Like Totally 80s Interview with Greg Kihn

1981 with “The Breakup Song,” although he’d been making music for years at that point. He followed that up in 1983 with an even bigger hit, “Jeopardy” which went to #2 on the pop charts. Since then, he’s written four books and has hosted the morning show on San Francisco’s classic rock station, KFOX for 13 years. He’s got a new 3-CD collection out, Kihnplete featuring the band’s post-Beserkley Records music. As a longtime fan, this was truly a treat—such a great guy.

LT80s: Let’s start by talking about the incredibly wide range of things that you’ve done: chart-topping rock star, novelist, radio personality. Did you have any idea when you were a kid that you’d do all these things?

GK: No. I didn’t think I would do any of these things, but I’m a guy that was always bitten by the creative bug. I’ve always been interested in writing. I’ve always been interested in broadcasting. I’ve always been interested in music.

It’s ironic because back in the day when I was having hit records, we did so many interviews that I got really comfortable behind the microphone. It was a real easy transition from musician to radio guy, even though I still play a dozen gigs a year just to keep my finger in it. I guess you can say I’m pretty much a radio guy after 13 years of doing the morning.

LT80s: Let me ask you about that. I know it’s a classic rock station in San Francisco (KFOX). What is it like to play your own music on the radio and the music of your friends?

GK: It’s so deeply satisfying, not only on the spiritual level, but on the financial level.

It’s great. Look at it this way, I’m getting paid to play the record as a DJ, and I’m getting paid as an artist, on the other end for having the record played, and I’m getting paid by ASCAP as the songwriter and publisher. I’m getting it three ways, and it’s just great.

It really is wonderful to be able to play the records of all my friends. We were kind of in the same graduating class; me, Eddie Money, Cheap Trick, Huey, and all the bands that came out around the same time that I came out. I just love it. I have great stories, because I worked with most of these people. It’s a very comfortable relationship.

LT80s: When I was thinking about all the Renaissance man things that you do, I came up with a new Kihn-pun.

GK: Oh, good.

LT80s: I’m hoping you like it. You can use it for your next album if you like. It’s Kihnetic.

GK: Kihnetic? I like that. Hey, why haven’t we used that one before? There’s been a million of them. That’s fantastic. Alli, if I use it, do I have to send you a royalty?

LT80s: Nope. You can put me in the liner notes.

GK: There you go. “Inspired by Alli.” I like that.

LT80s: Speaking of liner notes, let’s talk about that. You’ve got a new three-CD box set out, Kihnplete, and it’s all digital. I love that even though it’s digital, you wrote really great liner notes. Talk about that.

GK: I remember back in the old days when we used to buy vinyl. You remember those days. It was so much fun to read the liner notes. Of course those big albums, especially if they were double albums or foldouts, it was like a novel. You could put a ton of information in there. Then I thought because CDs are so small, and the information is so skimpy, that I wanted to write personal liner notes and my feelings about each and every song, try to get as many of the musicians credited, and try to get as much information into the liner notes as I could because personally, I enjoy reading the liner notes and I always thought of it as part of the album.

Look at the look and feel of Sergeant Pepper and how the lyrics printed over their picture. It was just iconic, or the Dillon poetry on the back of Highway 51 Revisited. It’s just beautiful stuff, so I really felt like it was my mission to write old-time complete liner notes. Since I’m a writer, I did it my way.

LT80s: You mention [in the liner notes] in a couple of places the difference in the way music was made when you were doing some of those songs and the way it’s made now. You mentioned the bright blue foot switch in the song “Whenever,” and steel drums in “Temper, Temper,” and the fact that now those same sounds would be made by buttons and switches.

GK: I think it’s lamentable, because all of the charming little tricks that a guy would take a lifetime to learn are now gone. You literally can push a button and get that. If you wanted steel drums, for instance – we brought in a guy named Andy Narell, who was one of the best steel drum players in the Bay Area and a jazz musician, and he came in and did it live. In fact, he did it live in one take.

When you trade in the magic, the mojo, for something that’s easier and cheaper, I think it takes a little bit away from the music. This is, I think, what separates a lot of today’s music from the music of the past is, we always thought that we were artists. We always thought we were making art; albums were art. It wasn’t so much trying to have a hit record. As a matter of fact, we didn’t have our first top ten record until our seventh album, which is just unheard of today. You couldn’t do that.

It was that era where you could survive and grow as an artist, and that was the whole thing. I considered what we were doing to be art. I felt like we were musicians who became rock stars, not rock stars who became musicians.

LT80s: Let’s talk a little about “The Breakup Song.”

GK: 1981 - that was our first big hit. We’d had moderate hits before with “Happy Man,” “Remember,” and some of those other tunes. It wasn’t until “The Breakup Song” that we really exploded on the scene. I can tell you, life with a hit record is much better than life without a hit record.

LT80s: I read that the writing of “The Breakup Song” involved a lot of sake. What’s the story there?

GK: Oh, yeah. There are times in your life that the way is clear. I remember coming home from a gig with the guys. We were in a van, and we pulled up to where I used to live. All of my stuff was piled up on the lawn, and it was raining.

I thought, “Oh, God. My first wife had done it.” We pulled up to the house, and I remember Steve, the bass player, looked at me and just went, “Well, you might as well just keep on going. You’re not going in there.”

There was a Japanese restaurant. I went up there with Stevie, and we were pounding down hot sake. I didn’t know where else to go. It was a cold, rainy night, and we were getting toasted. There was an old Japanese dude there at the sake bar, and he kept saying, “They don’t write ‘em like that anymore.” I thought, Yeah, damn. They don’t, do they? So we got the idea, we wrote that song probably in 15 minutes. All of the great songs are written quickly, by the way.

You have to take a lesson that the stuff that’s real, it’s in you and it’s got to come out like that song. I’d really broken up that very day. It wasn’t like I was trying to feel like what’s a guy like when he’s broken up. I was living it. When things are real, they’re always better than when they’re fiction, if you can dig what I’m saying.