Snorkle is the latest collaboration from the award-winning duo of Randy Sharp and Dave Kinnoin. PHOTO COURTESY RANDY & DAVE
SoCal-based songwriters Randy Sharp and Dave Kinnoin both have impressively lengthy resumes. The Grammy-winning Sharp has racked up seven number-one country singles while Kinnoin has written hundreds of songs for Disney, Sesame Street, and Henson TV. They’ve also reached great heights together as Randy & Dave. The duo’s first two albums earned 11 national family music honors. Their third collaboration, “Snorkle,” is another winning collection of catchy tunes twisted by the duo’s witty humor. They also collaborated on an email, answering our questions:
Can you describe how you work together?
We really see it all as one big effort. Even when we’re doing the production on a new CD, we meet every Tuesday for the specific purpose of writing more songs. It’s too much fun to stop. We make a point to never repeat ourselves, so once we have another dozen that we’re both proud of, we start working (playing) on another CD.
What makes your collaboration so special?
We’ve gotten to be good friends and that makes for a much more relaxed process. One of the hardest things to do when you co-write is to trust the person you’re working with enough to share your ideas … even the stupid ones. Well, we’re happy to say that we’ve gotten to the point where we share a lot of stupid ideas.
Your songs tell wonderfully imaginative stories. Where do the ideas come from?
Mostly, we sit around reminding each other what the world looked and felt like when we were kids. We wrote “Oh Wait, That Wasn’t Me” after we both remembered being so enamored with one hero or another that we pretended our way right up to believing that we were the ones who accomplished those great feats.
What is the biggest joy that you get from making family music?
There’s nothing like making kids laugh … or smile or sing along to one of your songs.
Randy & Dave’s latest CD, “Snorkle,” is available nationwide starting July 27.
