NEWS
Kiefer Sutherland introduces 'Goodbye California' on BBC's Piano Room "a love letter to California"
11 February 2025
On Vernon Kay’s BBC Radio 2 show this morning, singer-songwriter and actor Kiefer Sutherland performed for Radio 2’s Piano Room month, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra at the BBC Maida Vale studios.
He sang his classic hit - Something You Love, new single - Goodbye California, and a classic cover of Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight.
Jo Whiley hosted the session (as Vernon was away today) and Kiefer chatted to her about his family, playing guitar, California, and playing Buttons in an upcoming pantomime film.
When asked about his song, Goodbye California, Kiefer said:
“This next song is called Goodbye California. I wrote it a few years ago. I was very nervous about playing it, but Juliet [his musical arranger] had done such a beautiful composition for it, given all of the tragic things that have happened in California in the last month. But, I wrote this about three years ago because I had left California and I went back east, kind of to where I'm from and near my sister, and I wrote this song as kind of a really fond farewell to a place that made a young man’s dreams come true. And so, it's really a love letter to California.”
He is currently filming a Christmas TV special in Knaresborough, near Leeds, in which he plays a Hollywood action hero who comes to England where he ends up playing Buttons in Cinderella. When asked what he would be wearing to pay the part, Kiefer said:
“Buster Keaton had a bell-hop costume that we’ve kind of modelled our Buttons costume after.”
Jo asked what kind of research he did for it, he said:
“Well, it was unfortunate because by the time I got here all the pantomimes had literally closed two or three days before. So, it has been a lot of conversation with other actors [from the cast] that have done pantomimes and things like that.”
He sang his classic hit - Something You Love, new single - Goodbye California, and a classic cover of Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight.
When asked about his song, Goodbye California, Kiefer said:
“This next song is called Goodbye California. I wrote it a few years ago. I was very nervous about playing it, but Juliet [his musical arranger] had done such a beautiful composition for it, given all of the tragic things that have happened in California in the last month. But, I wrote this about three years ago because I had left California and I went back east, kind of to where I'm from and near my sister, and I wrote this song as kind of a really fond farewell to a place that made a young man’s dreams come true. And so, it's really a love letter to California.”
He is currently filming a Christmas TV special in Knaresborough, near Leeds, in which he plays a Hollywood action hero who comes to England where he ends up playing Buttons in Cinderella. When asked what he would be wearing to pay the part, Kiefer said:
“Buster Keaton had a bell-hop costume that we’ve kind of modelled our Buttons costume after.”
Jo asked what kind of research he did for it, he said:
“Well, it was unfortunate because by the time I got here all the pantomimes had literally closed two or three days before. So, it has been a lot of conversation with other actors [from the cast] that have done pantomimes and things like that.”
