1. Gregory Stanley Kihn was an American rock musician, radio personality, and novelist.
27 Facts About Greg Kihn
1. 2.
Greg Kihn founded and led the Greg Kihn Band and he wrote several popular horror novels.
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Greg Kihn is best known for the hits "The Breakup Song " in 1981 and "Jeopardy" in 1983.
4.
Greg Kihn started writing songs and playing coffee houses while still in high school in the Baltimore area.
5.
When Greg Kihn was 17, his mother submitted a tape of one of his original songs to the talent contest of the big local Top 40 radio station, WCAO 600 AM.
6.
Greg Kihn took first prize and won three things that would change his life: a typewriter, a stack of records, and a Vox electric guitar.
7.
Greg Kihn's co-worker was future bandmate and Earth Quake guitarist Gary Phillips.
8.
The next year, Greg Kihn became one of the first artists signed to Matthew King Kaufman's Beserkley Records.
9.
Greg Kihn officially joined the band as keyboardist for the follow-up album, RocKihnRoll.
10.
The lineup of Kihn, Wright, Lynch, Phillips, and Carpender lasted until 1983, when Greg Douglass replaced Dave Carpender.
11.
In 1979, Greg Kihn released his cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Rendezvous", a song which didn't make the cut for Springsteen's "Darkness on the Edge of Town" LP.
12.
For most of the 1980s Greg Kihn toured frequently, opening arena-sized shows for groups including Journey, the Grateful Dead, and the Rolling Stones.
13.
Greg Kihn often appeared on TV during this period on shows such as Solid Gold, American Bandstand, and Saturday Night Live.
14.
In 1985, Greg Kihn broke with Beserkley Records and signed with EMI.
15.
From 1996 through 2012, Greg Kihn was a morning radio disc jockey.
16.
Greg Kihn did wake-ups for KUFX, a Bay Area classic rock radio station.
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Greg Kihn published many short stories during this period, some appearing in the Hot Blood series of erotic horror fiction.
18.
Greg Kihn was contributing editor to Carved in Rock, a compilation of short fiction by musicians including Pete Townshend, Joan Jett, Ray Davies, and Kinky Friedman.
19.
The Greg Kihn Band continued to play with a line-up comprising Kihn's son Ry Kihn on lead guitar, Dave Danza on drums, Dave Medd on keyboards, and Robert Berry on bass.
20.
Greg Kihn was inducted into San Jose Rocks Hall of Fame in 2007.
21.
Greg Kihn continued to perform live as late as December 2019.
22.
Greg Kihn had two children, son Ry, a guitarist; and Lexi, a nurse.
23.
Greg Kihn died from complications of Alzheimer's disease in the San Francisco Bay Area, on August 13,2024, at the age of 75.
24.
Greg Kihn did charity work for "Operation Care and Comfort", a military support group responsible for sending care packages to hundreds of military units deployed in harm's way around the world.
25.
Greg Kihn wrote four horror fiction novels, beginning with Horror Show, which was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, followed by Shade of Pale.
26.
Greg Kihn released Carved in Rock: Short Stories by Musicians, a collection of short stories written by him and other well-known rock musicians including Pete Townshend, Graham Parker, Joan Jett, and Ray Davies.
27.
In 2013, Greg Kihn released Rubber Soul, a murder mystery novel featuring the Beatles.