Heyborne is a familiar face — and voice

Kirby Heyborne has become a familiar face on the big screen locally, starring in such movies as "The Best Two Years," "Saints and Soldiers," "The R.M." and, most recently, "Sons of Provo." In the latter, he played a member of a spoof Mormon boy-band — and demonstrated a surprising musical ability.

What many people don't realize is that "I was into music long before I started acting," said Heyborne.

He lives in Los Angeles now, where he is pursuing an acting career. But he has also released a new CD titled "Inside," songs that Heyborne has written and performs. And no, these songs are not boy-band spoofs. He calls it acoustic/alternative/pop, but there are bits of other genres mixed in — blues, maybe a little folk.

If you count the tapes he made with his first band — using a microphone they hung from the ceiling fan — this is actually his fifth recording. "But all the others I did with full bands. This one is just me," he said by phone from his L.A. home.

There was a time when Heyborne thought music might be his career. He started taking piano lessons at age 4. At age 15, he switched to the guitar. There were two reasons for that, he said.

First, "I wanted to impress girls, so I needed something other than the piano."

But he and his friends at Alta High School had also discovered the Beatles. "We were figuring out 'Let It Be' on the piano. But there were three of us, so only one could play the piano at a time. If we wanted to play together, we needed some new instruments." Heyborne found an old guitar at his house, and a how-to book, and then bought a Beatles songbook for guitar.

Three months later, he was writing his own songs, and he and his friends started giving concerts for their friends, often in a greenhouse at the home of one friend in Draper.

Heyborne hooked up with Steve Lemmon of the local band Ali Ali Oxen Free for a "bigger and better" album, and later joined with "the coolest, long-haired, chick-magnet-artist," Marc Thorup, in a band called Shasta Daisy, which was soon playing gigs throughout the Salt Lake and Utah County areas.

Soon, he left to serve an LDS mission in the Dominican Republic, where "I wrote a few songs on ('Preparation') days." When he returned, he and Thorup and three other musicians formed a band called Bentleigh and began playing all over Utah. The band performed at various events during the 2002 Winter Games, including opening for 'N Sync at the Olympic Medals Plaza.