Kurt Vile

The CD-R guy

Kurt Samuel Vile was born on January 3, 1980 in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, and sings and plays guitar, trumpet, banjo, keyboards and harmonica. He got a banjo from his father at 14, made a tape at 17, drove a forklift from 2000 to 2002 and spent two years in Boston before returning to Philadelphia in 2003. NME says he was nicknamed the CD-R guy for selling self-recorded CDs at Philadelphia shows. Constant Hitmaker (Gulcher, 2008) compiled mid-2000s material and God Is Saying This to You (2009) was vinyl only on Mexican Summer. He co-founded The War on Drugs with Adam Granduciel in 2005, appeared on Wagonwheel Blues (2008) and left to go solo, saying there was no falling out.

He signed to Matador in May 2009, and Childish Prodigy (October 6, 2009) was his first studio album with the Violators. Smoke Ring for My Halo (March 8, 2011) was followed by Wakin on a Pretty Daze (April 9, 2013), B'lieve I'm Goin Down... (September 25, 2015), Lotta Sea Lice with Courtney Barnett (October 13, 2017), Bottle It In (October 12, 2018), (watch my moves) (April 15, 2022, Verve, mostly recorded in lockdown at his home studio) and Philadelphia's Been Good to Me (May 29, 2026). "Pretty Pimpin" topped Billboard's Adult Alternative Songs in March 2016 and went Gold. He produced Dinosaur Jr.'s Sweep It Into Space (2021) and recorded "How Lucky" with John Prine in 2018.

The Violators' current members include Jesse Trbovich, Kyle Spence and Adam Langellotti. Setlist.fm shows his 2026 tour, KV's Been Good to Me, with solo acoustic runs, and KEXP recorded a solo set on December 15, 2018. He names Neil Young, Pavement, the Velvet Underground and Terry Allen's Juarez as influences, and Snail Mail's Lindsey Jordan has named Smoke Ring for My Halo as formative.