Biography
Greg Kurstin, an award-winning songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, has contributed to a striking variety of endeavors throughout the music business. A native of Los Angeles, he first encountered music via his grandmother’s piano performances and began playing the instrument himself at age five. While performing in a band alongside his schoolmate Dweezil Zappa, he secured his initial published songwriting credit at twelve by co-authoring “Crunchy Water,” the B-side to Dweezil’s debut single “My Mother Is a Space Cadet.” After finishing high school he moved to New York to study piano at the New School under Jaki Byard, a former Charles Mingus associate, absorbing the jazz environment through performances with figures such as Bobby Hutcherson and George Coleman while simultaneously investigating hip-hop and Brazilian music and mastering the berimbau, elements that would inform his later stylistic breadth.
Returning to Los Angeles in the early 1990s, Kurstin launched the eccentric alternative-rock group Geggy Tah together with singer-songwriter Tommy Jordan. The duo signed to David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label and issued their debut album in 1994; its successor, Sacred Cow (1996), included the modern-rock hit “Whoever You Are,” which reached the top twenty, though several years passed before the final album, Into the Oh, appeared in 2001. In the interim he strengthened his profile as a sideman, performing and collaborating with Beck, Matthew Sweet, Jane’s Addiction, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Bob Moog, among others. Kurstin also conceived the jazz-funk-rock fusion project Action Figure Party, whose self-titled 1999 debut featured contributions from Flea, Sean Lennon, Miho Hatori, members of No Doubt, Buckcherry, Incubus, and Soul Coughing, plus additional late-’90s notables, along with his then-wife Pamelia Kurstin, later recognized for her work on the Theremin.
During the 2000s he performed with Ben Harper, Jason Mraz, and Jenny Lewis, served as Gwen Stefani’s musical director for live and television engagements, and markedly expanded his songwriting and production credits through work with British pop artists Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, Natasha Bedingfield, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and All Saints, as well as Peaches, Sia, Donna Summer, and the Flaming Lips. In 2005 Kurstin met singer-songwriter Inara George, another Los Angeles music-industry veteran and daughter of Little Feat’s Lowell George; sharing an affinity for jazz and tropicalia, they began collaborating as the Bird and the Bee and released their self-titled Blue Note debut the following year. Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future and Interpreting the Masters, Vol 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall & John Oates followed in 2009 and 2010, respectively, together with substantial production and collaboration work involving Kelly Clarkson, Sia, Foster the People, the Shins, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Tegan & Sara, Ellie Goulding, P!nk, and Lana Del Ray. Kurstin earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song for “Opportunity” from the 2014 remake of Annie. That same year he received two Grammy nominations, one for Producer of the Year and one for Record of the Year.
Returning to Los Angeles in the early 1990s, Kurstin launched the eccentric alternative-rock group Geggy Tah together with singer-songwriter Tommy Jordan. The duo signed to David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label and issued their debut album in 1994; its successor, Sacred Cow (1996), included the modern-rock hit “Whoever You Are,” which reached the top twenty, though several years passed before the final album, Into the Oh, appeared in 2001. In the interim he strengthened his profile as a sideman, performing and collaborating with Beck, Matthew Sweet, Jane’s Addiction, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Bob Moog, among others. Kurstin also conceived the jazz-funk-rock fusion project Action Figure Party, whose self-titled 1999 debut featured contributions from Flea, Sean Lennon, Miho Hatori, members of No Doubt, Buckcherry, Incubus, and Soul Coughing, plus additional late-’90s notables, along with his then-wife Pamelia Kurstin, later recognized for her work on the Theremin.
During the 2000s he performed with Ben Harper, Jason Mraz, and Jenny Lewis, served as Gwen Stefani’s musical director for live and television engagements, and markedly expanded his songwriting and production credits through work with British pop artists Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, Natasha Bedingfield, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and All Saints, as well as Peaches, Sia, Donna Summer, and the Flaming Lips. In 2005 Kurstin met singer-songwriter Inara George, another Los Angeles music-industry veteran and daughter of Little Feat’s Lowell George; sharing an affinity for jazz and tropicalia, they began collaborating as the Bird and the Bee and released their self-titled Blue Note debut the following year. Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future and Interpreting the Masters, Vol 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall & John Oates followed in 2009 and 2010, respectively, together with substantial production and collaboration work involving Kelly Clarkson, Sia, Foster the People, the Shins, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Tegan & Sara, Ellie Goulding, P!nk, and Lana Del Ray. Kurstin earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song for “Opportunity” from the 2014 remake of Annie. That same year he received two Grammy nominations, one for Producer of the Year and one for Record of the Year.
Albums
Singles
