Actor Jeff Daniels talks about music career, upcoming show at the Iron Horse

George Lenker | Special to The Republican
January 07, 2015

Jeff Daniels is best known for, well, a lot of things.

After all, he just won an Emmy last year for his role in HBO’s “The Newsroom,” but he also has starred in such blockbuster films as “Dumb and Dumber” and “Speed” along with scores of other acclaimed movies.

What many people may not know is that he’s also an accomplished singer-songwriter who will be bringing his act – with his son Ben’s band-to the Iron Horse Music Hall on Wednesday, Jan. 14, at 7 p.m.

He talked about his music and his acting career in a recent telephone interview.

On whether his fans are surprised about his music career:

It’s probably about 50-50 right now. Mainly because of the Internet. When “Dumb and Dumber To” or “The Newsroom” came out, people started Googling me and they see that I do music and they’re like “Wow, what’s this?”

But that’s okay, I’m very aware of what I’m known for. And it’s part of the show. It’s part of what I bring to the stage when I play out. I have written songs about my career and I tell stories about this and that. I know some people are there for that reason and so I give them something they can relate to, and then I say “Oh by the way, here is some music that doesn’t relate to my career.” It kind of all works.

On when he first got into music:

When I moved to New York in 1976, I just bought a guitar and threw it in the back of the car. And I had done musicals in high school so I could sing, but in New York it was just like, “I’m going to need something to do while I’m waiting for the phone to ring.” So I taught myself to play the guitar and instantly I was writing songs. They were horrible songs but they were songs. (Laughs.)

And then I started gravitating towards playwrights. A lot of actors say that what they really want to do is direct. But I wanted to write. But the only place I could write was back at my apartment. And I’m not going to write a play or a movie because no one’s going to do it. So I would write songs and just keep writing. And at the same time I was getting better at the guitar. But it wasn’t till like 25 years later that it came off the back porch. People said we could raise a lot of money for my theater company in Michigan If I got out there and played the guitar. And that was the first time I thought I might want to bring it out in public. But before that it was a 25-year-old hobby.

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