“I consider myself unbelievably lucky,” British-born singer Michael Des Barres told me a few weeks ago when calling from his home in California. With a new album and a gloriously positive attitude about life, Des Barres takes all the good, the bad, the ugly and the extraordinarily fun with a wink and a smile.
He started out as an actor, appearing in the 1967 Sidney Poitier film To Sir With Love, but the pull of music was too intense and he left one spotlight for another, forming the band Silverhead in the early 1970’s. In 1975, he changed directions and put together Detective with Yes keyboard player Tony Kaye. The band was signed to the Zeppelin label Swan Song where they released two albums and opened for KISS.
Des Barres would eventually return to acting, turning up on TV shows such as MacGyver, Roseanne, Nash Bridges and Bones as well as on the big screen opposite Clint Eastwood, Steven Seagal and Steve Martin, while still making time for his music. His 2012 album, Carnaby Street, was a breath of fresh air while it walked down the path of his multi-faceted life, telling tales of the revelry he always enjoyed having. But with the release of The Key To The Universe on April 7th, Des Barres returns to the call of the wild rock & roll he so loves to play in. The guitars are more out front than they have been in quite some time and his song choices are more about emotions and actions than frivolities of the libido.
For the former husband of famous groupie and author Miss Pamela, Des Barres’ goal is to live life to the fullest, with the excesses that once flowered his adventurous road now long gone. He is content, happy and excited about all his current projects, musically and personally. He enjoys sharing his stories with those who ask about his part in the great musical scene of London in the sixties and seventies, and when I tell him it would be fun to go back in time to go to school with him and his classmate, Hendrix drummer Mitch Mitchell, he laughs and says, “Yeah, sure Baby, but you’d have to be a boy though cause I went to boys school.”
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