Born in
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, Grehan began playing piano and switched to
guitar at age 11. His early influences included
Deep Purple,
Jimi Hendrix and
Santana. Grehan recorded his first single at 17, with a band known as Stytch. Grehan attended
Fanshawe College in
London, Ontario, and received a diploma in Recorded Music Production. During this time he wrote "
New Girl Now" which would later become one of Honeymoon Suite's biggest hits. After moving to
Toronto he hooked up with singer Johnnie Dee in 1982 and together they recruited the other members to form Honeymoon Suite. Their subsequent demo recording of "New Girl Now" was entered into a contest sponsored by
radio station Q107 and they won first prize. This exposure led to a record deal with
Warner Music and the band released their first
self-titled album in 1984. Honeymoon Suite (named after the band members' hometown of
Niagara Falls, Ontario) sold over 300,000 copies of their debut in Canada and toured North America and Europe extensively. They were the opening act for many touring acts including
Heart,
ZZ Top, and
Journey. The band released two more albums during the 1980s (
The Big Prize and
Racing After Midnight) and received much exposure when their songs were featured in the hit TV show
Miami Vice. Grehan even played the lead role in a 1986
Pepsi commercial, air-guitaring a solo originally done by
Vinnie Moore. Honeymoon suite released three more albums in the 1990s and continued to tour. Into the 2000s, the band remained active with more releases including 2008's
Clifton Hill with Grehan on lead guitar. Grehan relocated to
Illinois with wife and children, and besides working with Honeymoon Suite, was involved locally with 2 side projects: The Dexrays, with Dexter Hebert (drums) and Rich Leigh (bass); and LoveJunk. In 2015, Grehan received three SOCAN Classic Awards based on his songs "New Girl Now", "Burning in Love", and "What Does It Take" having been played more than 100,000 times each on Canadian radio. ==References==