Early Life
Curtis Mathew Kirkwood was born on January 10, 1959, in Wichita Falls, Texas, to Donald Dean Kirkwood (1935–2008), a member of the United States Air Force, and Vera Pearl Renstrom (1937–1996). His parents had met a few years earlier at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. In 1958, shortly after his mother learned she was pregnant with Curtis, Renstrom and Donald married and moved to Wichita Falls, where Curtis was born.
A year later, the family would relocate to Amarillo, where Kirkwood’s brother, Cris, was born. In 1964, the family temporarily moved to Omaha when Curtis required kidney surgery. Soon after his surgery, his parents divorced. Following the separation, Kirkwoods mother would move him and his brother Acapulco, Mexico, where their father had made millions in the hotel business.
By his second year of school, Kirkwood and his brother settled with their mother in Phoenix, Arizona in the Sunnyslope neighborhood after she had remarried, where he spent the remainder of his childhood with his mother many other stepfathers. [3] [4]
Career
Curt Kirkwood formed the Meat Puppets along with his brother Cris on bass, and drummer Derrick Bostrom. The trio went on hiatus in 1996 after a long career in which they were hailed as one of the premier and innovative indie bands, who also briefly achieved mainstream success in the early 1990s. As the group's lead vocalist and primary songwriter (including solely penning most of the band's best-known songs: "Plateau," "Oh, Me," "Lake of Fire," "Up on the Sun," "Backwater," etc.), Curt is the sole member of the original trio to have played in all of the band's incarnations since 1980.
He re-formed the Meat Puppets in 1999 with Kyle Ellison (guitar), Andrew Duplantis (bass) and Shandon Sahm (drums) to complete one studio album, Golden Lies , released in 2000. The new lineup disbanded in 2002 after the departure of Duplantis. After the Meat Puppets, Kirkwood toured as a solo act before banding together with Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and Sublime drummer Bud Gaugh to form Eyes Adrift. They released a self-titled album in 2002 and toured the United States. After Novoselic's departure, Kirkwood and Gaugh formed another band, Volcano, which released a self-titled album in 2004 before Kirkwood decided to focus on his solo career. His first solo album Snow was released in October 2005.
He is also an artist and created the cover art for several Meat Puppets albums and merchandise, as well as for Stephen Beachy's novel The Whistling Song. In 2006, the Meat Puppets re-formed with Cris back on bass and drummers Ted Marcus and Shandon Sahm serving as replacements for Derrick Bostrom until he returned to the band in 2018. Since reforming, the band has released five new albums, Rise to Your Knees (2007), Sewn Together (2009), Lollipop (2011), Rat Farm (2013) and Dusty Notes (2019).
Kirkwood was extensively interviewed for the 2012 book, Too High to Die: Meet the Meat Puppets, by author Greg Prato. [5]
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