Career
Kilbey began his professional music career at age 17 when he joined a five piece "cabaret band" called 'Saga' in Canberra, Australia. He then joined Precious Little, a rock band featuring future Church bandmate Peter Koppes on drums. Kilbey followed up with another band, Baby Grande, around 1978 while he lived in Canberra. Soon after, he formed The Church along with Koppes, Nick Ward, and Marty Willson-Piper. After some success in their native Australia in the early 1980s, Kilbey and The Church went on to international fame when "Under the Milky Way" (from their 1988 album Starfish, which Kilbey had co-written with Karin Jansson of Pink Champagne and Curious (Yellow)) became a hit.