OurStage

Latch Key Kid is alternative-roots-rock inspired by the shadows and sunshine of Los Angeles. The music is written, composed and produced by Gavin Heaney.

The recorded sound is a serene singer songwriter style in the vein of Heaney’s most apparent influences, Elliot Smith and Jerry Garcia. Piano, mandolin and a mix of electric and acoustic guitars blend with layers of melodic harmony to produce landscapes of emotion. The words are invoking and are touched by the beatific at times. The mood is happy, sad and often bittersweet. Capitalizing on his ability to turn a phrase to his advantage, Latch Key Kid speaks in a language that is both poetic and accessible.

“Writing and listening to music is the only thing that makes me happy and I think it makes other people happy too,” Heaney says. “Music is the best way to express how I feel - it allows the words of the poet to be put to music. It allows the emotions of the words to live because it’s a more refined language.”

Heaney has assembled a home-studio and creates music on a daily basis, when he's not teaching music-lessons.

Latch Key Kid music has been recognized by various licensors for TV and film and has appeared in various action sports films and TV shows, but the biggest break yet is the placement of the song “Good Times” in a major soft drink commercial that will air during Super Bowl XLII.

Other placements include ABC’s Men in Trees, PBS’s Road Trip Nation, CBS’s The Amazing Race, and action sport movies including The Collective’s Roam and Teton Gravity Research’s Lost and Found. Latch Key Kid also scored an original soundtrack of Latin American inspired music for Sofia, a documentary on Peruvian world champion Sofia Milanovich.

His live shows as Latch Key Kid feature a full band. The live improvisation and expansion of the recorded works elevate the songs to jam-band like anthems. Latch Key Kid has opened shows for Slightly Stoopid, Donavon Frankenwreiter, Animal Liberation Orchestra and John Cruz.