Band: KC & The Sunshine Band
Date: Thursday, June 27, with doors at 6:30 p.m.
Venue: Saenger Theatre, 6 S. Joachim St., mobilesaenger.com
Tickets: $42-$96 available through Ticketmaster
From Miami Sound Machine to 2 Live Crew, Miami-Dade County is home to a number of bands with the talent to get the party started. Iconic disco group KC & The Sunshine Band could be considered one of the most glorious party bands to emerge from those parts.
Led by Harry “KC” Casey, KC & The Sunshine Band used the disco anthem “Get Down Tonight” to shoot up the charts and into the public eye. This single was followed by legendary dance tunes such as “I’m Your Boogie Man,” “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty,” “Boogie Shoes” and many more. KC is still bringing the party to the people with a steady tour schedule and new tracks such as “Gimme Some More.”
Lagniappe’s Steve Centanni got an inside scoop from KC himself on what it’s like keeping the party alive.
Steve Centanni: What do you think it is about KC & The Sunshine Band’s sound that has allowed the band to stay busy pretty much since the band started?
Harry “KC” Casey: I wrote the music to bring happiness to people and get people up and dancing and enjoying themselves. I think that has a lot to do with it. It’s a positive message and a positive sound, and we all need positive stuff in our lives.
Centanni: KC & The Sunshine Band seems to stay on tour. These days, what is the best part of getting on stage in front of a live audience?
Casey: Man, my happiest time is when I’m on stage. It’s the one chance that I get to actually be with the fans and share the music with them and see the joy that what we’re doing brings to their faces and just have a magical moment with everybody for that hour and a half. There’s no other feeling like it.
Centanni: How would you compare being on the road now to the early days?
Casey: It’s changed in a lot of different ways. Technically, it’s a lot easier doing the stage stuff with the monitoring systems that we have now. Flying everywhere has become a little more complicated because of all the scanning stuff you have to go through and that kind of hassle. Overall, it’s improved. It’s much easier to get to places and [there are] things to do when you get to places, unless you’re isolated in the middle of nowhere, but nowhere doesn’t seem to exist anymore.
Centanni: A lot of artists from a variety of genres ranging from EDM to rock have all taken a stab at your music. Offhand, I’m thinking about Rob Zombie’s interpretation of “I’m Your Boogie Man.”
Casey: They did a great version of it, actually. I was very happy with their version of it. I thought they really did a nice twist on it. We’ve been sampled a lot. I’m happy with anybody doing that. It’s quite flattering to know that these people admire us that much to do something with our songs or do a cover version of it or whatever.
Centanni: What’s been your favorite so far?
Casey: Well, the Rob Zombie one has to be one of my favorites, but I think that the remake of “Please Don’t Go” by KWS in 1993 was pretty amazing. It was a huge, number-one record again. That was a pretty good version of that song to take that ballad and turn it into a dance record.
Centanni: Whenever you were writing those tunes, did you ever think that they would be so timeless?
Casey: No, when we’re doing this, we’re doing it for the moment. You have to think a little bit into the future, but I never sat down and said, “Wow, will this stuff last? What’s gonna happen?” That was never in my list of things to think about. There’s other things that we deal with on a personal basis that I didn’t have time to think about the longevity of music.
Of course, music lasts. When I was growing up, there were songs on the radio then from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. It’s 2019, and there’s still stations that play ’70s’ and ’80s’ music. Music always lasts and always survives. Even now with XM, you can listen to any genre you want. Everything lives. Music lives. It’s the story of our lives and the soundtrack of our lives.
Centanni: You just had this song come out called “Gimme Some More,” and you got in the studio with Nile Rogers and Tony Moran for this one. How did you three get hooked up for this one?
Casey: Of course, I’ve known Nile Rogers for a long time. We’ve toured together and stuff like that. I’ve known Tony for quite awhile too. I’ve been releasing some dance records. This is my seventh top-ten, charted dance record on Billboard. Tony sent me these tracks, and I put the lyrics and melody to them. Then, we sat down and thought that Nile Rogers would add a good touch to the song. The guitar player he had on the song sounded like Nile Rogers. We thought that we would get Nile Rogers to do it, so it is Nile Rogers and not just [someone who sounds] like him. So, I called up Nile, and he agreed to come and play on the track.
Centanni: Tell me about the live show that you have in store for us in Mobile.
Casey: We do stuff from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. It’s a fun show. There are 15 of us on stage, and everybody participates and does stuff in the show. It’s all the hits and bits and pieces of stuff that we’ve recorded and done on a TV show or DVD. Hopefully, it will be familiar to most of the people. Then, there’s bits and pieces that stuff from albums that I’ve been throwing out lately. It’s all the stuff that we’ve had something to do with or recorded or performed.
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