Greg Koons was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and moved to Hollywood in his teens, where he worked as a housekeeper at the Chateau Marmont. His responsibilities included cleaning hotel suites for guests, including residents Axl Rose and the late fashion photographer Helmut Newton. During off‑hours, Koons wrote songs at the lobby piano while observing the hotel’s activity and the artists and industry personnel who frequented the space.
His experiences in Los Angeles, combined with his life as a high‑school dropout, would eventually go on to inform the themes and hardscrabble characters on his lone album to date. And after returning to Pennsylvania, Koons wrote much of Welcome to the Nowhere Motel in a U‑Haul storage unit in Mechanicsburg that he outfitted with recording equipment. Subseqentially, the album was recorded at Fireproof Studios in Los Angeles, produced by Matt Keating and engineered by Adam Lasus.
His studio band, The Misbegotten, was comprised of an excellent group of a musicians that included Jason Mercer on bass (Ani DiFranco), Jordan Richardson on drums (Ben Harper and the Relentless Seven), Kirk Swan on guitar (Dumptruck), and the late Duane Jarvis on dobro (Lucinda Williams, the Divinyls). Koons writes, plays, and records his own songs using live instrumentation.
Throughout his career, Koons has performed in hundreds of venues across North America, from CBGB's in the East Village to the Basement in Nashville to many other places in between. Koons has also been an official showcasing artist at SXSW, AmericanaFest, and the 30A Songwriters Festival. He has also recorded with Grammy Award–winning producer John Keane (R.E.M., Uncle Tupelo, Widespread Panic).
After a barroom fight in his early twenties, Koons began experiencing neurological episodes. Unfortunately, two months before the original release of Welcome to the Nowhere Motel, Koons vanished from his tour route and was found disoriented . His father, a Vietnam combat veteran, joined him for the remainder of the U.S. tour. They traveled more than 20,000 miles in a used pickup truck, often sleeping in it and living a sparse, itinerant routine.
The re‑release of Welcome to the Nowhere Motel marks the quiet return of a heartfelt album and the beginning of a new chapter in his work. Koons is currently working on recording a new album next year.
“An alt-country craftsman.”
— The Philadelphia Inquirer
“One of the Top 10 Americana Albums of 2009”
— Popmatters and Magnet Magazine
