Examiner.com

This Sunday's episode of Leverage on TNT is a big one for Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane)! Taking on a case that involves retrieving stolen demo tapes for an up-and-coming musician duo means he has to go undercover as an aspiring singer himself. The episode entitled "The Studio Job" features an original song that Kane co-wrote and appears on-screen singing and strumming along on a guitar. 

Now Kane's fans know that he is actually an accomplished musician in his real life but his character on the show is...not. So Kane explains how he went from having a song featured in a previous episode to actually appearing on-screen behind a mic: "They wanted to explore that element of the character...John [Rogers, one of the show creators] knew going into it he wasn't able to get it done in the second season because we had so much stuff going on but I'm pretty fortunate that I get to do it. And of course we ended up using my own song on this...It's not my song in the episode, but it is my song; I wrote it a few years ago so I'm excited to see it."

When Kane says that the song, entitled "Thinking of You," is not his in the episode, he means that it's not Eliot's but Eliot has to sing it as part of his undercover work. Others who take a turn performing the vocals in this episode include both special guest stars John Schneider and Alona Tal.

"A lot of people don't realize that John Schneider can sing. He was a big country star; he had several hits. Chuck Goff is Toby Keith's bass player and has been for years and he said 'You know when we first started off with Toby, we used to cover four or five oh John Schneider's set.' He can really sing! We used to sit down in the down time; I'd have my guitar there, and me and John would trade songs," Kane shares.

And Kane sings the highest praises of Tal's musical ability, too. Those of you who have attended Creation Entertainment's "Salute to Supernatural" conventions may have heard her perform karaoke, but he believes she has a talent far greater than that. 

"I gave her a couple of pointers but the girl knows how to sing," Kane assures. "So I didn't have to lead her too far. She had never sang country music before so-- it's hard to tell people how to put heart into a song, but she already had that-- so I explained to her in full detail why I wrote the song. She got that whole concept, and she ran with it."

In addition to performing his song, Tal also shares some emotionally-charged (and a bit steamy) scenes with Kane in "The Studio Job." "It's a very emotional piece on all sides of it," Kane teases.

Kane hopes that his performance on Sunday's episode of Leverage makes his fans, who he calls "the best [ones] in the world" happy. But furthermore, he hopes it creates a landmark episode for the series that people will talk about for years to come. He says: "You know, I sang on Angel and that was a huge episode for us. That episode always gets brought up, and it was a big episode in general because Lindsey got his hand back, but it was something that worked really well [there]...so hopefully it will do the same for [Leverage]. But having my own song on is very cool; how fortunate am I to be able to do that!?"

"The Studio Job" airs on TNT on July 18th at nine p.m. Kane's single, "Thinking of You" will be available on iTunes in conjunction with the episode on Sunday, and he also has a five-song self-titled EP that will be available as a "prelude to the album that will come out in October." Be sure to tune in and check Kane out in action!