doesn't need it anymore."
In the early '80s, as Kevin's acting career began to blossom with regular soap opera work, the Bacon brothers lived for a brief while in the same Manhattan building, where they would, when time permitted, continue to work on songs together. While Kevin was finding success on The Guiding Light, Michael's musical career had taken a lucrative turn toward film and TV scoring. Starting with small, offbeat projects, he has since gone on to win an Emmy for his work on the 1992 historical film The Kennedys, one of many in the renowned American Experience documentary series.
Both brothers enjoy successful careers that have paralleled each other most of their young adult lives.
"All my heroes were guys with guitars," Kevin says, remembering his teens. "All my spare change was spent on music. I saw my brother playing out, and moving an audience and I could see how powerful music could be. Around that time I took my first acting class and I fell in love with it, and my life took a different direction." "When we started the band," Michael continues, "he was the only nonprofessional musician in the group, but nobody's waiting for him. He's not holding anybody back. He's worked very hard. We both have. I think that since we formed the band, both of our musical skills have gone way, way up. If he weren't my brother, and if he weren't a movie star, he would still be a fantastic partner in this endeavor. The fact that he is both of those things is just all the more. But I'm not really interested in just the personal relationship. The band is interesting to me in a musical way".
