Birth name Steven John Kilbey
Also known as The Time Being
Born 13 September 1954
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England
Origin Canberra, ACT, Australia
Genres Alternative rock, post-punk, new wave, dream pop
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, bass guitarist, music producer, poet, painter, record label co-owner
Instruments Bass, guitar, keyboards
Steven John Kilbey (born 13 September 1954) is the lead singer-songwriter and bass guitarist for The Church, an Australian rock band. He is also a music producer, poet and painter. As of October 2014, Kilbey had 750 original songs registered with Australian copyright agency Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA).
Following his birth in Welwyn Garden City, England, UK,[citation needed] Kilbey was brought to Australia by his parents at the age of five years, and grew up around Dapto, before living with his family in Canberra. He began his professional music career at 17 years of age, when he joined a five piece “cabaret band” called ‘Saga’ in Canberra. Around 1973 he joined ‘Precious Little’, a rock band featuring future Church bandmate Peter Koppes on drums.
This was followed by Kilbey forming ‘Baby Grande’ around 1974 while still living in the A.C.T. Koppes was also in Baby Grande for a time but left to travel, then played in a band called Limazine which brought him in touch with future Church drummer Nick Ward. Baby Grande recorded some demos for EMI Australia in 1977 but were not signed to a permanent recording contract. Baby Grande’s demos surfaced on the internet after about 30 years, and despite initial protests from Kilbey, he has now made four of the five tracks available on his solo compilation album of early work Addendaone (2012).
Kilbey was also (while working as a computer programmer) a member of the new wave band Tactics for about a month in 1977.[6] He played ‘about four gigs’ with Tactics before being asked to leave by the band’s singer and songwriter Dave Studdert.
Kilbey formed The Church, together with Koppes and Nick Ward in Sydney in the late 1970s. Marty Willson Piper joined the band in May 1980 days after his arrival in Australia when he went to see the band play a gig. After some success in their native Australia in the early 1980s, Kilbey and The Church went on to international fame when “Under the Milky Way”, from the 1988 album Starfish, achieved success (Kilbey had co-written the song with Karin Jansson of Pink Champagne and Curious Yellow). “Under the Milky Way” appeared in the top-selling singles charts of both Australia and the United States (US). In late 2011 Kilbey revealed that, at the time of the interview, the song was still used for television programmes and advertisements.
After recording the Gold Afternoon Fix album in the USA and touring to support it with the Church until mid-1990, Kilbey returned to Australia and made the Jack Frost album with Grant McLennan. He then went on a solo acoustic tour of the US, playing mostly clubs. After this tour, he and McLennan toured the USA together on the back of the Jack Frost project. The Jack Frost band name was derived from mutual friend of Kilbey and McLennan, Joel Eaves of Canberra, whose expression of “another Jack Frost day in Oceana”, became a popular Sydney expression during the period. In 1990 Kilbey began to use heroin around the time of his girlfriend Karin Jansson’s pregnancy. His use of this drug continued through the recording of The Church’s album Gold Afternoon Fix and beyond.
Kilbey had recorded much of his solo work at his home studio in Rozelle, Sydney until around the release of his album “Narcosis”, which was recorded at his new ‘proper’ 24 -track studio in Surry Hills, Sydney. He also worked as a producer with artists such as Melbourne singer Margot Smith and Canadian singer Mae Moore. He also produced the albums by Hex, Curious Yellow and Jack Frost.
In late 2012, as an act of protest against the conduct of the Church’s North American label Second Motion Records, Kilbey announced his resignation from the band.The announcement was made on Kilbey’s Facebook fan page following the receipt of an insufficient royalty cheque from the record label. Kilbey placed the incident in the broader context of the music industry:
Kilbey has released 14 solo music albums, one EP and has collaborated on recordings with musical artists such as Martin Kennedy, Stephen Cummings and Ricky Maymi as a vocalist, musician, writer and/or producer. Ian McFarlane writes that “Kilbey’s solo recordings [are] challenging and evocative. They ran the gamut of sounds and emotions from electronic and avant-garde to acoustic and symphonic, joyous and dreamy to saturnine and sardonic”.
Kilbey issued his debut solo single, ‘This Asphalt Eden’/’Never Come Back’, ‘Shell’, in July 1985. Originally issued by EMI/Parlophone, the single was rereleased by the Red Eye label in November 1987.
Following the worldwide success of The Church’s Starfish album and “Under the Milky Way” single, Kilbey returned to his solo career with the single ‘Transaction’/’No Such Thing’ (June 1989) and a 12-inch version of ‘Transaction’ with two extra tracks (July 1989). ‘Transaction’ was from The Slow Crack and ‘No Such Thing’ was lifted from Kilbey’s third solo album, the CD/double album Remindlessness (December 1989). The double album version contained two tracks (‘Random Pan’ and ‘Pain in My Temples’) not included on the later CD version.
Personal life
Kilbey has resided in Australia; he has also lived for a time in Stockholm, Sweden and Los Angeles. Kilbey has twin daughters (Elektra and Miranda) by Karin Jansson, his ex-girlfriend and recording partner (as “(CURIOUS) Yellow”); these older daughters have a popular dream pop duo called Say Lou Lou and record in their homeland of Sweden.
He also has a second set of twins Eve and Aurora as well as another daughter Scarlet by American born partner Natalie.
Discography
Albums
Unearthed (1986)
Earthed (1987)
The Slow Crack (1989)
Remindlessness (1990)
Narcosis EP (1991)
Narcosis + (1997)
Acoustic & Intimate (2000)
Dabble (2001)
Freaky Conclusions (2003)
Painkiller (2008)
Art, Man + Technology (2009) Part of an immersive art exhibition at the Pittsburgh Technology Center.
Garage Sutra (2012)
Addenda One (2012) A collection of very early recordings by Kilbey including four songs by his first band Baby Grande.
Addenda Two (2012)
The Idyllist (2013)
With Strings Attached (2013)[20]
Miscellanaea – Whispers in the Static (2014)
Singles
Vivid (2012)
Comeback Soundtrack (2012)
A Song For Jade (2012)
Compilations
Artifacts (2006)
Monsters N Mirages box set (2010) – released with a bonus mp3 collection The Bedroom Demos
Other projects
Hex (with Donnette Thayer from Game Theory)
Hex (1989)
Vast Halos (1990)
Curious (Yellow) (with Karin Jansson)
Taken By Surprise (1990)
Charms and Blues (1990)
Love Itself (1991) – Single.
Jack Frost (with Grant McLennan of The Go-Betweens):
Jack Frost (1991)
Snow Job (1996)
Fake (with Sandy Chick):
Fake (1994)
Isidore (with Remy Zero’s Jeffrey Cain)
Isidore (2004)
Life Somewhere Else (2012)
Gilt Trip (with his brother Russell Kilbey)
Gilt Trip (1997)
Egyptian Register (2005)
Mimesis (with Simon Polinski, Colin Berwick and David Abiuso)
Art Imitating Life (2007)
Steve Kilbey & Martin Kennedy
Unseen Music, Unheard Words (2009)
White Magic (2011)
Instrumental & Ambient Mixes (2009)
Live at the Toff in Town (2010) – mp3 only release.
You Are Everything (2013)
Songs From the Real World (Commissioned Songs) (2013)
Songs From the Real World (Commissioned Songs), Vol. 2 (2014)
The Rare Earth (soundtrack) (2014) with All India Radio (band)
Inside We Are the Same (2015)
Songs From the Real World (Commissioned Songs), Vol. 3 (2015)
Glow And Fade (2017)
GB3/Steve Kilbey: GB3 is (Underground Lovers guitarist) Glenn Bennie’s collaborative musical project with Kilbey and Ricky Maymi.
Damage/Controlled (2010)
Steve Kilbey with Ricky Maymi
David Neil: The Wilderness Years (2011). David Neill is a fictional musician. The liner notes to the album outline his mythical career and his supposed death in 1974, followed by Kilbey and Maymi’s supposed bequeathment of 16 Neil tracks which they put together to make this album. Kilbey’s ex-wife Natalie, and one of his daughters (Eve) provide backing vox on the track “Walk With Me”. The album, also features Lindy Morrison playing tambourine on “So Long”, as well as other musicians.
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