Everything Girl

Crosby Loggins is many things, amongst them he is the eldest child of the Grammy award-winning musician Kenny Loggins and winner of MTV’s reality show Rock the Cradle, but most importantly he is a talented singer-songwriter and musician. He may have begun life as the privileged son of an internationally acclaimed rock star, but Crosby is no spoiled wannabe. He is down-to-earth, friendly, educated and intelligent.

Growing up around multi-talented artists like Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, and Glen Phillips, no doubt inspired Crosby as a child. Now as an adult he makes music that is a mix-up of musical genres, with flavours of jazz, funk, folk, and rock, catchy riffs, addictive melodies and heartfelt lyrics. And he has put them all into his début album We All Go Home. A warm, soulful singer-songwriter based album, featuring the talents of fellow musicians and friends – many the son’s of rock stars themselves. Sporting the name, Crosby Loggins and the Light, together they created an album that is a testament to true talent. It’s a début any aspiring rock star would be proud of.

Recently Crosby took some time to chat with me about life, love and the details that make things worth it for him.

You write a lot of romantic lyrics. Are you a romantic at heart?

I do write a certain amount of romance based music. Although usually I consider the best songs I’ve written, to be a little bit of an abstract. Something to do with life, or doing well in life, or about being happy in life, or some secret to life. I’ve definitely written a lot of romantic material, unfortunately some of it has worked. (Laughing) I got her back with a couple of those and then it had to sadly decay again, slowly, over the course of the following year. You have to watch it cause you might not actually want to get her back. (laughs)

Do you think that because you’re a songwriter there is more pressure to write romantic songs for the girl?

Probably most girls, but my girlfriend knows better I think. She knows I’m always trying to get away from boy/girl themes. I think those are rarely the most interesting songs anymore. Although many of the best songs were boy/girl themes. But there is definitely going to be pressure there, and I have managed to come through with some cute ones. They will probably just stay on tape recorder and not go anywhere.

Do you think you’re a romantic guy generally, outside of songwriting?

Yeah definitely. I mean in a sense life wise. In the sense that I would honestly prefer just to hang-out, eat great food, drink great wine and talk about art and life. When I was younger I was a prissy little romantic and intellectual and I’ve chilled-out a bit.

You told me earlier that you’re a geek. Can you be more specific?

“Whatever I’m doing if I’m out, or writing a song, I’m usually obsessed with a lot of the tiny parts. It’s fun you know. I think it’s a really passionate way to engage life. Good stuff is in the details.”

Yeah I’m a geek. The term geek gets thrown around so liberally these days. Anybody that’s interested in something all of the sudden is a geek. And wasn’t that interesting and sexy a minute ago?. Most of the celebrities, or artists, or actresses that I admire, have a secret fetish for Star Wars, and shit like that, anyway.

What kind of geek are we talking about here? Are you full on Trekkie, do you speak Klingon or anything like that?

No, I’m not a Trekkie. I’m more a Discovery Channel watching type. Whatever I’m doing if I’m out, or writing a song, I’m usually obsessed with a lot of the tiny parts. It’s fun you know. I think it’s a really passionate way to engage life. Good stuff is in the details.

I think you can live in a a simple bamboo box but if the hardware is nice it might as well be a million dollar high-rise in New York City. (laughs) Yeah so it’s all in the details.

Interesting philosophy. So you’re a pretty philosophical guy about life and stuff?

“It’s an obstacle course I run to get to myself. The whole experience of it is a real big challenge. You’re always hitting mental blocks that you can’t get past, and you keep growing. It makes you stronger, and for me that is a really rewarding experience.”

Yeah, I’m kinda tragically introspective. I would say. When I was I kid I would follow my dad around sometimes on like book tours and random situations. He was into a lot of New Age philosophy and New Age thinkers and writers. He’d have a lot of those types around the house when I was young. That was a big influence on me. I think I sincerely considered being a part of a bunch of different religions. When I was a kid I was baptised Catholic. At Summer camp I would try on the faith, my step-mother was Jewish and I got interested in the Torah. (laughs) I actually got into Rastafarianism, curiously, for a year and a half of my life. Studied some of that stuff and eventually dropped it all and worked in a Buddhist/Taoist shop for awhile.

So I’ve always been very fascinated by religion and faith and the concept of God and all those kinds of things. Although these days I don’t subscribe to one religion, but I consider myself a very spiritual person. I think that a lot of power people have is in there own minds and hearts, and I personally believe that, that in itself is a miracle.

It’s funny that we should wander down such an esoteric path, because that really is the reason that I – and I think many artists do – still do music. It’s an obstacle course I run to get to myself. The whole experience of it is a real big challenge. You’re always hitting mental blocks that you can’t get past, and you keep growing. It makes you stronger, and for me that is a really rewarding experience.

Tell me more about your current album We All Go Home.

We All Go Home is a collection of my earlier material. It’s a few songs that were co-written with the band, in a writing session right before the first track of the album got recorded. The majority of it is original material that I’ve had for some time. Basically the whole concept for We All Go Home was… when we were making the record we were into a few different things, stylistically, not one specific thing. We wanted to try and incorporate all those different things into what we were doing. It’s sort of like the iPod being on shuffle, we never felt like we had to stick to any one thing all the time. So it shuffles around from rap to rock to funk to jazz, there are some R&B-ish moments, all under this singer-songwriter umbrella, and we tie it altogether with strong instrumentalists. I wanted to create a synergy that could carry on and expand into a live context. That was kind of the goal.

I wanted to ask you about one song in particular, the last track, “Same Old Song”. It is the only song on the album that seems to be a deeply personal song.

I agree. It is the most personal song on the record. I actually wrote that song with a buddy of mine who passed away a couple of years ago. That is a personal piece for me.

What is it about?

It’s really about negotiating the shadow of my father. There are moments where you can interchange whether or not I am talking about Kenny as a young boy, or me as a young boy. The similarities in our journeys.

Can we talk about you being the son of Kenny Loggins?

Yeah, sure.

Do you think it’s helped or hindered you in the long run?

A lot of people ask that. I really do believe that it is a fair measure of both. There’s a lot of expectation. You can afford to use opportunities that others might not get but people say again and again that if you aren’t talented when you get those opportunities you’re never going to be invited back again.

Even beyond that, I know, I personally, find it very difficult to take the child of anyone famous seriously.

Yeah, I can recognise that.

I think that is probably extraordinarily unfair of me. But I always think, that they are riding their parent’s coattails.

That is absolutely the reason I was guffawing at this television show I was just on, because it’s all about making people famous. (laughs) And I was laughing because, who would want to watch that?

I don’t know if it’s necessarily an unfair judgment because there is a large measure of people who have ridden off their parents coattails, in this regard. But always consider when it comes to doctors, lawyers, even high-powered executives that’s just the norm. Yeah, it’s a double edged sword, there’s no two ways about it.

A.L. Harper is a freelance writer and motorbike fanatic originally from Salt Lake City, Utah but now living in Scotland. In addition to being the Managing Editor for All Things Girl, A.L. is the Assistant Music Editor for Blogcritics.org and a freelance writer.

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