Latch Key Kid

“On a sidewalk, by the sea, a silhouette of you and me.
Like faded footprints, on the beach,
like a dream just out of reach”

Latch Key Kid, aka Gavin Heaney, descends from the specifically West Coast tradition of singer-songwriters, those to whom songs arrive as naturally as waves undulating under the California sun. His sound may be steeped in Americana, folk, and Rolling Stone-style country-rock, but his musicality is infused with a buoyancy beyond genre; it’s if Elliott Smith had learned to surf as a kid or Kurt Cobain had a little more Zen and a lot more sunshine.

Heaney is a South Bay native whose writerly influences include Robert Hunter, chief lyricist for The Grateful Dead, Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys and the poetry of Jim Morrison, yet he’s also been a rock ‘n’ roll front man since he was a teenager, touring the world and performing religiously. Heaney has a gift that cannot be taught: the ability to write songs that are like smiles. His compositions are also unusually wide ranging, from downright grunge to hook-heavy pop to symphonic film scores. As such, his music has traveled far beyond the beach.

The Latch Key Kid single “Good Times” appeared in Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl XLII (2008) commercial and as the title track in the Dream Works film, I Love You Man (2009). The former reached an audience of 97 million and led to a distribution deal with Warner Music. His 2014 song “Before I Fall” has been heard over 51 million times on Tatia Pilieva’s viral YouTube video “Undress Me” His music has more recently appeared in the 2018 season of Showtime’s hit series “Shameless”

Latch Key Kid has released eight studio albums and one live album since 2005 and has toured and performed worldwide with such acts as Willie Nelson, Bob Weir (Grateful Dead), Brian Wilson (Beach Boys), The Steve Miller Band, Sublime, Jack Johnson, Ziggy Marley, and many others.

“Music is the most invoking way to express myself,” says Heaney, “There’s just too much going on between the lines. Shades of emotion and meaning are best expressed through melodies.” – Latch Key Kid