Christian Kane Goes Country on LEVERAGE

Christian Kane plays hitman Eliot Spencer on TNT’s clever hit LEVERAGE, one of the Merry Men assisting a Robin Hood for the 21st century. Eliot is the team’s go-to guy when someone needs a smackdown and he regularly shares his knowledge of weaponry. In tonight’s episode, “The Studio Job”, set in Nashville’s country music scene, Eliot reveals another skill: singing.

Nice guns.

On the phone to chat with reporters about tonight’s episode, Christian is an appealing mix of enthusiastic (he obviously loves this show), humble (he often expresses his gratitude), and badass (he curses with a nonchalance born of practice). Charming both the men and women on the call, Christian talks about how the idea to have Eliot sing came about, his musical influences, and possible heartbreak for Eliot.

Whose idea was it to have Eliot sing?
It was a little bit of my idea, but [executive producer] John Rogers had talked about doing a music episode, taking down a record company for a certain reason. He tried to fit it in second season, but it just didn’t work. I’d had some really great success when I sang on Angel in the second season, and we developed such a big fan base out of that whole episode for my band. So John took note of that, and caught wind that, and it was – you know it was John’s idea to do it, I think that it was me kind of egging him on, and then, of course, I got the fans involved, and I’ve got the best fans in the world. So I think he just got tired of listening to them.

Is the song, “Thinking of You”, a Christian Kane original?
The song is a song I wrote a couple of years ago. Me and Blair Daly actually. Ironically we wrote that together in about 30 minutes. I had something to say that day. You know most of my songs are about a girl, if they’re not about a girl, they’re about beer drinking, but this one – this one’s about a girl, and I get a lot of my influences come from love, and more importantly, heartache. And I had something to say that day, and we really wrote it in like 30 minutes, it just liked poured out on the page. And so you know he was playing guitar, we were both coming up with some stuff, so yes, I collaborated on it – me and Blair collaborated together on music and lyrics.

I [wanted to use] something that was going to be on the album, and that’s actually coming out in October. But I couldn’t find a song on the album that I really wanted to use for this, and then I looked at this older song that I had, and I was like oh, this is it. And so we’ve decided now to put this song on the album. And the great thing about this song is this song is actually going to be available on iTunes, “Thinking of You”, the night the episode airs. So after the episode airs, if you like this song, you can go to iTunes and download it. And so we’re really excited about that.

Christian's 5-song EP drops in October

“Thinking of You” is a country song. Have you always been a fan of country music?
You know I could lie about it and tell you that I’ve been a country fan my whole life, but the fact of the matter is, is mom and dad grew up – you know they met in the rodeo, and they had country music blaring my whole childhood. So when I was old enough to listen to my own music, I went straight to rock and roll. It’s funny how moving to Los Angeles can move you right back to your roots, and I just went back to country. So I did – I grew up with it, and I know it very, very well, but you know,when Guns and Roses came out, that was my calling card.

You’re talented in so many areas, do you ever feel like you don’t have time to do it all?
I don’t like to shut any doors, I like to take different avenues and stuff like that you know. I don’t need to be Brad Pitt or Kenny Chesney, I really don’t, I just – I just want to be Christian Kane, I just really want to do what I love for the rest of my life. And I want to be Gene Hackman, and if somebody allows me to do that, then I’ve done the right things, and I’ve made the right moves, and I don’t think that shutting doors makes any sense whatsoever.

How are the other characters going to react to Eliot’s amazing talent to pull out this performance?
I don’t know, but the fact of the matter is, we’re all playing a couple of different roles this year, we’re all trying on each other’s hats, and so that was – you know that was one of the things that we’re really experimenting with this year. And so you know they’ve got their own shit to deal with, man you know so I don’t think that they even notice for a second. At the same time we’re a family, we’re a little bit self absorbed when it comes to characters, because we’re so used to working as individuals, and working alone, that you know we’re really worried about peace of mind and our state of mind, if you will, and not falling back off the track, and turning to crime again. So I think they’re going to be fine with it, I also make the whole cast come watch me when I play in Portland, Oregon. I make them all show up for the music shows, and so they’ve seen me sing before.

Is this song a precursor to Eliot revealing more of a softer side?
I think the fact is over the last couple of seasons, Eliot has developed more of a heart. I mean make no mistake about it, he’s a stone cold killer, that’s what he is. But the thing is, is that what’s wrong with that is when someone develops a heart, and throughout the episodes, we’ve kind of seen him come around more to you know liking Hardison a little bit more. He’s developing a heart, he’s the tin man, but that can always hurt you if you build it too quick. So I think that’s what he’s doing is I think he’s building a heart way too fast, and so that’s always going to come back to bite you, and I think that throughout the season, or you know maybe towards the end, you’re going to see where it does come back to hurt him, and when that happens, I mean you know how mean Eliot is already, so I’m not sure if that’s going to be a good thing or not.

Do you mind being referred to as “the B.A. Baracus” of LEVERAGE?
I don’t mind it at all. I took a lot of stuff from Mr. T. When I got this role you know it was a Jason Bourne character, that’s who he was before. And in order for me to be part of the team, if I was Jason Bourne, I’d just be sitting there and I’d just be taking everything in, I wouldn’t talk a lot, and I was like how am I going to make this guy you know stand out and be part of a team and be a force to reckon with? And I just took one of my all time heroes, which is, you know, Mr. T, and I said, you know, B.A. Baracus was always pissed off about everything, so I’m just going to make Eliot mad at anything. And it’s really what I’ve done. If you’ll notice, if Hardison drops a fork or if Parker spills a glass, it just makes him so mad, he can’t even sit in his seat. And I really stole that from B.A. Baracus, so I have no problem with people telling me that. That’s a great compliment to have, because that’s kind of what I was going for.

If you had to describe Eliot in one word, what would it be?
II would have to say vengeance. I think he’s paying a lot of people back that have wronged him in his life, I really honestly do. I think it’s mostly the people that sent him to kill people, I think that this is his thing, in a sense of vengeance. I’m saying not vengeance as in you know like going in to kill people I think is the vengeance of doing well, and doing the good fight because he did so much bad for so long.

You’ve been pretty excited about guest stars this season on Twitter. What can you tell us about who’s coming to the show?
It’s just been an amazing year. I mean we’ve got these A list people coming in from Hollywood that have watched the show, and enjoyed the show, wanted to come on. I don’t know how we’ve been so fortunate. We’ve got John Schneider in the episode with me [tonight], and I get to fight John Schneider, I get to fight Bo Duke, you know, my childhood idol, I get to fight him. You’ve never seen him in a role like this.

We’ve had Richard Chamberlain come in, we’ve had Bill Engvall came in and did an episode, a race car show, you know NASCAR stuff, and so that was amazing, and he was a fan of the show. We’ve had unbelievable guest stars this year, and there’s some that I can’t talk about, to be honest with you. But they’ll be popping up, I mean you know it’s just for this season, more people came out of the woodwork, and it’s just been so great, man. We get one every week, and there’s not a lot of shows that get to do that, and so we’ve been so fortunate.

I think the show in itself has something to do with that, but I think Dean Devlin also, people love working with Dean Devlin, so that’s been great.

Watch Christian Kane sing in tonight’s episode of LEVERAGE, guest starring John Schneider, at 9/8c on TNT. Find out more about Christian’s music and other projects on his website.