Maverick’ And Why He’d Love To Perform ‘Danger Zone’ At The 2023 Oscars

Singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins is a legend in his own right, but his work on the Top Gun soundtrack is nothing short of iconic.

“Danger Zone,” a track he was never originally meant to record for the original movie, plays a vital role in the sequel, which has made history at the box office this summer, grossing over $1.4 billion. Still in theaters and continuing to pull in audiences, Top Gun: Maverick is now available on Digital for people to watch or rewatch at home.

I caught up with Loggins to discuss the track, his work, the original music videos, and why he’d love to have the opportunity to perform “Danger Zone” at the 2023 Academy Awards.

Simon Thompson: The original Top Gun came out in 1986, but you only recently met Tom Cruise for the first time. How had your paths never crossed until then?

Kenny Loggins: Well, by the time they get around to the music, the actors are well on their way to finishing their next movie, so Tom was not as involved, certainly not with the music, back then. That was the beginning of his career. It was only about six years ago that I met him when I met him at Kimmel. The first thing I said to him was, ‘So, tell me the truth is “Danger Zone” a part of the new Top Gun?’ He said, ‘Yeah, it wouldn’t be Top Gun without “Danger Zone”.’ I really appreciate that he was true to his word. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Thompson: How long had you been working on, or thinking about, reworking “Danger Zone” in case that opportunity came up? Or was it after that encounter when you thought about revisiting it?

Loggins: No, I definitely revisited before that because the song gets so many other usages. I wanted to have my own hits and my masters rerecorded so I could get them out from under the other umbrella. I had rerecorded “Danger Zone” for commercial usage. For a movie with the new 5.1 and the different mix of parameters where you can have the music all around you, even coming from your seats sometimes, I wanted something that would accommodate that. I added more guitars and bigger echoes to the song so that the drums, when they boom, would wrap around you as an echo. Tom wanted the feeling of the original version. He wanted to rekindle that original excitement, so he used “Danger Zone” as an opening to the movie. Initially, the director told me he was thinking of using it later in the scene when Tom comes to the rescue. Instead of that, they used it at the beginning, and I think it was a wise choice.

Thompson: This new version, when are we going to get to hear it in full? Is it something you’ll perform on the road, or could we see it at the Oscars? I’ve spoken to Jerry about this, and he would be down for you and Lady Gaga doing something at the Oscars together.

Loggins: Really? That’s an interesting idea. I haven’t heard that, but from your lips to God’s ears. I think it would be a blast to sing “Danger Zone” at the Academy Awards, especially having been involved with them 30 years ago when “Footloose” was nominated. Back then, they didn’t like the original artists to perform it on the TV show, so I sat in the audience and watched other people do it. It was Debbie Allen singing and dancing to “Footloose.” To do what you suggested would be a fun thing.

Thompson: We know that you weren’t originally meant to record “Danger Zone.” You had “Playing with the Boys” in the bag because that was the one you decided to go for, and then “Danger Zone” came your way last minute. Was there a moment when you thought that maybe you didn’t have time or didn’t want to have two songs in the same movie? That would have changed so many things.

Loggins: Maybe I’d want to shoot myself in the foot (laughs). No, I got a call from Giorgio Moroder’s office when they realized they had to dub the song into the movie, and they didn’t have an act to sing it because with the acts that had been lined up, act or acts I’m not sure which, that the deal had dropped through. I think I was lower on the list because I was already in the movie, I was already involved with “Playing with the Boys,” and they probably didn’t want an artist to do more than one song. But they thought, ‘Well, who do we know that are the artists who can sing this high and has the chops for this?’ So they got around to calling me, and I was totally into it. I needed up-tempo material for my show, so I was motivated to have a rock song. When I heard it, I thought I wanted to mess with it a little bit, add a few chords and changes to it, but I knew that Giorgio had one on the hook, so I was ready to go in the studio. At the time, I was influenced by Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer” album and her reinvention of herself as a rock singer, so I emulated where she was going with her style. Of course, being a skinny white guy, it didn’t come out like her.

Thompson: You already had a heritage for doing great songs for soundtracks. There was Caddyshack, Footloose, and then Top Gun. Were you very careful not to become the soundtrack guy? That would be lucrative, but maybe you don’t want to get pigeonholed because you have this vast catalog of music outside of that.

Loggins: That would be an intelligent thing to think, except that Disco was King during that time. A lot of the 70s acts, which I was initially, were disappearing because disco was replacing everybody; it was very difficult to break through the Top Ten, so I did an end run around disco with the movies. It was mostly just happenstance that I was available, and my relationship with the producer John Peters got me the Caddyshack theme which led to Footloose because a friend of mine, Dean Pitchford, wrote the screenplay and co-wrote the song. Those two just started parlaying invitations. I had been asked to write for Flashdance and was going to, but I was touring and couldn’t write and record at the same time, so I missed out on that opportunity.

Thompson: People talk about what Top Gun means to them. Being part of it the phenomenon, what does Top Gun mean to you?

Loggins: Top Gun means I can send my fifth child to college (laughs). Top Gun, as a cultural phenomenon, is very interesting to me. I never imagined that my career would be associated with jets and bombs. It was something outside my reality, but I’m grateful and enjoy it. To me, it’s like an Indiana Jones experience, where you’re on the edge of your seat with an adventure movie that keeps you rooting for the hero.

Thompson: The videos for “Playing with the Boys” and “Danger Zone” are seminal pop music videos. What do you remember filming them?

Loggins: There are some fun memories. I think the choices on “Playing with the Boys” were not great. If you look at the hairstyles, it’s pretty funny and especially the girls. It’s kind of shocking. The “Danger Zone” video director was Tony Scott, who directed Top Gun, so it was really set up beautifully with actual film, not video film, and there was great lighting and not too much smoke. Most of our videos back then were videos where you can’t even see me in it because there’s so much smoke going on. It was so beautifully done and connected with so much footage from the movie that it really is an interesting video. That’s probably my favorite video of my career.

Top Gun: Maverick is in theaters and on Digital. It lands on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on Tuesday, November 1, 2022.