Born and raised in Honolulu, Kurt Kaminaka was 9 when he started playing the piano. By the time he graduated from high school, music was his profession. Kaminaka was a member of Glass Candle during that band’s peak as nightclub headliners at Duke Kahanamoku’s in Waikiki; when Glass Candle became the first Hawaii group to do a full-length “oldies” show Kaminaka created the character of rock ’n’ roll keyboard player Wolfman Kowalski.
In the years that followed Kaminaka worked with other musicians, recorded as a solo artist and explored the arts. He built the Artzone Complex, a combination residence/performance space in Nuuanu. He wrote a play, “Once Upon a Bus,” designed for performance on a moving bus with the bus stopping to pick up or drop off cast members for each scene, and he developed a second performance space in Kailua that he named Secret Zone.
Kaminaka, 64, recently completed work on his first film, “Tales of the Circle Keys,” about a writer who becomes obsessed with a character he created while writing the screenplay for his first film.
Is “Tales of the Circle Keys” about you and that unusual musical instrument?
I wrote it for myself, and then the director — Diq Diamond, a great visionary — and I co-wrote the screenplay. I thought the story was good but he made it better. I think it’s a really good film, but everybody thinks their film is good! Hopefully it will be at HIFF (Hawaii International Film Festival).
Where does “Tales of the Circle Keys” fit in your larger body of work?
It’s the third (project) in a trilogy. The first thing I did with the circle keys was a show with 13 aerialists. Then was a concert — me and Jeannette Trevias — (playing) music that I wrote, duets, that was fun, and then this movie.
The circle keys certainly catch the eye.
It’s called the PianoArc — 264 keys, three grand pianos wrapped around me in a perfect circle.
What do you like to do that doesn’t involve the arts?
Watching HBO series like “Real Time With Bill Maher” and “Real Sports With Bryant Gumble,” and I like to play two video games — one is Scramble and the other is Age of Mythology.
What’s your next big project?
My philosophy of life is if you can’t find the joy (in life) there’s not a whole lot to life, and I find the joy is in inspiration. When I’m inspired I feel the whole world light up and when I start to work on it time stands still. So, my next big project is looking for that inspiration. I don’t need to make another film. Or I could make 10 more films. Who knows?
A lot of people who remember Glass Candle were very happy when you and Robert Shinoda, and almost all the living members of the group from the Duke’s days, played at one of Robin Kimura’s ’70s Nightclub Reunion shows. What would an ideal second reunion lineup be for you?
Two of the guys are dead, and another is out of music and never replies to Robert’s emails, so I’ve told Robert I’d want Michael Paulo on sax, DeShannon Higa on trumpet and Ira Nepus on trombone — that would be a monster horn section — and then me, Bobby (Gonzales) and Doug (Rivera), up front just because everybody knows us (from the 1970s), and, of course, Robert because he’s the leader, and maybe Jeannette Trevias on keyboards so I could be free up front.
