\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Pete Catalyst: You\u2019ve said \u2018I\u2019m in show business but not of show business.\u2019 What does that mean?<\/p>\n
Shaun Cassidy: For me, it means that I love the work, I love the creative aspect of my job, but I\u2019ve never felt like the glitzy side, the red carpet side, even the famous side was a positive. In fact, it\u2019s often a negative, it\u2019s often a distraction.<\/p>\n
I think one of the reasons I took a 40-year break from performing \u2013 doing concerts \u2013 is because I was eager to have a more grounded life. And I found it as a writer and producer, still very creative but not having to be in the spotlight all the time was a much healthier choice for me.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Were there lessons to be learned from the examples of both your parents, and from your brother? They were all famous people.<\/p>\n
Absolutely, and they were all models for me \u2013 good, bad and everything in between. I got to go to school watching my dad and my mom, and David later, not just in how they performed, but in terms of how they dealt with being public figures. How they treated the public. How they managed their success and failure. They were all very instructional for me.<\/p>\n
What I realized, not very long after I\u2019d had my own success, was that the road I had followed was theirs \u2013 acting, singing \u2013 but the road I found for myself was as a writer and a producer. And that\u2019s really where I belonged. I think had I not grown up in a house filled with performers I wouldn\u2019t have become a performer at all.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Shaun-Cassidy-magazine-224x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
You were a punk and glam fan \u2013 you had rock \u2018n\u2019 roll street cred \u2013 before you got signed to Warner\/Curb Records. Did you resent being turned into a squeaky-clean pop star?<\/p>\n
I went willingly because I wasn\u2019t transformed. It was a role I was playing. I don\u2019t think that would\u2019ve happened without The Hardy Boys. I was playing Joe Hardy. If you\u2019re playing one of the Hardy Boys, I guess you could play punk rock on the side, but then you\u2019re just sort of confusing the audience. I was always aware of \u2018What\u2019s the story we\u2019re selling here?\u2019<\/p>\n
Yes, in high school I\u2019d been in punk bands. I basically lived on the Sunset Strip. Glam rock was a big thing. I saw the New York Dolls multiple times, Iggy Pop multiple times, I was a huge David Bowie fan \u2026 and I wasn\u2019t that self-aware then, but I later realized what all these acts had in common was that they were all very theatrical. And of course that makes sense because I grew up going to Broadway theater to see my father, and seeing my mother in movie musicals.<\/p>\n
So I get signed as an actor to do a show called The Hardy Boys, which is as Mom and Pop, All-American as you can get, and I was like \u2018OK, I\u2019ll do that.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Your new-wavey 1980 album Wasp was produced by Todd Rundgren. I always saw that as deliberate attempt to quote-unquote shake off the image. Was that right? \u2018The records aren\u2019t selling any more \u2013 if I\u2019m going out, I\u2019m going out doing what I want\u2019?<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/shaun-cassidy-wasp-300x300.jpg\")
Well, it wasn\u2019t that the records had stopped selling. They had been declining for sure in sales. But Todd is a guy that I loved when I was a teenager. I thought Something\/Anything was one of the greatest records ever. He, like Prince, had written everything and played everything.<\/p>\n
I thought maybe this guy work with me? He\u2019d certainly have something to teach me.<\/p>\n
I ended up living in his house in New York for three months, making the record with he and his band Utopia, basically in his barn. He said \u2018You\u2019re an actor, right? Let\u2019s act some more. On this record, let\u2019s play a lot of different roles.\u2019<\/p>\n
He said \u2018Let\u2019s shoot the moon, try a bunch of different things. Some of them may be great and some may suck. But it\u2019ll be a declaration of independence for you, and maybe you\u2019ll find the road you want to follow out of this.\u2019<\/p>\n
So I don\u2019t think it was as self-conscious as \u2018I\u2019m going to blow up my image and piss off all the kids who loved Da-Doo-Ron-Ron,\u2019 it was more like the natural order of things. And actually, much of what I recorded on Wasp was closer to what I was doing before I ever recorded \u2018Da-Doo-Ron-Ron.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Was the label horrified when you turned that album in?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if they were horrified \u2013 they never told me. But it sold eight copies. I remember talking to the head of promotion, and I said \u2018What should I do now?\u2019 And he said \u2018You should go away.\u2019<\/p>\n
Not forever \u2013 not for 40 years, like I did \u2013 but he said let people forget about you for a while, and come back better. It was a great piece of advice.<\/p>\n
But I had already transitioned into a whole other career, behind the scenes in show business, that was even \u2013 for me \u2013 more creatively fulfilling. I\u2019m writing and creating television shows.<\/p>\n
To write something, and six months later show up on a set where 300 people have a job because you had some crazy idea at four in the morning? That is like magic. And that is my true passion. When I found my true passion, I ran with it.<\/p>\n
In fact, I wrote the show I\u2019m doing right now. And it\u2019s not just a pop show of old pop songs. It has a through-line and a narrative. Come for the songs, leave for the stories.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Do you sing \u201cTill There Was You,\u201d which your mom did in The Music Man?<\/p>\n
Well, I do \u2013 you\u2019ve just given away one of my big secrets! When I was 4 or 5 years old, I only owned two records. One was With the Beatles, the second Beatles album, and the other was the soundtrack to The Music Man. Which I assume my mother had given me.<\/p>\n
What was crazy about these two very different records: They both had the same song on them! McCartney sang \u2018Till There Was You.\u2019<\/p>\n
What I realized recently was that those two records, and that song, are kind of the intersection of everything that\u2019s ever inspired me musically since.<\/p>\n
\u2018Trouble With a T, and that rhymes with P\u2019 from The Music Man, that\u2019s rap music. And Meredith Willson, the composer of The Music Man, was also a classical composer. Then there\u2019s McCartney\u2019s melodies \u2026<\/p>\n
And I asked my friend Brad Paisley what\u2019s the difference between country music, which I love, and pop music? He said \u2018Pop music is poetry and country music is storytelling.\u2019<\/p>\n
And all of that was like \u2018Oh, I can do a show in 2025 and not look like a guy trying to replicate the success he had at 20.\u2019 That was my fear, honestly.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t want to be that guy putting on satin pants and pretending I was 20 years old. It\u2019s a purpose-driven show, and that\u2019s my connection to this audience. It\u2019s not The Road to Me, it\u2019s The Road to Us.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
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