Kirby Heyborne has become a familiar face on the big screen locally, starring in such movies as "The Best Two Years," "Saints and Soldiers," "The R.M." and, most recently, "Sons of Provo." In the latter, he played a member of a spoof Mormon boy-band — and demonstrated a surprising musical ability.
What many people don't realize is that "I was into music long before I started acting," said Heyborne.
He lives in Los Angeles now, where he is pursuing an acting career. But he has also released a new CD titled "Inside," songs that Heyborne has written and performs. And no, these songs are not boy-band spoofs. He calls it acoustic/alternative/pop, but there are bits of other genres mixed in — blues, maybe a little folk.
If you count the tapes he made with his first band — using a microphone they hung from the ceiling fan — this is actually his fifth recording. "But all the others I did with full bands. This one is just me," he said by phone from his L.A. home.
There was a time when Heyborne thought music might be his career. He started taking piano lessons at age 4. At age 15, he switched to the guitar. There were two reasons for that, he said.
First, "I wanted to impress girls, so I needed something other than the piano."
But he and his friends at Alta High School had also discovered the Beatles. "We were figuring out 'Let It Be' on the piano. But there were three of us, so only one could play the piano at a time. If we wanted to play together, we needed some new instruments." Heyborne found an old guitar at his house, and a how-to book, and then bought a Beatles songbook for guitar.
Three months later, he was writing his own songs, and he and his friends started giving concerts for their friends, often in a greenhouse at the home of one friend in Draper.
Heyborne hooked up with Steve Lemmon of the local band Ali Ali Oxen Free for a "bigger and better" album, and later joined with "the coolest, long-haired, chick-magnet-artist," Marc Thorup, in a band called Shasta Daisy, which was soon playing gigs throughout the Salt Lake and Utah County areas.
Soon, he left to serve an LDS mission in the Dominican Republic, where "I wrote a few songs on ('Preparation') days." When he returned, he and Thorup and three other musicians formed a band called Bentleigh and began playing all over Utah. The band performed at various events during the 2002 Winter Games, including opening for 'N Sync at the Olympic Medals Plaza.
Heyborne's life was getting jam-packed. "I played with the band, was going to school full time and was working at a full-time job." One more thing was about to further complicate his life. "I was invited to be in a show at the Egyptian Theater in Park City, and I fell in love with acting. I had done it in high school, but I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it."
Eventually, something had to give, and that something was music.
But now, although he's no less busy, things have changed. He's through with school. He's married and has children. He's busy auditioning and acting.
But he's also found time for music again.
That journey back to his roots began with the "R.M." movie. "They found out I was a musician and asked me to cover a hymn for the soundtrack. Then they asked me to cover a song for their upcoming Christmas album." Then came "Sons of Provo," and Heyborne realized he needed a place for music in his life.
Some of the songs on "Inside" are new, written for the CD. Some are older songs, "that I always wanted to have recorded," so the CD has both a retrospective and a current angle that add up to who he is musically. "Some of them are songs I wrote when I was wooing my wife."
The song "Night Begins" was written in high school, Heyborne said. "I wrote it as a poem first, and it got published in the literary magazine. I thought that was so cool."
"This," talks about the importance of being needed, a feeling he explored after returning from his mission.
"Waiting Here," "Inside" and "Perfect Together" are among the new songs.
The final cut, "Fields to Whisper," is another song he wrote for his wife. "I needed to put that one on for her, so I can woo her some more."
While he's not planning on giving up acting anytime soon, Heyborne said he's already working on another CD.
Music fascinates him. Strip it down to its basics, and it has a simplistic purity. "You get to one note, and you can't break it down. It will always exist." And yet, you can't ever learn all there is to know. "The more you understand, the more it adds to your music; the more beautiful you can make it."
Even more than acting, music "is a creative process — and there's nothing better than that."
Even more than acting, it means putting yourself out there. "I go into auditions, and I get rejections and people tell me what I'm doing wrong. But there's still the feeling that part of that is the character.
"It's worse when someone says they don't like a song. The song is all you. It's how you feel, how you see the world." Yet, he said, the more you put those feelings in, the better the song will be.
Heyborne has several acting projects in the works. He'll be working on a film with fellow LDS actor Corbin Allred this summer. And in the fall he hopes to produce a film based on a short story by LDS writer Orson Scott Card.
But he'll also be doing some tours to introduce the CD, including his visit to Utah this weekend. "It'll just be me and my guitar. But that's how I love it best — intimate, where everyone there has a part in creating the mood."
It makes him realize all the more that "music is an easy thing to love."
If you go
What: Kirby Heyborne, performing and signing CDs
Today, noon: Wilkinson Student Center, Brigham Young University, Provo
Today, 7 p.m.: Media Play, 5546 S. Redwood Road
Today, 11:30 p.m.: South Towne Expo Center, 9450 S. State
Saturday, noon: Deseret Book, ZCMI Mall, downtown Salt Lake City
Saturday, 4 p.m.: Media Play, 130 E. 1300 South, Orem
How much: Free
E-mail: carma@desnews.com