SPECIAL 'K'S I grew up with 11 brothers and sisters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, all with names beginning with 'K'. I was No 7. It was part of our daily life to work at my parents' roller-skating rink, to which our house was attached. My job was playing the music and being the skate guard. Growing up in such a big family meant you had to be independent {minus} as kids, we were probably more risk-takers. Another thing about being in a family business was the social skills that came with it. We learned at a very young age how to meet and talk to people from all walks of life. These two things probably led us to be more entrepreneurial. All 12 of us have our own businesses.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE I left home when I was 18 and, at the University of Michigan, joined the Rainbow People's Party, a left-wing anti-Vietnam war group. I started working for them as a concert promoter. Some of the first concerts I ever produced were for Cheech & Chong, The J. Geils Band and Neil Young. There was a guy at the university named John Sinclair, who was a famous radical, a peace activist. He was thrown in prison for [giving] two marijuana joints [to an undercover police officer] and sentenced to 10 years. [Richard] Nixon was in office then and clearly it was a political imprisonment. The Rainbow People's Party did a benefit concert to raise money to get him out of prison, which John Lennon played at. Sinclair was let out on appeal 60 days later. That one event changed forever how I viewed things. I saw how media and music could really change the way people feel. It was a way to rally people together and emotionally help drive awareness and change. Later in my career, I put that idea to work through big global benefit [shows].
CAUSES AND EFFECTS I see something that I get passionate about and I feel that I can help make a change. That was the reason for my involvement in the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, by taking that message around the world with music. I felt that way about Freddie Mercury. I happened to be with his manager in Los Angeles the day he died of Aids. We talked that day about creating a tribute concert to Freddie and it became a tipping point for Aids awareness. Because I was involved in the 'We Are the World' project with Michael Jackson and Bob Geldof's 'Live Aid' project [both in 1985], I did become somewhat of a magnet for causes. I've been in the right room and my antenna is always up.
GORE MOVIE In 1993, I sold off all my business in TV shows and concert production and started an internet company, which became, in two years, the second-largest Web design company in the world. We took the company public in 1998 and I sold it in 2000 to start a venture-capitalist firm - and started investing in early-stage technology businesses. By 2005, I hadn't produced an event for 10 years.
One night, in 2006, my wife and I were asked to see a slide show by former US vice-president Al Gore. We got about halfway through it and I thought, 'This is depressing.' So we left. About six months later, a friend invited us to the premiere of a new documentary. It was the same slide show. I was so moved by it I decided to do something for the environment. I created Live Earth, contacting Gore, who wanted to be a part of it, and created Live Earth Day on July 7, 2007
THIRST FOR CHANGE There are a billion people [who go] without clean drinking water every single day but there are things we can do today to make a massive dent in the problem. Dow Live Earth Run for Water is about leaving your house and being a part of the solution. If we can get even a small [number] of people doing the walk/run, they will evangelise it to their friends. They will be in our army. When [NGO] Global Water Challenge came to us [at Live Earth], they brought the Dow [Chemical Company]. It wasn't easy to get our arms around [working with a global corporation]; but we believe that you can't be perfect yesterday. We really have to look at what changes [multinationals] are making going forward and how we are going to hold them to task. [Otherwise] we are going to get hung up in the past and not go anywhere.
