You know him as Jack Bauer on ABC’s TV Series 24 and from such movies as Stand By Me, The Lost Boys, Young Guns and Flatliners, but now you get to know Kiefer Sutherland as a country music singer.
The singer/actor has released his debut album, Down In a Hole—which he calls a passion project—consisting of 11 co-written tracks, including the single, “Can’t Stay Away.”
“It’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a journal or diary,” said Kiefer. “All of these songs are pulled from my own personal experiences. As much as I enjoyed the writing and recording process, I am experiencing great joy now begin able to play these songs to a live audience, which was something I hadn’t counted on.”
While Kiefer playing country music might come as a surprise to some, his interest in music spans many years. In 2002, he started a small record label called Ironworks with his best friend, Jude Cole, to record local musicians and distribute their music. He has since left the label but continued writing songs that have eventually been compiled to create his debut album, Down In A Hole.
“The one thing I’ve come to understand is that as a musician or as a player or a as songwriter, my interest is really to try and tell a story—very much as I do as an actor,” Kiefer told Nash Country Daily. “It’s an extension of that. I’m not Whitney Houston by any stretch of the imagination and I’m not trying to be.”
Kiefer has already achieved a milestone in his music career that every country music singer hopes to reach—making his debut on the Grand Ole Opry. On May 31, 2016, Kiefer took the stage and stood in that revered circle—where many country legends have stood—to perform his song “Not Enough Whiskey.”
“The depth of humility that I felt standing [on the Opry stage] was quite overwhelming and it made the show go like a blurr—it was over so fast,” Kiefer said of his Opry debut. “Having said that, the joy to being able to play with those incredible players and the smiles on the faces o this band that I’ve been playing with for a year—I’ve never seen smile like that ever—so that was extraordinary. The audience was so incredibly gracious and the people backstage were so nice. It’s such a huge experience, it’s going to take me a few days to be able to try to summarize that but just humility was really the thing that I felt the most.”
Kiefer has just wrapped up a North American tour and will be announcing dates for a fall tour soon. Kiefer will also be returning to television on Sept. 21 when he stars in ABC’s new series Designated Survivor and you can catch his musical appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Aug. 24 where he’ll perform “Can’t Stay Away.”
