Erik: What made you decide to leave sound
engineering and return to college to study
political science?
Ken: I left because I was bored. I ended up
doing shows in front of 180,000 people. I
was 24. I ended up being a production manager
for bands, for a band called Information Society.
Went around, went around to various countries
with them, went around the United States.
By the time I was 24-25, not to be boastful,
but I had pretty much risen to the top of
that ladder. So, I could have done more of
the same, but I was kind of bored. The second
piece, why political science? When I was touring,
I was kind of this nerdy roadie, I mean as
nerdy as roadies get. I was reading this book
called In Search of Excellence and in the
book they talk about the big, hairy, audacious
goal, the BHAG. I said, “You know what?
I need one of those for my life. I need a
BHAG.” What I decided to do was become the
president of the United States. So, one of
the lessons of the BHAG is that if you have
one, even if you don’t get there, good stuff
happens. I figured that would be true personally,
so I decided I wanted to be president of the
United States and then I back solved. What
do I need to do to be president of the United
States and the first thing was I got to go
get a political science degree and I’ll
do really well in school. That’s how I made
that decision and that’s how that played
out.
