Christian Kane

Few performers move as easily between a television set and a rock stage as Christian Kane, an American actor who also fronts the country-southern rock band that bears his name. Kane has said he is of Cherokee descent, and his upbringing was restless: his father worked in the oil business, so the family moved around the South before settling in Norman, Oklahoma, when he reached eighth grade. He wrestled in collegiate style and played strong safety before enrolling in art history at the University of Oklahoma, a degree he left unfinished when he set out for Los Angeles.

The acting work came first. In 1997 he landed a role in MGM's Fame L.A., and later played Lindsey MacDonald in Joss Whedon's Angel and Eliot Spencer in TNT's Leverage, a part he also revived in Leverage: Redemption. Music arrived as a parallel track: The House Rules, released on 7 December 2010 on Bigger Picture Music Group, reached no. 25 on the Billboard Country Albums chart, and its single "Let Me Go" followed in July 2011.