STARPOLISH: I read that your brother was the person that really inspired and helped you begin your musical career by teaching you how to sing harmonies. What influence has your family had on your songwriting and career?

LOGGINS: Well, my present family is always a part of my emotional reality, and therefore a part of my songwriting. I’ve written songs about all my children and my relationship with them. Whether it’s good or bad, I’m sure that will continue on in the future.

STARPOLISH: Your first job was as a staff writer for Wingate Music. What did your role encompass, and what did you take away from the experience?

LOGGINS: Well, I was a staff writer, meaning that they expected a few songs a month, and they tried to place them with other acts. But what we quickly discovered when I was writing was that my vocal range was so wide that I was writing stuff that was really rangey, and it was hard to get other people to cover my stuff.

I met the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band back in those days, when I was probably 18, at a party. We were all singing and trading songs--different songwriters were all sitting in a circle and singing whatever they wrote. I was singing “Danny’s Song,” “House at Pooh Corner," and one of the guys from Dirt Band went, "Wow, we have to cover some of your stuff for our album.” The most covers I ever got was from the Nitty Gritty Dirt band. I think they did four of my tunes on their Uncle Charlie  CD or album back then.

STARPOLISH: How did that experience help form your first impression of the music industry?

LOGGINS: That’s a good question. I think basically my impression was that it was all going to go really well.  I had received a lot of attention from my writing, and even though I was only making a hundred dollars a week I was making a living, so from the point of view of a kid looking to make his music work for him it was a very encouraging time. I then moved right from that to Loggins and Messina, it all made sense to me. Plus I was writing music right on the cutting edge of where pop was going with the country-rock thing, just before disco would come in. I was on top of the world.

STARPOLISH: As you just mentioned it was at Wingate where you met Jim Messina and he became the producer of your solo album …

LOGGINS: Well, to be more accurate about that, I was still a staff writer at Wingate, but Wingate had nothing to do with Jimmy Messina.

STARPOLISH: Did the journey from making the solo album to the transition into Loggins and Messina come naturally, and what is your relationship like today?

LOGGINS: Yeah, that came very naturally, because I really didn’t make a solo album. Our intention was to make a solo album; we started off together when Jimmy was producing a Kenny Loggins record, and then as we worked out the material we started sharing our tunes, and he was showing me the things he was doing. I worked up one of his tunes, a song called "Peace of Minds," for the solo album, and then after awhile we thought, “Hey, this could be cool if we did it as a duet album”. In essence, Jimmy was inadvertently starting up a new band called Loggins and Messina. Once we got a direction going with our duets, that’s what started Loggins and Messina.

STARPOLISH: You’re a versatile artist who has worked in many different roles and settings, including being a member of the Second Helping and the Electric Prunes, being part of Loggins and Messina, performing as a solo artist, and finally, working as solo singer-songwriter. Which musical experience has enriched you the most?

LOGGINS: I would have to say being a solo recording artist has been the most enriching moment or time in my career; well, certainly it's been the longest one. You know, Loggins and Messina only lasted six years. I learned a lot from that experience but I didn’t evolve much as an artist until I went solo. That really pushed me, having to come up with 12 to 14 new songs every time I make a record. To have a musical direction and begin to have a sense of what I wanted to write about pushed me as an artist into being more focused, and because of that level of pressure, some of my best work so far came out.

STARPOLISH: How does having fans of all ages impact your songwriting?

LOGGINS: I don’t know. I would say right now my writing is based on what matters to me, what moves me, and I would hope that if I can write songs that are emotional in content,  it will reach all ages. And it doesn’t really matter what style I’m writing in, as much as [whether] I’m writing stuff that matters to me emotionally.

STARPOLISH: Early in your career you became best known for your commercial and thematic success with movie soundtracks. How did you become involved in the process?

LOGGINS: Well, originally I was called up by Barbara Streisand when she was looking for music for A Star is Born, long ago. I was just leaving Loggins and Messina at the time and was looking for new opportunities. I had about half of the Celebrate Me Home album started. I went to her home in Malibu and I met her husband at the time, Jon Peters, and sat down with Barbara and John and showed them most of what would become the Celebrate Me Home album. She picked a song called “ I Believe in Love” to record for A Star is Born, and that led to a friendship with Jon Peters.  When he left Barbara, the first thing he did as a movie producer was Caddyshack. I kind of got lucky right off the top, and he called me in to do the music for Caddyshack, and I did about three songs for that movie, with "I’m Alright" being the best known.

STARPOLISH: How do you suggest new artists start on a career writing for movies?

LOGGINS: It's very difficult if you’re looking to write for movies. I really don’t know the answer to that question. I was called in by Jon and than one thing led to another. Footloose was a movie written by a buddy of mine named Dean Pitchford, and he and I had written songs together.  He asked me to do him a favor and write a song or two for his screenplay--it wasn’t yet a movie.

He wanted to be a co-writer on the music so that he could show Paramount that he was not only the screenwriter, but also the music writer. So I got lucky on that one. I just happened to be called by Dean to write music for what became the biggest movie of the year. Even a song like “Danger Zone,” from Top Gun, I wasn’t originally slated to be the guy to sing that song. That was supposed to be-- according to what I heard--Toto. The lawyers couldn’t come to an agreement and they needed a singer in a hurry and I was in the studio at the time. So I went over to Georgio Maroder’s studio and sang “Danger Zone” with him producing. So I don’t know how to tell people how they can get into it. I barely know how to get into it myself.

STARPOLISH: Recently, Nashville and country have become a hotbed of activity, and you wrote with Nashville-based songwriters, like Richard Marx and Beth Nielsen Chapman, for your new album. Why do you think it has become so popular?

LOGGINS: I think because of song form. Verse, bridge chorus--song form and words are important. Songs with words that matter still exists in Nashville, and it’s really hard to find in a pop form. It’s hard to say, except for maybe John Mayer, who writes really heartful, poetic stuff. He may be the James Taylor of this era. But there are not a lot of songwriters out there in the pop field who really try to write, or who are writing, in the verse, bridge, chorus form.

STARPOLISH: For your new album, How about Now, you decided to re-record “A Love Song.” What made you decide to add that to the album?

LOGGINS: The whole album was inspired by the Loggins and Messina reunion tour of two summers ago.  In the process of doing that work, there was a lot of the early material, a plethora of songs, which I wanted to sing, [including] “ A Love Song,” and I got to sing it every night we performed, and I loved it. It was something I had forgotten about. I wrote it when I was 20 years old, and I wrote it for Ann Murray as a follow-up to "Danny’s Song," which she had a big hit with. So I never really owned the song, until I re-recorded it for How about Now. The flavor of How about Now is really influenced by the Loggins and Messina tour and playing in that earthy, West Coast country style.

STARPOLISH: In the past, you have participated in Richard Marx’s All Star Music Bash. What was that experience like, and do you have any other issues that you're passionate about?

LOGGINS: I’ve done a lot of different benefits. One of the Richard Marx things I did was a benefit for a foundation for music and schools that he started in his father’s name, who was a big musician and producer in Chicago. Out of that experience, the experience of singing with him for something that honored his father, came a song that I had not expected to write called “I’ll Remember Your Name.”  I had this melody. this chorus melody, of “I’ll remember your name into this world” about broken hearts.  I thought it was a good legacy song that could be for him for his father, like a theme song for his foundation, so I showed him the idea and we wrote the song together and that’s on the new CD.

Of the charities that are dear to me, the one I work the hardest for is in Santa Barbara, called Unity, and it brings all the caregiving organizations together to help those in need [at] two [key] times, though it serves the poor all year long. But we do a major telethon in December.

STARPOLISH: What do you think is distinctive about your music, and what will you be remembered for?

LOGGINS: I don’t think any of us really get to know that answer. I would hope that in the long run, I ‘m remembered for writing music that mattered to people emotionally in their lives, and that became the theme songs or soundtracks to their lives,

STARPOLISH: Now that How About Now has been released, what’s next?

LOGGINS: We’re looking at the possibility of making another children’s album. I’ve made two of them. One is called Return to Pooh Corner and one is called More Songs from Pooh Corner and possibly making a third would be a cool thing to do. We’re also talking about a possible Christmas CD. And keep writing. Keep writing and recording, 'cause that’s where the juice is.

STARPOLISH: Do you have any advice for new and emerging artists?

LOGGINS: To struggle, to read, to try to bring poetry into their music as writers, talking to the writers and just do what they feel is from their hearts.