Jill Sobule

• I’m from Denver, Colorado. My first claim to fame was winning the Denver Nuggets poster contest when I was ten. My dad really drew it, but…I colored it in. I met all the players at half time and won an AM/FM clock radio. That radio was shit and blew up.

• My grandfather was in the circus with future heavy weight boxing champ, Jack Dempsey. He was also in the liquor business during prohibition.

• The night before recording my first record. Todd Rundgren, my producer, hosted his annual labor day, watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon, party. All the guests did mushrooms the entire weekend. I was stuck there and had peer pressure. The album had mixed results..

• “I Kissed a Girl” was was the first blatantly gay song to hit the Billboard charts. . At every show I play, I get at least one or two people who seek me out to tell me how the song helped them when they were growing up. My insidious gay agenda worked.  The best part of having Katy Perry use my title was that a bunch of thirteen year olds accidentally bought my version online. 

• My musical memoir, F*ck 7th Grade was a NYT critics pick and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. We didn’t win - we, a no budget off off off Broadway show, were up against big Broadway productions. We were cool.

• F*ck 7th Grade is not my first entry into musical theater. I collaborated with Elise Thoron on  Prozak and The Platypus (2008);  wrote songs for the re-staging of the 1975 Broadway play Yentl  (Sarasota Theater, 2014); composed music for The Civilians’ stage adaptation of the movie “Times Square” (2018). I have been currently working on a pulpy riot grrrl adaptation of The Scarlet Letter with an all-female and gender-queer cast, “Crimson Lit: Scarlet Letter Setlist. I also got my first stage acting role at LA’s Geffen Playhouse in  a production of a the true-crime musical Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill (2022). It didn’t get great review, but they loved me!

• Between 2004-2007, I did the Jill and Julia show with Julia Sweeney (SNL alum and genius story teller). We would have continued, but Julia was kind of tired of talking about herself. I’m not tired yet. We were regulars at TED

• I have got to tour with some of my heroes like: X, John Prine, Cyndi Lauper, Joe Jackson, Paul Weller, Boots Reilly, Tom Morello, Steve Earle. I opened up for Warren Zevon during his last two tours. I was a member of Lloyd Cole and the Negatives.I once got to, get this, open up for Nina Simone! I was once onstage singing with James Brown and Sir Paul and.Hanson! I feel like Zelig.

• I kind of created Kickstarter. Really! In 2008, knowing that no label would sign me, I had the idea of not just asking my fans for financial help, but in return, I made up a list of gifts and services -from “polished rock” to “weapons grade plutonium”. One level was where the donor would sing a duet with me. Autotune helped. Anyway, it was a big to do. I got a lot of publicity, raised a lot of money, and the folks who were about to launch Kickstarter, asked me for advice. Why didn’t I think to make a business out of it. 

• In 2014, I partnered with Harper’s Magazine (when it was cool), to write a kind of literary collaboration featuring lyrics by fancy writers like David Hajdu, Jonathan Lethem,, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter,  and Lucy Sante. “Dottie’s Charms” wasn’t a smash hit, but what was.

• In 2023, I had brain surgery for my essential tremor. I am bionic now . During the surgery, I had to be awake. I had my guitar and performed “Supermodel” for the doctor and the nurses while my head was open. They wildly applauded. But it was not my best performance. 

• Just other little factoids: I did the music for the Nickelodeon show. Unfabulous.  Lisa and Marge Simpson Love me. Beavis and Buthead too. I’ll stop now.