GET READY TO GET DOWN—The disco group KC & The Sunshine Band is coming to The Canyon in Agoura Hills tomorrow night. Harry Wayne Casey, better known as KC, fronts the band which he founded in 1973. The band’s hits include “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty,” “I’m Your Boogie Man,” “That’s the Way (I Like It)” and “All I Want.” KC disputes critics who say disco music is simpleminded. “There is a lyric substance to my songs,” he said. Remember platform shoes, mirrored disco balls and dances like “The Hustle”? If you recall these 1970s icons fondly, then you won’t want to miss disco mainstays KC & The Sunshine Band, who are coming to The Canyon in Agoura tomorrow night.

In 1975 you couldn’t find a hotter group than the one led by Harry Wayne Casey, “KC” for short, who got his start after working in a Miami record store. He founded The Sunshine Band (named for his home state of Florida) in 1973 and only two years later was leading the first band since the Beatles to have four No. 1 hits in one year.

Today KC is still at it, fronting a 15-piece band that plays 90 to 100 gigs a year, including club dates, private parties and bar mitzvahs, where disco is still king. His songs have been featured in more than 75 movies, including “Forrest Gump” and “Boogie Nights,” and TV shows, such as “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

“In those days, there would be constant screaming, some kind of pandemonium,” KC said of the band’s heyday in the ’70s. “Back then, they would have tents set up with paramedics. There was screaming, hysteria; it was nuts. I enjoyed it to a certain extent, but it was a very lonely part of my life. I wanted to be a part of it, but if I mingled with the crowd, they would probably have killed me. I’d have been like the Scarecrow in ‘The Wizard of Oz’— pieces of me flying everywhere.”

These days, KC’s audiences are older and more sedate but still dance to the insistent disco beat of hits such as “Get Down Tonight,” “That’s the Way (I Like It)” and “I’m Your Boogie Man.”

Disco was slammed by critics as being simpleminded, lowestcommon-denominator dance music, but KC says there was more to it than that.

“There is a lyric substance to my songs. It was simple, but no simpler than the early Beatles songs.

“I wrote ‘Shake Your Booty’ because I would go to shows and see people not enjoying themselves because they were too uptight and self-conscious. So I said, ‘Shake your booty.’ Do what you do, because you’re as good as anyone else.”

The song “I’m Your Boogie Man” was “kind of autobiographical,” KC said.

“It was about a disc jockey who’s always on a radio station day in and day out. Those guys brightened up our day. They were always there for us. Well, I’m here to do whatever I can, too. My songs did have meaning to (my fans). I made them more simplistic and to the point because I was writing for people in their teens. If you go deeper into my albums, you’ll hear songs that were a lot deeper lyrically, but my fans didn’t want that. They wanted ‘Get Down Tonight.’”

KC says his songs were successful because they were “just great songs with great production values.”

“They’re songs that make you feel good. Especially now, people look for that. We made kind of the last of the ‘real records,’ before computers came in and things became digitized.”

As for his legacy, KC commented on today’s music: “I still hear the drum beat we used in our songs on about 30 percent to 40 percent of what is out today. Everybody wants to go back and put in music of yesteryear. It’s all been done before. I don’t know if there’s a place to go anymore. I’m 58 now, but I can always write another hit song for somebody else. My music is still alive.”

KC & The Sunshine Band are appearing at 9:30 p.m. Fri., Nov. 20 at The Canyon, 28912 Roadside Drive, Agoura Hills.

For information, visit tickets.canyonclub.net or call (818) 879-5016.