KINGVEGAS was born John Kiehne back in the 1960's. He has been involved in music for most of his life having sung in choir at school and church as well as starting on the alto saxophone at age 11 and starting on guitar at age 12. His first "show" was performing a few songs on electric guitar for the neighborhood pig roast with his next door neighbor who was a drummer.
KINGVEGAS spent his childhood playing in the saxophone, guitar, bass and tuba in the school symphonic, marching and jazz bands. He started doing pro gigs on guitar at 15 and was playing bars and parties on a regular basis at 16. After graduating from high school he attended college at the University of Mo.- St. Louis and Webster University studying music theory and performance as well as gigging in cover bands. After his first semester of college KINGVEGAS went on his first national tour and continued to gig around the St. Louis area and tour until he moved to Boston, MA in 1991. Some of these groups that he played with during this period included The Newsboys, Lexx Luthor, Mystic Voyage, Julius Williams and the Burning.
KINGVEGAS played in a variety of musical groups in Boston from 1991- 2001 including forming his own original group Smokstik including Super G, Jim's Big Ego, Mother of God, Pat the Burning Dog and many others.
KINGVEGAS moved back to St. Louis in 2001 to be nearer to family and has played with a variety of musical groups around the St. Louis area including his own Smokstik, as Kingvegas, with Flextasy, Swing Cat Swing, The Bonhomme, Resistall, Mixtape and now the Brown Note.