Rock and roll and Hollywood provocateur offers a potent new 7-inch single of romantic glam excess on Friday, February 13 via Rum Bar Records
There’s a thin line between pleasure and pain, and what you give – as well what you get – is all fair in the never-ending game of rock and roll. It’s the consequences of our actions that lead to our fate, and the soundtrack to this personal drama has suddenly never sounded so good.
Like a jolt of lightning to the soul and an electric shock to our bodies, Michael Des Barres unleashes potent new single “Kiss or Kill Me” to the streams and on compact disc on Friday, February 13 on Rum Bar Records. The 7-inch vinyl will quickly follow in March, and a colorful and lively official music video brings this lethal rock banger to cinematic heights.
Of course, it’s no coincidence that this dramatic romp of grandeur, excess, and swagger, backed with an inviting spoken word composition and rock and roll awakening homage “I Was Saved in ‘64,” arrives on the eve of Valentine’s Day.
“It’s now or never,” says Des Barres, the glam rock provocateur who has always played by his own rules. “Really the song is an anthem of love – love me or leave me. You either bring love to life, or you’re not living.”
The 26th Marquis Des Barres has been truly living for several decades now, balancing a high-wire act of rock and roll aristocracy and Hollywood charisma that has positioned the British-born and Los Angeles-based actor and performer like few in his class. He’s seen it all; and has lived to tell the sordid tale – as he does in the 2015 documentary Michael Des Barres: Who Do You Want Me to Be?, now streaming on Amazon Prime.
“It’s in my blood,” he warns. “And it always has been.”
From a litany of notable and ground-breaking bands (Silverhead, Detective, Chequered Past, and fronting The Power Station at Live Aid) to an extensive acting resume (portraying “Murdoc” on iconic ‘80s series MacGyver and appealing in hundreds of films and shows, from 1967 debut To Sir, With Love to Miami Vice, 21 Jump Street, and countless others) to now hosting a daily garage rock and soul history program on Little Steven’s Underground Garage on SiriusXM (and acting as the Master of Ceremonies for its annual cruise this April), Des Barres has never been afraid to lay it all on the line.
Now with the formidable “Kiss or Kill Me,” a whirling dervish of aural hedonism, he’s offered perhaps his most intriguing proposition yet. It’s doused in a double shot of rebellion from Bowie, the street-walkin’ swagger of the Stooges, and the slick sonic seduction of T.Rex. “Kiss or Kill Me” is fueled by hyperactive strains of glam, garage rock, and proto-punk, but to Michael Des Barres it’s simply rock and roll.
And like any great film or television show, he’s once again surrounded himself with one hell of a cast. Longtime collaborator and conspirator Loren Molinare (the Detroit legend known for his work in Slamdinistas, The Dogs, Little Caesar) provides the slick lighting to Des Barres’ holy thunder, and here the band is rounded out by Paul III on bass, Rob Klonel on drums, and Richard Duguay on backing vocals.
“Kiss or Kill Me” was written by Des Barres and Molinare; produced by Duguay and Molinare; engineered by Patrick Burkholder; mixed and mastered by Duguay; and partially recorded at Pawnshop Studios in Los Angeles.
“I’m very excited that this single is hitting the world in a big sonic way,” says Molinare. “We both wanted ‘Kiss or Kill Me’ to have the urgency of ‘70s street rock – rough and dangerous sounding. We kept it very simple: Just guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. I feel the lyrics really focused my guitar playing to be dirty rock and roll.”
Des Barres wouldn’t want anyone else by his side as he thrusts back into the rock and roll world, with “Kiss or Kill Me” his first release since 2024’s covers album It’s Only Rock N’ Roll. There’s a balance at play, where the primal nature of the track’s intensity belies its relatively basic DNA.
“Loren is amazing, he’s a shocking guitar player,” Des Barres adds. “His thing is so simplistic and yet so powerful. It’s got a fantastic guitar, Paul delivers incredible bass. What I want is simplicity — guitar, bass, drums. Who did that? Elvis. Zeppelin. All the greats. Let’s have a guitar, bass, drums record out that means something.”
The urgency of “Kiss or Kill Me” is complemented nicely by the 7-inch’s b-side, “I Was Saved in ‘64,” both reflecting a sense of rock and roll epiphany, with the latter a welcoming portal into the Michael Des Barres origin story. It takes us back to the year he discovered rock and roll as a teenager in England, and first felt truly alive.
“London, sex, drugs, B.B. King. Little Richard, young English kids, Mick Jagger, Plant. So many people trying to find freedom and liberation,” he reflects. “Three chords are all you need. It’s a teenage mantra, with a little help from illegal substances. And flared jeans. I just love the simplicity of it.”
Like he does each day on Little Steven’s Underground Garage, Des Barres transports us to a different era, his words unfolding like pages of a history book while Molinare’s atmospheric guitarwork soundtracks the time machine, carrying us to an age of awakening and intemperance that will never be replicated again.
Adds Molinare: “I mentioned to Michael about needing a b-side, and suggested the title ‘I Was Saved in 64’. The next day he sends me a voice message of him doing the spoken word part. That’s when I had the idea to come up with a guitar soundscape behind his spoken word. No verse or chorus like a standard song but flowing music with his spoken word.”
Both new compositions came together quickly. But when one has lived the tale, it’s no surprise that the songs two weathered and enduring musicians have offered up in this early 2026 emerged from their collective headspaces with relative ease.
“I wrote ‘Kiss or Kill Me’ in two minutes, done,” Des Barres adds with a laugh. “It was off the top of my head, and that head has been around for a long time, pardon the expression [laughs]. All the great songs come to you without defining how to write a song. It’s already a song in your soul. You just write it.”
Performing with Michael Des Barres:
Michael Des Barres: Vocals
Loren Molinare: Guitars and backing vocals
Paul II: Bass guitar
Rob Klonel: Drums
Richard Duguay: Backing vocals
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‘Kiss or Kill Me’ + ‘I Was Saved in ‘64’ production credits:
Kiss or Kill Me:
Written by Michael Des Barres and Loren Molinare
Produced by Richard Duguay and Loren Molinare
Basic track recorded at Pawnshop Studios
Engineered by Patrick Burkholder
Overdubs recorded at Into the Black Studio in North Hollywood
Mixed and Mastered Richard Duguay
I Was Saved in 64
Michael Des Barres: Spoken word
Loren Molinare: Guitars
Richard Duguay: Guitar
Written By Des Barres/Molinare
Produced by Richard Duguay & Loren Molinare
Mixed and mastered Richard Duguay
Connect with Michael Des Barres:
HOMEPAGE . MULTI . SPOTIFY . BANDCAMP . INSTAGRAM . FACEBOOK . YOUTUBE . IMDB . RUM BAR
Bio:
Michael Des Barres’ arrival in the entertainment world came early – as a Marquis attending boarding school in England, he first started acting at age eight in commercials and school plays. He later moved on to Corona Theatre School in West London where he was cast in the 1967 classic film To Sir With Love, starring Sidney Poitier.
At nineteen, Michael played the androgynous rock star Rose in the nude musical The Dirtiest Show In Town, produced by Robert Stigwood, of Jesus Christ Superstar fame. Andrew Lloyd Webber saw Michael’s performance and went backstage to tell Michael that he should indeed form a real rock band. Michael quickly wrote his first song titled “Will You Finance My Rock and Roll Band” which he performed for Lloyd Webber, that song lead Michael to form Silverhead, his first band, a raucous glam rock experiment. They were immediately signed to Purple Records in 1972. In 1974 Michael married his girlfriend of seven years, actress Wendy Hamilton (Professor Emeritus Wendy Wheeler, London Metropolitan University).
After two albums and two world tours Silverhead disbanded and Michael moved to Los Angeles broke and in love with Pamela Miller “Miss Pamela” of the GTO’s, he arrived in L.A. with two hundred dollars and a hair dryer, ending his marriage to Wendy Hamilton. Michael married Pamela Des Barres, author of I’m With The Band, in 1977. Michael and Pamela amicably divorced in 1991.
In Los Angeles, Michael formed the band Detective. Detective was signed to the famed Swan Song Records by Jimmy Page and recorded two albums. That era also saw Michael appear on U.S. television in the sitcom WKRP In Cincinnati with Detective playing the punk rock group Scum of the Earth. Michael’s character, Dog, was featured throughout the episode and the band itself played at the end of the show. The members of Detective went their separate ways in 1979.
Throughout the years of Silverhead and Detective Michael had been struggling with drugs and alcohol and in 1981 he finally got sober and has remained so. “People didn’t understand why I didn’t drink or do drugs in the ‘80s, I was a pariah, but I understood that it was for kids. It was making me psychotic and it was destroying my natural energy. It made me listless and uncreative and I thought that was unacceptable. It was more important to be able to look into my son’s eyes and be able to connect with him, than it was to look in the eyes of some lower companion with bad coke.” As a result of his sobriety he co-founded R.A.D, Rock Against Drugs, a highly successful P.S.A. that helped enthuse the culture of MTV with an anti-drug status.
In 1982, Michael formed the band Chequered Past, featuring Steve Jones, Clem Burke, Nigel Harrison and Tony Sales. The band opened for Duran Duran in 1984, it was this association that led to Michael being chosen to replace Robert Palmer as lead singer of The Power Station when Robert Palmer withdrew. Michael performed with The Power Station in Philadelphia at Live Aid before two billion people after a ten day rehearsal. A highlight of the touring set was Michael’s song “Obsession,” cowritten with Holly Knight in 1983. At the time, it had been released by the L.A. based New Wave group Animotion and was a number one hit in 27 countries.
Michael’s love of acting had never subsided, and in 1985 he was cast in the role most familiar to his fans – that of “Murdoc” in the ABC hit series MacGyver. Playing a master assassin who seemingly could not be killed, Murdoc had always succeeded in taking out his targets until MacGyver. Murdoc appeared in nine episodes of MacGyver, starting in 1985 and throughout the series run and was widely considered to be MacGyver’s premier arch nemesis. As Michael’s acting career in the U.S. was taking off, he was cast in many of the most popular shows of that era, including Melrose Place, Seinfeld, WKRP in Cincinnati, Miami Vice, Alf, Roseanne, The Rockford Files, Northern Exposure, as well as films such as Ghoulies, Nightflyers, Pink Cadillac, Diary of a Sex Addict and The Man from Elysian Fields. 2018 and 2019 saw Michael return to play another master assassin “Nicholas Hellman” on the new CBS reboot of MacGyver, In a nod to his iconic role he returns as the mentor of the new “Murdoc”.
In 2014, Michael was asked by Steven Van Zandt to bring his encyclopedic knowledge of rock and soul music to Little Steven’s Underground Garage, SiriusXM, Channel 21 where he can be found DJing every weekday from 5 to 8 a.m. PT and 9 p.m. to midnight PT, playing classic rock and soul music from The Rolling Stones to The Ramones and The Shangri La’s to The Temptations. On Sirius XM, Michael is heard by more than six million listeners a day, people are drawn to his show for the outstanding music, as well as Michael’s positivity, humor and his inimitable rock and roll intellect and experience. First hand rock and roll history from someone who was there.
Michael is now signed to Steven Van Zandt’s label Wicked Cool Records. 2018 saw the release of two singles, “Living in the USA,” which came in second in Little Steven’s Underground Garage Coolest Song In The World contest, as well as a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody.” Michael also formed a new band, Michael Des Barres and The Mistakes, and released a double A-side single on Wicked Cool Records in 2019, “Crackle and Hiss,” b/w “Stop! In The Name of Love.” Michael continues to record on Wicked Cool Records and recently released a cover of The Sex Pistols “Anarchy In The UK,” produced and arranged by Steven Van Zandt.
On the winter solstice of 2018 Michael and his long term partner of twelve years Britta Hayertz-Des Barres were married in Los Angeles, California.
Michael’s highly lauded documentary Who Do You Want Me To Be?, filmed in 2012, directed by Josh Elvis Weinstein, began streaming in 2020 on Amazon Prime and various other streaming platforms.
February 2025 brought new music once again, releasing the 7-inch single “Kiss or Kill Me,” b/w “I Was Saved in ‘64,” on New England-based Rum Bar Records.
