Carry On Wayward Son

So how did Kerry Livgren become a part of the movie "The Imposter?" For those that don't know, Kerry was an integral part of the super-group Kansas. He wrote the classics Carry On Wayward Son and Dust in the Wind.

I've always been a fan of Christian rock and enjoyed the work of an all girl band called Rachel Rachel back in the early 90's. They did a cover of COWS and a music video to go with it.

A few months before shooting Imposter, I was cleaning out some VHS tapes and saw one where I had recorded a Christian music video show. I had saved it because of the COWS video. In it, the girls rock out and Kerry comes on stage during the solo. I had been racking my brain for who to play the role of the Mentor in the movie and wanted an older Christian rock icon. I thought Kerry would be perfect.

I did a search on the internet and came up with his manager Dutch Dehnert's email address. After firing off an message, the reply was pretty quick. Dutch would pass the info along, but don't get my hopes up.

Long story short, Kerry wasn't too keen at first, but agreed to read the script. And his wife Vicci read the script. And he decided to do it and the movie was so much better for his participation.

So with Kerry attached, I began to dream. Wouldn't it be great if Kerry re-did the song with Kevin Max singing? I didn't think I would be able to talk Kerry in to it, and at first he wasn't big on the idea (He said he'd like to remake some of his songs-- COWS is not one of them). But then I got a CD in the mail with a return address Kansas. That was the day before shooting started. I popped it into the truck's CD and cranked it up. It had no vocals yet, but it was awesome.

The day after the last day of shooting, Kevin laid down some demo vocal tracks. A few months later, we paid for some studio time and Kevin laid them down for real. I had shot some music video segments on the set and during the summer edited the music video.

*When* we release the soundtrack, I'm sure that will be one of the songs. I might release the COWS video soon as well.