The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Perfect Harmony: Kellie Bishop and Kevin O'Loughlin practice in their home studio. The two, currently employed by Sun Microsystems, want to make their music a full-time career soon.

Willow Glen couple plans to make beautiful music together full-time

Folk-music duo plans to get off fast track and onto uncertain path

By Cecily Barnes

Having just hit their 30s, Willow Glen residents Kellie Bishop and Kevin O'Loughlin have already nailed down what most would call the Silicon Valley dream. After meeting at Sun Microsystems, their decade-long employer, the couple married, pooled their incomes for a combined $160,000 a year and bought a home on Newport Avenue in Willow Glen. Now that the dream is complete, they plan to smash it with a sledgehammer.

In the living room of their cozy Newport Avenue home, the couple excitedly tells how they will soon be full-time musicians, free of the structure and rigidity of their current lifestyles. Within the next year they'll give up their cubicles at Sun Microsystems, possibly sell their newly remodeled Willow Glen home and watch a zero drop off their six-digit income. It's a huge and scary step.

"We want to be full-time musicians, but when exactly we make the switch, we don't know yet," Bishop said, after brief eye contact with her band partner-husband. "We'll have to continue our high-tech jobs on the side until we can support ourselves. We might have to move, but that's OK."

Bishop and O'Loughlin look almost like brother and sister, with fiery red hair, freckles and dedication when it comes to their music. For the past two years, they've combined her voice with his guitar skills to make folk-pop music. Bishop likens their duet style to the Sundaes and Everything but the Girl, comparing their sound to Shawn Colvin.

"Our music is all about getting a chance to say what you want to say," Bishop said. "A conversation straight out might be relatively uncomfortable, but when you communicate with someone via music, it's easier to hear or listen to."

They're not waiting for record companies to knock on their door, either. They've already self-produced a CD, hired a publicist and bombarded radio stations with their music. As always, they continue to gig at least once a month at various South Bay venues, including Borders Books (where their CD is sold) and the Agenda.

"It's a lot more hectic than I thought," O'Loughlin said. "Gigging once a month is about all we can handle right now."

Calling themselves Far From Home, they have released their first CD, Like a Whisper, which tells an appropriately familiar tale of a person's journey from where they are in life to where they want to be.

"Knowing that you're not exactly where you want to be is part of the journey itself," O'Loughlin said. "The CD is about a journey--Far From Home."

Communicating through music is how the couple first expressed their desire to be together. Three years ago, the band partners worked side by side in Sun Microsystems' logistics department. After realizing they shared a common love of blues music, they began going to clubs and eventually decided to make music of their own.

"The first song we wrote was called If I Could Tell You," O'Loughlin said. "I was really trying to get Kellie to tell me how she felt about me. We got married one year later and then came out with the demo."

Now the two are using their business skills and financial resources to promote their music and truly make it happen. The biggest difference between being a musician and a high-tech worker, O'Loughlin said, is the lack of certainty. While they definitely get to be creative, they're not guaranteed to make it after any amount of time.

"It's a lot about luck and a little bit about timing," O'Loughlin said. "In the business world, everything is fairly structured, and there is a path. In music, there's no path. You can't say that after two years working, you'll get a record deal. It doesn't work like that."

But O'Loughlin and Bishop are willing to take their chances. O'Loughlin says they have some money set aside. "It's scary and it's exciting at the same time," Bishop said. "But I have the confidence that we'll make it no matter what happens."

Howie Nave of Willow Glen's Bear Tracks Productions is Far From Home's publicist. As every publicist should, he raves about Bishop's voice, O'Loughlin's talent on the guitar and the music they make together. He also speaks highly of their conviction to leave their high salaries by the wayside.

"The dream that we want is in the small minority in Silicon Valley," O'Loughlin said, "but that's OK."

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