• August 1, 1958
• Michael Penn's younger brothers are famous actors: Sean and Chris Penn. Michael didn't get the acting gene but does have a talent for music - he's an acclaimed singer-songwriter who plays a variety of instruments and also does production work. Unlike his brothers, performance isn't his thing - he's subdued on stage, just trying to get the song across.
• Penn's biggest hit is his debut single, "No Myth." The video did very well on MTV and won him the award for Best New Artist In A Video, beating Lenny Kravitz, Bell Biv DeVoe, The Black Crowes, Jane Child, Alannah Myles and Lisa Stansfield.
• Michael Penn was born in New York City but raised in Los Angeles. He went to Santa Monica High School, where one of his classmates was Terri Nunn, frontwoman of the band Berlin.
• For much of the '80s, Penn was in a band called Doll Congress with Patrick Warren, a keyboard player that became one of his main collaborators. On "No Myth," Warren played the Chamberlin, which activates tape loops when the keys are pressed.
• He married the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann in 1997. They've often performed together and have worked on each other's albums.
• He had a small role in the 1997 movie Boogie Nights playing Nick the Engineer, who records Dirk Diggler (played by Mark Wahlberg) singing "The Touch" in the studio.
  
  The film's director, Paul Thomas Anderson, worked closely with Aimee Mann on his 1999 film Magnolia.

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