Kiefer Sutherland knows what your first question is for him.
“I have said, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I absolutely loved playing Jack Bauer. I miss playing that character,” Sutherland said of his beloved character from the Fox hit show “24.”
“But someone would have to write something, and I’m not a writer of that show, but if they did and something came up and someone had a great idea, I certainly would always be open to the idea. But there’s absolutely — because I hear the rumors that you’re referring to — there is absolutely nothing in the works that I am aware of.”
The rumors of a “24? reunion may not be true, but Sutherland has more on his plate than thwarting terrorism singlehandedly. He is also an accomplished musician, and even spent a few years competing in rodeo.
Sutherland, whose work also includes the hit show “Designated Survivor” along with dozens of movies — including the upcoming “The Contractor” — will share his music with audience members when he performs at 5 p.m. March 20 at the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles. Sutherland is currently touring in support of his recently released third album, the very personal “Bloor Street.”
Sutherland was on stage performing the song “Saskatchewan,” which he is on his second album, written about his mother’s passing, when he experienced a moment of recognition.
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“I see out in the audience, I saw a woman put her arm around her friend and kind of hug her and hold her. And I realized that woman is clearly going through something very similar,” he said. “And I looked at her and she nodded at me and for that brief moment I think both of us felt less alone in dealing with a real significant loss in our life, even if it’s just for a brief second. That was a very powerful thing, certainly for me. I hope it was for her.
“There’s something very nice about feeling less alone. And I think music can do that,” the actor and musician said. “For me as a listener, it’s done that more than any other single art form.
“This tour is very different in the sense that I’m not taking out a full band. I’m basically going out with an acoustic guitar,” Sutherland said. “It’s going to be a much more intimate experience.”
The tour is the first he’s been able to do since the start of the pandemic, with a planned European tour for the album cancelled because of COVID-19 as well.
“I just figured if we went out with a much smaller footprint, that could help,” he said. “And also just wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to play the songs as I wrote them and be able to explain why I wrote some of these songs and what I was going through.”
The title track of the album, “Bloor Street,” is named for the main street that goes through Toronto, Canada, where Sutherland grew up and also shot “Designated Survivor.”
“And I came across that intersection and I realized that all of my firsts happened there. The first job I ever had was at the food court at the Hudson Centre on the northeast corner of Bloor and Yonge. The first time I ever kissed a girl was in front of the subway station in front of Bloor and Yonge. The first time I ever busked was on the northwest corner of Bloor and Yonge,” he said.
“And at this time in my life, I was kind of overtaken by sentiment and nostalgia. For me it at least expresses how grateful I was not only that I got to grow up in Toronto, which I think is an incredible city, but also at time when an 11-year-old can hop on the subway and go downtown, which is not something you can really do now.”
Calling this album “more of an Americana record” than a country album like his previous ones, Sutherland said he is proud of it and is excited for the oppportuiniity to play some songs from it for audiences.
“Certainly compared to when I was growing up to now, there was much more of a focus on an album being a representative piece in that all of the songs from the first track to the last, they kind of flowed together in a way, they had some kind of sembelance of cohesion with regards to the storytelling,” he said. “And I feel that this album does that very strongly.”
Sutherland’s music education began when he was 4 years old with violin lessons. At age 7, he asked for a guitar. His mother told him if he continued to take the violin seriously and practice, she would buy him a guitar when he turned 10.
“True to her word, she got me a guitar when I was 10 years old,” he said. “I don’t think I ever picked the violin up again.
“My first couple years of guitar lessons were classical guitar, but I could easily adapt that to what I wanted to play, which were kind of folks songs. Everything from Jim Croce to James Taylor … Bob Seger And just loved playing.”
It was in the nearly 10 years Sutherland spent on the United States Team Roping Championships circuit — during which time he won many rodeos — that he became drawn to country music.
“That’s kind of where I really started to listen to a lot of country music because the different cowboys that you would drive with kind of hauling your horses around, that’s what they were listening to,” he said. “And mainly outlaw country like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson. Merle Haggard, I think, is one of greatest songwriters of all time.
“Country music made sense to me. First of all, I love it as a listener,” Sutherland said. “What I loved about it was that it was kind of in the first person narrative. So, other bands that I liked, whether it was Led Zeppelin or AC/DC. Led Zeppelin, I could listen to ‘Black Dog’ and I know it’s kind of a sexually driven song, but I couldn’t tell you what it’s really about.
“But if I listen to Johnny Cash sing ‘A Boy Named Sue,’ I know exactly what it’s about. It’s a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end. So everything that I love about storytelling as an actor. Country and Americana music have very similar features because their stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. And for me, that’s what I’m interested in writing.”
As an actor, Sutherland said he finds interesting the excitement of getting together with a group of people to tell a story and figuring out how to make the story translate to somebody.
“It’s very similar as a songwriter. You have an idea, a song like ‘Nothing Left to Say,’ which is on this new record, how do I write down these lyrics and what melody will I play to really convey the heartbreak of a couple that have been together and in love for a long period of time that have just simply run out of stuff to say to each other. How do I convey that?” he said.
“It’s surprising to me how similar the task of creating images as an actor is to trying to create those images as a songwriter. The thing that’s very different, obviously, is where a show like ’24,’ Jack Bauer’s a character I play. It’s not me. When I write a song like ‘Nothing Left to Say,’ I’m pulling on a personal experience.
“And so when I go to play that song or explain what I was writing about, I’m talking about something that’s happened to me. And very quickly you can start to see it’s also happened to people in the audience. And those are the kind of moments where we all start to realize we got a lot more in common than we thought. And I think anytime you can have those kinds of moments, it’s a real nice evening.”
Kiefer Sutherland with special guests Marc Copely and Rocco DeLuca
When: 5 p.m. March 20
Where: The Arcada Theatre, 105 E. Main St., St. Charles
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Tickets: $39-$89
Information: 630-962-7000; arcadalive.com
Kathy Cichon is a freelance reporter for the Beacon-News.