David Cassidy on the Web
Ruby and the Rockits is a family affair
July 20, 2009
By Melissa Renteria
Staff Writer
www.conexionsa.com
Alexa Vega, best know for her role in the Spy Kids films, plays Ruby in Ruby and the Rockits.
RUBY AND THE ROCKITS
When: 7:30 tonight
Where: ABC Family
The story of a multigenerational musical family that lives and performs together was the natural backdrop for a television project developed by former teen idol Shaun Cassidy.
"I'd wanted to do a show about the brother relationship for a long time. The brother dynamic is something I know very well," says Cassidy, the eldest son of Oscar-winning actress Shirley Jones and the late Jack Cassidy, a Tony-winning actor.
"The idea of two guys related by blood or by commitment who love and need each other yet sometimes can't stand each other is something I wanted to explore. To me, that is an inherently funny thing," the 50-year-old Cassidy says.
The former pop star and actor, who's now focused on television producing and writing (sci-fi fare Invasion, American Gothic), ventures into family-themed comedy as the executive producer and co-creator of the new ABC Family sitcom Ruby and the Rockits.
The show stars Cassidy's younger brother Patrick and older half brother David (himself a former teen idol) as siblings Patrick and David Gallagher, a former 1980s pop duo named the Rockits. One brother (Patrick) has left performing behind to focus on raising his two sons while the other (David) still hangs onto his glory days by booking gigs catering to nostalgic audiences.
"We're obviously drawing on autobiography, so it seemed like the natural thing to do," Cassidy says of naming his brothers' characters after them.
Ruby is David's long-estranged teen daughter, who reconnects with the family after her mother's death. She's played by Alexa Vega, best known from Texan Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids films.
Vega, who sings the show's title song, Lost in Your Own Life, and performs on the show with her co-stars, says the natural family dynamic shared by the Cassidy brothers is obvious on the set and in each scene.
"I think that's why the show works so well," the 20-year-old says.
Adding to the show's realistic look at a musical family, Cassidy says, are the performance scenes, which take place at the piano in the family's living room or show a character strumming a guitar while writing a song.
"It's organic to the environment," he says. "Someone might have a fight and then go write a song about it."
Cassidy, who last released an album of new material in 1980, says he's also left his acting days behind him.
"I think you'll be seeing my mother on the show long before you'll see me on it," he says.
