Greg Dulli
Encyclopedia
Biography
Greg Dulli was born and brought up in the working-class city of Hamilton, OhioHamilton, Ohio
Hamilton is a city in Butler County, southwestern Ohio, United States. The population was 62,447 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Butler County. The city is part of the Cincinnati metropolitan area....
. Although he was raised a Catholic, he is now agnostic. Dulli first came to public attention in the late 1980s with The Afghan Whigs
The Afghan Whigs
The Afghan Whigs were a soul-influenced American rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio. PopMatters described the band as "beyond simple genre categorization, and though lauded by the music press, never got their just due."-Band history:...
when he joined D.C. transplant bassist John Curley and Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, guitarist Rick McCollum. The band fused punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
.
Dulli's career in production was halted as The Afghan Whigs began playing more gig
Gig (musical performance)
Gig is slang for a musical engagement in which musicians are hired. Originally coined in the 1920s by jazz musicians, the term, short for the word "engagement", now refers to any aspect of performing such as assisting with performance and attending musical performance...
s, drawing bigger and bigger crowds. The band was soon brought to the attention of Sub Pop Records in Seattle. Sub Pop's signing of The Afghan Whigs created quite a stir; they were the first non-Northwestern U.S. band to record for the label. The Whigs amicably split in 2001.
In 1994, Dulli was a lead vocalist in the Backbeat Band, an alternative-rock supergroup that recorded the soundtrack to The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
biopic, Backbeat
Backbeat (film)
Backbeat is a 1994 British-German drama film directed by Iain Softley. It chronicles the early days of The Beatles in Hamburg, Germany. The film focuses primarily on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon , and also with Sutcliffe's German girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr...
. Other members of the Backbeat Band were Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...
(Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
), Don Fleming
Don Fleming (musician)
Don Fleming is an American musician, best known for being the frontman of Velvet Monkeys, B.A.L.L., and Gumball.-Biography:...
(Gumball
Gumball (band)
Gumball was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1990. The original lineup consisted of Don Fleming , Eric Vermillion , and Jay Spiegel . In 1992, a fourth member was added, Malcolm Riviera who had previously played with Fleming and Spiegel in the Velvet Monkeys.-History:After Fleming...
), Mike Mills
Mike Mills
Michael Edward "Mike" Mills is an American multi-instrumentalist and composer who was a founding member of the alternative rock group R.E.M.. Though known primarily as a bass guitarist, backing vocalist, and pianist, his musical repertoire includes also keyboards, guitar, and percussion instruments...
(R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
), Dave Grohl
Dave Grohl
David Eric "Dave" Grohl is an American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter who is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter for Foo Fighters; the former drummer for Nirvana and Scream; and the current drummer for Them Crooked Vultures...
(Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
, later Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters is an American alternative rock band originally formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of his previous band. The band got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War...
), and Dave Pirner
Dave Pirner
David Anthony "Dave" Pirner is an American songwriter, singer, and producer best known for being the lead vocalist and frontman for the alternative rock/grunge band, Soul Asylum.-Biography:...
(Soul Asylum
Soul Asylum
Soul Asylum is an American alternative rock band that formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1983.The band originally formed in 1981 under the name Loud Fast Rules, with the original line-up consisting of Dan Murphy, Dave Pirner, Karl Mueller and Pat Morley. The latter was replaced by Grant Young in...
). Dulli was the only musician that appeared on the Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters is an American alternative rock band originally formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of his previous band. The band got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War...
first record aside from Dave Grohl
Dave Grohl
David Eric "Dave" Grohl is an American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter who is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter for Foo Fighters; the former drummer for Nirvana and Scream; and the current drummer for Them Crooked Vultures...
. He added a guitar part to the song "X-Static".
In 1997, Dulli (with Ted Demme
Ted Demme
Edward K. "Ted" Demme was an American film director and producer.- Early life and career :Born in New York City, Demme grew up in Rockville Centre on Long Island, New York and attended South Side Senior High School. He graduated from SUNY-Cortland in 1985. His media career likely began with a...
and director Mark Pellington
Mark Pellington
-Life and career:Pellington was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He directed The Mothman Prophecies, a 2002 film starring Richard Gere dealing with mysterious deaths foretold by a strange red-eyed flying creature, Mothman, as well as Arlington Road in 1999 starring Tim Robbins and Jeff Bridges....
) bought the movie rights to a book by Ann Imbrie called Spoken in Darkness, but the film was never made.
In December 1998, Dulli was hospitalized suffering a skull fracture at the hands of a bouncer following an altercation at the Liberty Lunch Club in Austin, TX.
In 1999, Dulli was invited to participate on a tribute album
Tribute album
A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
for Moby Grape
Moby Grape
Moby Grape is an American rock group from the 1960s, known for having all five members contribute to singing and songwriting and that collectively merged elements of folk music, blues, country, and jazz together with rock and psychedelic music...
founding member Skip Spence
Skip Spence
Alexander Lee "Skip" Spence was a Canadian-born musician and singer-songwriter. He was co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. He released one solo album, 1969's Oar, and then largely withdrew from the music industry...
, who was dying of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
. Dulli appears on the album More Oar: A Tribute To The Skip Spence Album
More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album
More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album is a 1999 tribute album completed shortly before and released shortly after the death of Moby Grape founding member Skip Spence. The album contains cover versions by various artists of Spence's music from his Oar album, released in 1969, presented in...
(Birdman Records
Birdman Records
Birdman Records is an independent record label based in South San Francisco, founded by former Warner Bros. Records A&R vice-president David Katznelson.-History:...
, 1999). The album was released shortly after Spence's death, though Spence had listened to a pre-release version of the album shortly before his death.
Dulli provides vocals for the song "Somebody Needs You" off of The Lo-Fidelity Allstars 2002 album "Don't Be Afraid of Love"
In 2006, Dulli produced Ballads for Little Hyenas by the Italian rock
Italian rock
Italian rock is a form of rock music produced primarily in Italy. The music genre has roots in the country as it spread in the early 1960s from the United States with the earliest versions of rock and roll during this period being cover versions or interpretative covers of already existing...
band, Afterhours.
Dulli is now the lead singer and main songwriter of the band The Twilight Singers
The Twilight Singers
The Twilight Singers is an American indie rock band. The group was initially formed as a side project of The Afghan Whigs leader Greg Dulli in 1997...
who released their fourth album titled Powder Burns
Powder Burns
Powder Burns is the fourth album by Greg Dulli's The Twilight Singers Powder Burns is the fourth album by Greg Dulli's The Twilight Singers Powder Burns is the fourth album by Greg Dulli's The Twilight Singers (not counting Dulli's solo album Amber Headlights. It was released on May 16, 2006 via...
in May 2006. He is also working with Mark Lanegan
Mark Lanegan
Mark Lanegan is an American rock musician and songwriter. Lanegan began his music career in the 1980s, forming the grunge group Screaming Trees with Gary Lee Conner, Van Conner and Mark Pickerel. During his time in the band Lanegan would start a low-key solo career...
(Screaming Trees
Screaming Trees
Screaming Trees was an American rock band formed in Ellensburg, Washington in 1985 by vocalist Mark Lanegan, guitarist Gary Lee Conner, bass player Van Conner and drummer Mark Pickerel. Pickerel had been replaced by Barrett Martin by the time the band reached its most successful period...
, Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age is an American rock band from Palm Desert, California, United States, formed in 1997. The band's line-up has always included founding member Josh Homme , with the current line-up including longtime members Troy Van Leeuwen and Joey Castillo , alongside Michael Shuman and...
, Mark Lanegan Band) on their side project, The Gutter Twins
The Gutter Twins
The Gutter Twins is a musical collaboration between rock musicians Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan. Dulli and Lanegan have regularly contributed to each other's projects since 2000, most notably in Dulli's Twilight Singers; of the duo's origins, Dulli said "I think Mark told a journalist we were doing...
. Lanegan also appears on The Twilight Singers
The Twilight Singers
The Twilight Singers is an American indie rock band. The group was initially formed as a side project of The Afghan Whigs leader Greg Dulli in 1997...
EP, A Stitch In Time
A Stitch in Time (EP)
A Stitch in Time is the second EP released by The Twilight Singers. The five song EP was first released on iTunes on October 10, 2006. Hard copies were then released in the UK on December 4, 2006 and in the US on January 23, 2007. A Stitch in Time features guest appearances by Mark Lanegan and...
.
Dulli always marks the booklets to his records with sentences in nicely-clumsy Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
October 2007 saw Dulli, along with Jeff Klein
Jeff Klein
Jeffrey Lawrence "Jeff" Klein is an American singer/songwriter from Newburgh, New York, who plays keyboards and guitar. He has released three critically acclaimed albums.-Biography:...
, Shawn Smith
Shawn Smith
Shawn Smith is a Seattle-based songwriter, vocalist and musician in several bands and also as a solo artist. He was born in Spokane, Washington.Smith has cited Freddie Mercury, Prince and KISS as early influences...
, Petra Haden
Petra Haden
Petra Haden is an American violinist and singer. She is or has been a member of several bands, including That Dog, Tito & Tarantula, and The Decemberists; has contributed to recordings by The Twilight Singers, Beck, Mike Watt, Luscious Jackson, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Queens of the Stone Age,...
and Barb Antonio, play two acoustic shows at the Triple Door in Seattle, for the A Drink for the Kids fundraising effort by The Vera Project
The VERA Project
The Vera Project, or VERA, is an all-ages, non-profit youth arts organization in Seattle, Washington.-About:Based on the Vera club in Groningen, Netherlands, Seattle's VERA Project was founded in 2001 by James Keblas, Shannon Stewart , and Kate Becker , along with the help of many other...
. The shows were recorded and released in October 2008 as a digital download on Greg's own label, Infernal Recordings.
In 2009, Dulli was invited to participate in a tribute album to the late Doug Sahm
Doug Sahm
Douglas Wayne Sahm , was an American musician from Texas. Born in San Antonio, Texas, he was a child prodigy in country music, but became a significant figure in blues rock and other genres. Today Sahm is considered one of the most important figures in what is identified as Tejano music...
, and contributed his version of "You Was For Real" to Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm
Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm
Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm is a 2009 tribute album to the late Doug Sahm, released on Vanguard Records.-History and Critical Reaction:Sahm died of a heart attack, in Taos, New Mexico, on November 18, 1999, days after his 58th birthday...
(Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
).
Greg Dulli also contributed two tracks to the 7 inch vinyl only series "Dangerous Highway: A Tribute To The Songs of Eddie Hinton
Eddie Hinton
Eddie Hinton was an American songwriter and session musician best known for his work with soul music and R&B singers...
" on "Shake It Records". Dulli covers the Eddie Hinton tracks "Hard Luck Guy" and "Cover Me" on "Vol.1".
In addition to his recording career, Dulli has also appeared in a number of films, including the independent short Salt Shaker, Ted Demme's
Ted Demme
Edward K. "Ted" Demme was an American film director and producer.- Early life and career :Born in New York City, Demme grew up in Rockville Centre on Long Island, New York and attended South Side Senior High School. He graduated from SUNY-Cortland in 1985. His media career likely began with a...
Monument Ave.
Monument Ave.
Monument Ave., originally titled Snitch and titled Noose in Australia, is a 1998 American film directed by Ted Demme and starring Denis Leary. The film centers on the Charlestown, Massachusetts Irish Mob and small-time criminal Bobby O'Grady who is dealing with the problems that arise due to...
and Beautiful Girls (together with The Afghan Whigs
The Afghan Whigs
The Afghan Whigs were a soul-influenced American rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio. PopMatters described the band as "beyond simple genre categorization, and though lauded by the music press, never got their just due."-Band history:...
), as well as Matt Bissonnette's Passenger Side.
In October 2010, for the first time in his career, Greg Dulli embarked on a solo tour which included songs from his whole career. The tour will see him perform twenty nine shows in five different countries. The first night was in New Orleans at the bar "d.b.a". A live CD containing 19 songs from this night was later available on the tour in both signed and unsigned paper CD sleeves.
Solo
- 2005 Amber Headlights LP (Infernal Recordings)
- 2008 Live at Triple Door LP (Infernal Recordings)
- 2010 Live in New Orleans LP (Kali Nichta Music)
Contributions to Others
- 1995 Guitar part on "X-Static" from Foo FightersFoo Fighters (album)Foo Fighters is the debut album by the Foo Fighters. At the time, the only official member of the Foo Fighters was Dave Grohl, who wrote and recorded the entire album himself at Robert Lang Studios in Seattle, Washington in 1994, prior to organizing the band...
by Foo FightersFoo FightersFoo Fighters is an American alternative rock band originally formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of his previous band. The band got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War... - 1999 More Oar: A Tribute To The Skip Spence AlbumMore Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence AlbumMore Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album is a 1999 tribute album completed shortly before and released shortly after the death of Moby Grape founding member Skip Spence. The album contains cover versions by various artists of Spence's music from his Oar album, released in 1969, presented in...
(BirdmanBirdman RecordsBirdman Records is an independent record label based in South San Francisco, founded by former Warner Bros. Records A&R vice-president David Katznelson.-History:...
) - 2007 Wrote liner notes for Ticonderoga from Morning 40 FederationMorning 40 FederationMorning 40 Federation is a jazz, funk and rock band from the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. The band began in 1998 and cites influences of King Oliver, Tom Waits and Jon Spencer. The Morning 40 Federation disbanded after their last show at One Eyed Jacks on Toulouse Street in New Orleans . They have...
. - 2009 Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug SahmKeep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug SahmKeep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm is a 2009 tribute album to the late Doug Sahm, released on Vanguard Records.-History and Critical Reaction:Sahm died of a heart attack, in Taos, New Mexico, on November 18, 1999, days after his 58th birthday...
(VanguardVanguard RecordsVanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
) - 2011 Vocals on "Twice" and "Dark Sets In", by dEUSDEUSDeus is a rock band based in Antwerp, Belgium, whose only continuous members up to the present day are Tom Barman and Klaas Janzoons...
on their album Keep You CloseKeep You CloseKeep You Close is the sixth album from the Belgian band dEUS. It was released on September 17th in Belgium and 19th in mainland Europe. Its UK release is set for October 3rd...
External links
- The Twilight Singers official site
- The Gutter Twins official site
- Summer's Kiss Fan Site
- Lazy-i Interview: November 2003
- Greg Dulli Interview on theskinny.co.uk: May 2006
- Transform Online Interview: October 2006
- The Twilight Singers on Myspace
- The Gutter Twins on Myspace
- Twilight Singers/Gutter Twins Comprehensive Discography at The Shawn Smith Collective