CHATSWORTH, Calif.—Almost exactly five years ago, oft-hailed adult thespian Kurt Lockwood took leave of the XXX industry to pursue a new family life in Spain. But as he declared at the time, it was a leave of indefinite extent, maybe or maybe not permanent—something about which he said, "I reserve the right to make up my mind at a later date."
Though he did resurface briefly about a year later in a bisexual scene for Hancock Studios, Lockwood has otherwise remained off the porn radar ever since. Until now. With an appearance at the XO Ball & Expo beginning tomorrow in San Francisco, Kurt Lockwood lets it be known to the world that he is officially back.
"I left, moved to Europe because I became a dad and didn't want to shoot while I was trying to be a fulltime dad," Lockwood told AVN. "Bounced back and forth between Europe because I have family on the east coast—that's where I'm from, Baltimore. I lived in San Sebastian, Spain; in Doyet, France; spent some time in Baden-Baden, Germany, and unfortunately, like a lot of people in porn, it didn't work out. I keep coming back to a quote from that movie Magnolia, where they say, 'The book says we may be done with our past but our past ain't done with us.'
"It's difficult to be porn stars or anybody who really works in the industry to make it work," he continued. "It's a challenge for me just like everybody else."
Lockwood said he began to consider returning to the business after "I put up a Facebook page just on a whim, and it maxed out to 5,000 fans, so I saw this revenue stream going by, all these people, all my fans asking me over the internet ... you know, when I left none of the free sites and all that were up yet, so everything has changed since I've been gone. But one of the benefits is all those internet scenes that I did, they're now on all these free sites, and people all over the world are seeing them. So they've all sort of coalesced into this market base or demographic or something like that. So they're all like, 'When are you gonna have more stuff, when are you gonna have new stuff?' and I'm like, 'Wow, they're basically waiting to throw money at me for new stuff.'"
Lockwood's immediate plan is to begin updating his website, KurtLockwood.com, with brand new content, while offering his services as an independent contractor to other producers. "For better or worse, I have my own brand and my own fan base, so I said, 'I don't have to be prom king of Porno High School anymore, I got my AVN Awards, that's great, but now the way that the internet is set up, I can just sell to my fans and make a pretty decent living right there. It's worth a shot."
Porn is not the only iron, however, that Lockwood intends to place in the fire. "While I was away, I got nationally certified in massage therapy, which I have a real passion for," he revealed. "I'm licensed and insured and certified, so I'm going to be doing that as well.
"I'm just really surprised how fast things are happening," he mused. "I've only been back about two weeks, and within a week back I already got asked to sign [at the XO Ball & Expo]. I went to Porn Star Karaoke and I saw a bunch of people that I haven't seen in a long time, and it's really great to see some old friends and hang out and stuff, so it's been nice, because after living in L.A. for 15 years, living anywhere else is really difficult. It's culture shock. You're living right on the edge of everything here in L.A., where you can get anything you want 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you try to live somewhere else and it's like a huge downshift. You feel like you should be wearing a space suit anywhere else.
"But coming back to L.A., I'm even surprised how different it is," he went on. "The industry obviously is totally different ... the whole thing with [Mr.] Marcus ... I mean, I remember back in my 10 years in the business, two things you never fucked with, you don't fuck with people's money, and you don't fuck with your test. I'd see girls flake a million times—I remember Taylor Rain flaking on me, I must have gotten four kill fees because she flaked, and they kept having to give me a hundred-buck kill fee each time, but damn if they didn't keep hiring her. They would let you get away with murder, but the only two things you never fucked with was money and the tests."
Lockwood made a point to state that he returns in peace, so to speak: "I'm not the kind of guy who holds a grudge, and any bad blood or anything that was from four years ago, I just ask people the golden rule: just, I treat people as ... you know. I'm just looking forward. Looking forward and staying positive."
And what he sees on the porn horizon, he said, is "very almost punk rock. You know, rock used to always have this very do-it-yourself ethic, and never has porn been more DIY than now, and that really interests me—the idea of having complete control over your product and what you find sexy, casting who you like. There's just so much creative control that you can have over what you do. And the accessibility to the fans—I've been really lucky to have some really great fans. So it's nice through this new technology that we're able to have more rapport with our fans and cater to what the pornsumer wants."
Lockwood said people can expect a whole new him from the one they last saw: "I don't even really look like what I did back then. I've put on like 10 to 15 pounds of muscle. I mean, I'm not trying to brag, I'm just saying I look different. So I'm giving them something new. It's me four years later, new and improved.
"At this stage, I'm not looking to get rich. I don't think anybody really is anymore these days in the industry," he concluded. "But I think I can make a decent living, or a decent supplement to my massage therapy practice."
Until KurtLockwood.com is relaunched, he said people can keep up with his goings on and contact him via his Twitter and Facebook pages. And they can reconnect with him in person at the XO Ball & Expo or at Porn Star Karaoke.
"I'll probably be there every Tuesday night," he said of the weekly Porn Valley gathering. "I had a lot of fun there."
