Michael Penn
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Michael Penn in a promotional photograph for his 2005 album Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947. |
Michael Penn (born
August 1,
1958, in
Greenwich Village,
New York City) is an
American singer and
songwriter. He is the son of actor/director
Leo Penn and actress
Eileen Ryan, and the brother of actors
Sean Penn and
Chris Penn.
Prior to the release of his
1989 debut album
March, Penn performed the song "This & That" with his band The Pull on a
1987 episode of
Saturday Night Live. Before that, he was a member of the
Los Angeles band
Doll Congress and had appeared as an extra on a few
television series, including
St. Elsewhere.March, particularly the first single, "No Myth," brought Penn attention, as well as the
1990 MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist. Penn's follow-up albums
Free-for-All (
1992),
Resigned (
1997) and
MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident (
2000) weren't able to match the success of
March, although critics praised his songcraft.
Penn met fellow singer-songwriter
Aimee Mann in the late 1980s, and during the recording of her album
I'm With Stupid (to which Penn contributed vocals), the two struck up a friendship, which blossomed into romance and their
1997 marriage. Together with manager
Michael Hausman they formed
United Musicians, which is based on the idea of allowing artists to keep copyright ownership of their works and to assist with their promotion and distribution. Penn and Mann live in the Los Feliz neighborhood of
Los Angeles. They have no children, but Penn has a son from a previous marriage.
He moved into film scoring after repeated requests from director
Paul Thomas Anderson, who had apparently listened to
Free-for-All extensively while writing his first feature
Hard Eight and wanted Penn to score the film. Penn also scored Anderson's follow-up
Boogie Nights (in which he appeared briefly as a recording engineer and is featured in an extra music video, "Try," included with the Boogie Nights DVD),
The Anniversary Party,
Melvin Goes to Dinner and the documentary
The Comedians of Comedy. He is also scoring
Suffering Man's Charity, his second film for
Alan Cumming's second time as a director (after
The Anniversary Party). [
1]
Penn's fifth album,
Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947, was released
August 2, 2005, on Mimeograph Records (Penn's own label) and SpinART Records. Penn has said that the album, which may be the first of two parts, is set after
World War II and involves "the trauma that a war brings to a person's psychology." [
2]
March (
1989)
Free-for-All (
1992)
Resigned (
1997)
MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident (
2000)
Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 (
2005)
Cinemascope (
2005)
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Michael Penn (official site)
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Pennlist e-mail discussion group
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Bunker Hill fan site
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United Musicians*
MySpace page*
Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 media kit
