Before Kevin Costner was a big movie star he was a struggling musician, playing the guitar and singing in a band called Roving Boy.  Now that Kevin Costner isn’t a big movie star anymore, he’s gone back to the band, now called Kevin Costner and Modern West, and will be releasing a country-rock CD on November 11.

The actor, who told PEOPLE that his unlikely turn as a lead singer elicited double-takes when the band played a NASCAR event in July, has been playing music with some of his band mates for nearly 20 years.

An early incarnation of the band (once called Roving Boy) stalled when Costner’s movie career took off, but in the past few years he’s devoted more time to music. “I remember looking out into the crowd, thinking, ‘This just feels right,’ ” Costner, 53, said in a statement about an early performance with Modern West.

[From People.com]

Costner has had more time to devote to music because he’s “scaling back his movie career to about one film a year” according to Reuters.  I was thinking I hadn’t seen anything from Kevin in a long time but there was Swing Vote earlier this year, which blinked in and out of theatres so fast it may as well have been a year without a Costner film.

Costner co-wrote a number of songs on the album, called “Untold Truths”, and the first single, “Long Hot Night” will be sent out to country radio this week with a few other tracks from the CD.  Kenny Chesney can breathe easy, there is no threat of Kev and the guys stopping his CMA Entertainer of the Year win streak.  Something in me always pulls for better than average actors, and Costner has had some moments, to be better than average musicians, too, since the reversal seems to happen alot more often.  But while I wouldn’t consider Costner’s effort quite as bad as Scarlett Johansson’s attempt, I would still call it the Waterworld of country music.

Costner and his band will be touring in late 2008 and early 2009, before The New Daughter, Costner’s next film, comes out in March. 

Kevin Costner is shown performing at the at the BMW Charity Pro-Am golf event in Greenville, South Carolina on 4/29/06. Credit: PRPhotos