SUTHERLAND OPENS UP
TV and film star gets personal on debut album
You, too, can be forgiven if you felt that Kiefer Sutherland was the ultimate urbanite. Certainly his body of film and TV work — he currently portrays the U.S. president in the series Designated Survivor — could lead to that conclusion.
And then there’s his pedigree: Born in London, England, with one whopper of a name, Kiefer Williams Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland hails from royalty of sorts — Canadiana-style, that is. His parents are actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Jean Douglas, and his maternal grandfather is Tommy Douglas, the legendary politician at the forefront of introducing free health care to this country.
What you might not know about Kiefer Sutherland is that cowboy blood is apparently coursing through his veins. Not only has he run a cattle ranch, but he had also been a fixture on the rodeo circuit for years.
And when not trying to save the country as 24’s maverick Jack Bauer or trying to stay alive as Designated Survivor’s President Tom Kirkman, Sutherland finds relief as a country singer-songwriter. With his gravelly intonations, he brings a surprisingly soulful and gritty authenticity to his compositions, a sort of bluesy nod to the likes of George Jones and Johnny Cash.
See and hear for yourself as Sutherland and his band bring their Reckless tour to Club Soda on Friday. Sutherland has blown away many audiences and skeptical critics: “His whiskey-sodden country music set is genuinely poignant.… He puts other Hollywood hobby acts to shame,” The Guardian opined.
Considering his workload on the tube, Sutherland has somehow also found the time to perform more than 120 shows over the past two years. After completing his North American tour, he hits Europe in June.
“My life on the ranch and rodeo circuit was kind of private for me,” says Sutherland, 51, in a phone interview. “I had written a bunch of songs over that period of time, and took them to a friend of mine, Jude Cole, only to send them to BMI or Sony Music to see if any other artist would be interested in recording these songs. But Jude ended up liking the way they sounded and told me I should just make my own record.
“I was so acutely aware of the stigma of an actor doing music that I said: ‘No way, I would never do that.’ But he knew me well enough to take me out and get me drunk, and all of a sudden it sounded like a better idea.”
And so Sutherland cut his debut CD, Down in a Hole. He just released his latest single, This Is How It’s Done.
“The real point of transition for me was thinking that performing this stuff live was not going to be very hard after being an actor for 35 years. But what really caught me off guard is that, unlike playing a character, which would separate you from an audience, these songs were mine and they were personal and I had to explain that. So after all those years of trying to keep my privacy, I found myself opening up in a way that I never had.
“And it ended up being one of the great cathartic moments of my life. And I fell in love with touring.”
It’s understandable why Sutherland had chosen to keep his life private. While his acting work has been much praised — be it in films such as Stand By Me, Flatliners and A Few Good Men — off-screen stories that surfaced were not so endearing, be it drunk-driving charges or the breakup of his engagement to Julia Roberts.
But Sutherland doesn’t try to duck his past. In fact, he seeks to come to terms with it in such tunes as Can’t Stay Away and Not Enough Whiskey.
“It’s kind of funny, but the impression I get is that when an audience hears that Kiefer Sutherland, who they know only as an actor (and other stuff ), is coming to play a show, they come with some (notions) of what that show will be.… Something like a NASCAR race, and they’re coming to see a wreck.
“And it’s our job to kind of show them a good race,” he muses. “But in the end, whatever preconceived notions the audience might have about me and whatever preconceived notions I might have about them, that somehow manages to leave because we all start to realize that we have a lot more in common. We’ve all had our hearts broken. We’ve all had someone pass away. And we’ve all made mistakes.”
Not surprisingly, Sutherland has been much influenced by the work of Jones, Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams.
“They broke away from what was traditionally country music and wrote songs about themselves that were really honest, and in many cases, not so flattering,” he says. “When I would make mistakes in my life, those guys made me realize that I wasn’t alone in that.”
But — no surprise — one of his greatest heroes is his late grandfather, Tommy Douglas.
“He brought (socialized medicine) to the country with sheer will and he did it pretty much on his own in Saskatchewan. Then he and Pierre Trudeau brought it to the rest of the country. My grandfather was one of those rare, rare people who just believed everything was possible.
“He was such an inspiration to me. There’s a few songs I’ve written that, honestly, I would look up into the sky and say: ‘I think you would like this song, Grandpa.’”
Sutherland is quick to point out that his passion for acting remains strong.
“Absolutely,” he shoots back. “The challenge of that has been something I’ve spent 35 years trying to figure out. When something goes right as an actor, you can get lost in that moment, and that’s one of the most exhilarating feelings I’ve ever experienced. And I will continue to chase that ghost until the day I die.”
And if he could ever be the president he now plays on the tube, what action would he take?
“It’s hypothetical, but if the guy who is running it now would ever build a wall, the first thing I would do is knock it down,” says Sutherland, who holds only a Canadian passport and is thus ineligible for the job. “And I’ve always believed there are certain inalienable rights people should have, and health care is one of them.”
Of course.