Latch Key Kid
MusicianLatch Key Kid, aka Gavin Heaney, descends from the specifically West Coast tradition of singer-songwriters, those to whom songs arrive as naturally as waves undulating under the California sun. His sound may be steeped in Americana, folk, and Rolling Stone-style country-rock, but his musicality is infused with a buoyancy beyond genre; it’s if Elliott Smith had learned to surf as a kid or Kurt Cobain had a little more Zen and a lot more sunshine.
Heaney is a South Bay native whose writerly influences include Robert Hunter, chief lyricist for The Grateful Dead, Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys and the poetry of Jim Morrison, yet he’s also been a rock ‘n’ roll front man since he was a teenager, touring the world and performing religiously. Heaney has a gift that cannot be taught: the ability to write songs that are like smiles. His compositions are also unusually wide ranging, from downright grunge to hook-heavy pop to symphonic film scores. As such, his music has traveled far beyond the beach.
The Latch Key Kid single “Good Times” appeared in Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl XLII (2008) commercial and as the title track in the Dream Works film, I Love You Man (2009). The former reached an audience of 97 million and led to a distribution deal with Warner Music. His 2014 song “Before I Fall” has been heard over 45 million times on Tatia Pilieva’s viral YouTube video “Undress Me” His music has more recently appeared in the 2018 season of Showtime’s hit series “Shameless”
Latch Key Kid has toured and performed worldwide with such acts as Bob Weir (Grateful Dead), Willie Nelson and Brian Wilson (Beach Boys), Jack Johnson, Ziggy Marley, and many others. This May he will return to perform at the second BeachLife Festival in Los Angeles alongside Counting Crows, UB40 and The Steve Miller Band.
The most recent of his seven studio LPs, “Downtime,” a collection of pure folk country singer-songwriting was released in 2018. A live double album “Downtime Live” which showcases the band’s high performance, improvisational jamming is set to be released in early spring 2020.
“Music is the most invoking way to express myself,” says Heaney, “There’s just too much going on between the lines. Shades of emotion and meaning are best expressed through melodies.” – Latch Key Kid Easy Reader Interview