LOS ANGELES -- The lead singer of LA-based rock band Burnin’ was getting burned out, partying all night and being hung over. Now clean and nearly sober, Billy Keane has written All Those Days (Bell Bottom Records), a song about giving up his self-destructive behavior.

“Party favors at the Ritz, all the glamour and glitz / Shy sexy slim wild when the light dim / All those days I've left behind / I ain't wasting no more time.”

The music video for “All Those Days” takes viewers on a mini-tour of the Sunset Strip and includes images of the seedier side of show business interspersed with shots of Keane atop a mountain, as if rising above the things that once held him down.

“I was sitting at the Rainbow Room about four years ago, and somebody commented that none of the guys from Mötley Crüe hung out there any longer,” Keane recalls. “I said it’s because they’re out on the road working instead of sitting here blasting their brains out! That was a huge epiphany for me.”

Keane still enjoys an occasional beer, but he has completely given up drugs and is spending more time than ever creating music, with a clear head.

“When I was doing drugs and drinking, I’d have a hangover for a couple of days and had to sleep it off,” he said. “I wasted a lot of time doing something stupid when I could have been more creative and focused.” http://youtu.be/JSxxjhlyocg


Keane credits much of his creative drive to his uncle, the late Walter Keane, the painter portrayed by actor Christoph Waltz in the movie Big Eyes. As a child and teenager, Keane spent a lot of time with Walter, who encouraged him to follow his dream of being a musician.

Keane takes issue with Big Eyes, which portrays his uncle as a con artist who tricked the world into believing he had painted the famous paintings of children with big eyes, for which he became famous in the 1950s and 60s, when it was supposedly Walter’s wife, Margaret, who really painted them. In the movie, Margaret is played by actress Amy Adams, who recently won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, for her role.

“I think the filmmakers got it wrong,” Keane said. “My mother used to describe seeing Walter paint, and I have seen ‘Big Eyes’ paintings and sketches he did before he ever met Margaret. Now she claims that she did them all. She might have done some of the later paintings, but Uncle Water came up with the concept and he taught her his technique.”

Keane recently told his version of the “Big Eyes” history to the Los Angeles Times, the Fresno Bee and the TV program “Entertainment Tonight.” He has written a song about his uncle and the controversy surrounding his paintings, titled Big Eyes, Big Lies, which will be included on a forthcoming EP.

“It’s good to be off drugs, because now I’m clear-headed and focused on making music and doing what I can to clear Uncle Walter’s reputation,” Keane said.

The music of Burnin’ is available on iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby and at www.BurninMusic.com.


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