John Corbett: 'City' man goes country

Eighteen months into a role he felt destined to play, John Corbett is having the time of his life. And that leaves no time for any regrets about putting a two-decade acting career on hold for two years to chase a new one in country music.

"It's incredible, man," Corbett says enthusiastically from the Santa Ynez Valley, Calif., ranch he shares with his girlfriend, actress and animal activist Bo Derek. Corbett has been enjoying a break in a current tour in support of his eponymous self-financed album, recorded in late 2004 in Nashville and released in November.

"It's like making a movie," says Corbett, 45. "You make the movie, but by the time the movie comes out, the creative part's over and now you're just telling people about it. We're just out there spreading the gospel, which we've been doing basically for the last year.

"But I tell you, I'm ready to go make another album and be creative again, and things are just getting better and better every month."

Corbett, who grew up in Wheeling, W.Va., was 7 when he acquired his first guitar at the Big Wheel variety store. His family lived five blocks from the Capitol Music Hall, Saturday night home of "Jamboree USA," the second longest-running live radio broadcast after Nashville's "Grand Ole Opry." An uncle owned the 150-seat Club Madrid (his mother was a waitress there), where musicians stopped by and jammed with the house band after Capitol Music Hall shows.

Corbett, however, was into rock. "In the mid-'70s, I was a teen-ager - 14, 15 years old - and I was listening to Kiss, Queen, Styx and Kansas, and they all played the Capitol Music Hall. I worked there when I was 16 as a security guard.

"I actually worked for bands like Kansas," Corbett recalls. "I'd be with those guys all day making sure they had everything they needed within a few minutes of when they wanted it - it was a weird first job!"

Corbett graduated from Wheeling Central (he was the first in his family to finish high school, albeit 92nd out of 94 seniors) and moved to California - not to act but to work in the steel industry, Wheeling's steel mills having pretty much shut down. It wasn't until six years later, after a back injury, that Corbett sat in on a friend's improv class and got the acting bug.

Corbett did some 50 television commercials before landing his first guest spot in 1988 as the hippie boyfriend of Karen Arnold in "The Wonder Years." A 1990 Jack in the Box commercial earned him an audition on "Northern Exposure," where he spent five years portraying DJ Chris Stevens.

"Once I got on 'Northern Exposure' and I got some fame and was on the cover of TV Guide and in magazines and had been nominated for a Golden Globe and Emmy, I thought maybe I'm going to use this fame to capitalize on it, see if I can put a record out," Corbett says. "I was never a great guitar player, but I thought, I can sing well enough, and I know I can be sort of interesting to watch onstage because I've seen enough. I owned a live music venue for a decade in Seattle and performed three or four times just as a goof with bands that were there."

There would be a fair amount of supporting roles ("Volcano," "Tombstone," "Serendipity") before Corbett graduated to leading roles, the most impressive being Ian Miller, the ardent suitor in 2002's "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which grossed more than $240 million domestically and became the most successful romantic comedy ever made.

On "Sex and the City," Corbett portrayed furniture maker Aidan Shaw, whose heart is broken by Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw. The Chris/Ian/Aidan triumvirate is powerful heartthrob packaging, but Corbett was ready for something more than a career as the romantic beau/friend.

"I was kinda tired of doing the same thing, and nothing new was coming down the pike," he says, "and it wasn't that exciting for me to go somewhere, put some khakis on and say 'I'm here for you' anymore. That was boring. I wanted to cut somebody's head off with a shovel in a movie for once."

In 2000 he reteamed with guitarist Tara Novick, whom he had been playing with off and on since moving west in 1986. Two years ago, Corbett was invited to Nashville as a presenter at the CMT Flameworthy Awards, and things fell into place surprisingly fast. Corbett met with a number of music publishers and solicited demos from the likes of Hal Ketchum, Jon Randall and Darrell Scott (later, he'd pick up a couple of tunes from an L.A. neighbor, legendary songwriter and longtime Elton John collaborator Bernie Taupin). Then Corbett and Novick went into Nashville's Legends Studio, enlisting some top session players.

Corbett shopped the album to the Nashville majors but none bit, so he started his own label, Fun Bone Records, to bankroll the entire project. The first single, "Good to Go," entered Billboard's Hot Country Chart at No. 48, the highest debut for a new artist on an indie label since Nielsen BDS began keeping track in 1991.

The John Corbett Band - with Novick, bassist Louie Ruiz and drummer Hawk - debuted last year at Buck Owens' Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, Calif., opening for Asleep at the Wheel. Owens invited Corbett to play the club regularly and, just a few weeks before his death in March, sent Corbett an autographed guitar.

Staggered release schedules have found him in a couple of films, including the recent "Dreamland," featuring Corbett as an agoraphobic, alcoholic dad trying to raise a wayward daughter. The last film Corbett made before going on hiatus, "The Messengers," is scheduled for release next year.

Corbett's past roles continue to precede him, and unsurprisingly, women far outnumber men at his shows.

"I'm glad. My number one goal is I want the place to be packed when we play," Corbett says. Plus, "it's not a Kevin Bacon thing, something I'm doing in between movies. Not to put Kevin Bacon down, but I know it's kind of a hobby for him. I sank a lot of money into this - I want to get that money back!"