Greg Kihn Interview

Greg Kihn is probably known best for his chart-topping songs and MTV videos from the 80s, "Jeopardy" and "The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em Like That)." Greg has also been the longest reigning #1 Classic Rock Radio morning man in San Jose for 16-years, and he began broadcasting The Greg Kihn Morning Show on KFOX FM 102.1 San Francisco / 98.5 San Jose in January 2011. TheCelebrityCafe.com’s Stephanie Tardugno recently caught up with Greg to learn more about the release of his latest album, Kihnplete, where he was when he found out “Jeopardy” hit number one, and a TV series pilot that he’s written.

THECELEBRITYCAFE.COM: You have a lot of exciting things coming up. Let’s start with the release of your three-disc, all digital anthology box set entitled Kihnplete. I like the play on words there! Can you tell me a little bit about it?

GREG KIHN: Yeah, I know. Well how many albums have I made? Like 15, 16, 17 – they all have “Kihn” puns! There’s Kihntageous, Kihntinued, Kihnsolidation, CitizenKihn, Next Of Kihn. I mean it just goes on and on and on! Of course, Kihnplete fits right in there. And really, it’s a play on words, but actually it’s pretty accurate because it is a very complete look at all of the Post Beserkley stuff that I recorded. You know, we have a lot of great musicians pass through the Greg Kihn Band, but it all happened after “Jeopardy” and “The Break Up Song.”

At first, there was Joe Satriani who was in the band for about a year and a half; Steve Douglass, the legendary sax player; Greg Douglass; Jimmy Lyon, who was Tina Turner’s guitarist and also Eddie Money’s guitarist for seven years; and Ozzie Ahlers. We had a lot of guys that passed through, but it all happened after the hits! So it was kind of under the radar screen for a lot of people, I mean unless they were hardcore fans. So we decided we were going to take all of that stuff and put it out because it’s nice to be able to buy it all in one place. It contains studio tracks, unreleased tracks, and also, a whole live CD, which is kind of interesting. I figured, “What the heck? Let’s just put it all out there for those that want it.” And you know what, it was a lot of fun to compile this, because I had to go back and dig through all the material and listen to all the tracks. And I realized we had all this great music out there that a lot of people have never heard!

THECELEBRITYCAFE.COM: Sounds like a fun blast to the past!

GREG KIHN: Yeah! And you know, I do a morning radio show for KFOX in San Francisco. People send me stuff all the time, like old ticket stubs and reviews. So I started keeping track. I made a calendar, and every time somebody sent me something from a date, I made a little notation. And after about a month or two, the entire calendar was filled! It seems like we played thousands of gigs over the years. For instance, yesterday [April 14], in Greg Kihn Band history, in 1984, we were on Saturday Night Live! And I went and found the video of that performance, and I posted it on the website. I thought, “If we can find this stuff, let’s put it out there.” I’m proud of it, and it’s kind of historic. So everyday, I look at the calendar and figure out what happened that day in Greg Kihn Band history. Actually on this date in 1983, “Jeopardy” hit number one! April 15, 1983. Is that a trip?!

THECELEBRITYCAFE.COM: Definitely! I can’t believe it’s the same day! Do you remember where you were when you found out?

GREG KIHN: I remember where we were and what we were doing when I found out that “Jeopardy" hit number one. We were on tour, in a tour bus, and I believe we were opening for Journey. We were going all over the country playing the biggest places, like the Boston Garden, the Meadowlands, and Madison Square Garden. And, we were at Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which is basically a battlefield, and they had a little museum and a gift shop. And in the gift shop, we were all buying goofy Indian headdresses and stuff like that. And there was a pay phone on the wall…this was way before cell phones, right? [laughs] And we decided to call the record company to see how our record was doing. We called them up, and they said, “Hey guys, you’re not going to believe this, but you just hit number one!” So we found the nearest bar and we got of couple of pitchers of margaritas, and we got totally tanked!

THECELEBRITYCAFE.COM: [Laughs] Sounds like you had fun celebrating! So, what else do you have coming up?

GREG KIHN: Well, you know I’m a writer, and I have many published novels written. I wrote a pilot for a TV series. It’s called 45 RPM, and it’s about the mafia in the music business back in the ‘60s. So it’s got like rock ‘n’ roll and gunplay, and it’s really cool. It’s kind of like “The Sopranos meets Almost Famous.” So I wrote the pilot, and I wrote a couple of episodes, and we have interest from several major networks. Some really big, three letter networks, are interested in 45 RPM. A lot of them have already read the script, and they really like it. We’re going to go into talks in June. So I’m real excited about maybe having a TV series on a major network that I wrote! This would be really cool. And it’s rock ‘n’ roll, it’s all rock ‘n’ roll!

THECELEBRITYCAFE.COM: So music will be incorporated?

GREG KIHN: Totally! And the hero in the show, is this young guy that gets signed to a record label in New York back in the ‘60s. He doesn’t know that they’re owned by the mafia, but he finds out as time goes by. It’s an interesting thing, and it’s also a period piece, kind of like Mad Men. It’s a cool look.

THECELEBRITYCAFE.COM: You have a lot going on! Do you have any other plans?

GREG KIHN: Well, I’m also going to do a lot of audio books of my novels. So that’s going to be a lot of fun, because I can record it right here in my house, in my little studio. I’ve been meaning to do it for a long time, and I figured I’d start by doing all my novels. And then I also have a novel that I wrote a year ago that’s never seen the light of day. So I’m going to put it out as an audio book long before it’s published. You can get it online at gregkihn.com, and that will be coming up sometime this summer. And the name of the book is Rubber Soul. That’s the name of a Beatles album, and The Beatles are fictional characters in this novel. It takes place right before they made it famous. It’s written through the eyes of The Beatles’ best buddy.

All of my stuff is kind of different, and I always look for different ways to present it. And it all has to do with, one way or another, somehow, it gets back to rock ‘n’ roll. That seems to be the underlying theme.

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