Remember When: ‘Game of Thrones’ Star Peter Dinklage Fronted the ’90s “Punk-Funk-Rap” Band Whizzy

Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage had one of his earliest brushes with music royalty when he was 2, but he was too young to know it. Growing up next door to Bruce Springsteen‘s manager in New Jersey, the then-teenage “Boss” would often stop by his house and play guitar.

“Bruce used to come over to his house and hang out and play guitar,” Dinklage said. “This was when I was two, so I don’t remember any of it. My mom and dad went to a wedding at a surfboard factory, and Bruce was in the wedding band. He was about 17 years old at the time. My mom didn’t think he was that great. She told me he was too loud.”

Music first caught his older brother, Jonathan Dinklage, a musician and composer, who has also worked as the concertmaster for several Broadway shows, including Hamilton and Matilda the Musical, and played with David Bowie, Lou Reed, Barry Manilow, James Taylor, Lady Gaga, George Michael, and dozens of other artists.

Dinklage also caught the bug and later took his singing to the television and the big screen.

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[RELATED: ‘Game of Thrones’ Star Peter Dinklage Joins The National on ‘Colbert’]

The National and ‘Wicked’

In 2015, Dinklage sang a musical parody around Game of Thrones for Red Nose Day. Backed by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Dinklage sang “Your Name,” from his 2021 film Cyrano, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2021.

“The greatest singers aren’t necessarily opera singers, they just have soul,” said Dinklage to Colbert, referencing Nina Simone and Bob Dylan, before performing with the Dessners. 

In the 2024 musical hit Wicked, Dinklage also stars as Dr. Dillamond and sings “Something Bad” with Cynthia Erivo.

Many years before landing his breakout role of Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones, Dinklage was also the lead singer in what he called a “punk-funk-rap” band, Whizzy, in the 1990s.

A”Sid Vicious” Moment at CBGB

Though the band never released any music, except for some cassette demos, including Dear Lynette in 1995, they did play around New York City with some of their songs, including “I’m Dead,” “Get,” “Not So Hard,” “Armadillo,” and “Omnivore Lord”—I’m an omnivore yet I do much more / I rock a party with my mike, get people out on the floor/ But when the show is over and my rhymes are through, I head to the kitchen / ‘Cause I need some food.

Dinklage sang, rapped, and played the trumpet in the band, which was documented in a student newspaper review of the band’s 1994 show at Columbia University. Describing the band in the Columbia Spectator, including Dinklage who appeared to be wearing “a shirt made of Wonder Bread,” writer Susanna Howe added, “Jeff Nathanson’s sax powered this funk-rap song about an extra who gets killed in the first scene of a ‘Star Trek’ episode. Dinklage’s spoken-word interludes, Josh Weisberg’s hard guitar riffs, David Sechy’s popping bassline, and Jim Angelina’s tight drumming move your body for you.”

Though short-lived, Dinklage was left with a physical memento of his time with the band, a scar that runs from his neck to eyebrow from a fall at the legendary CBGB.

“I was jumping around onstage and got accidentally kneed in the temple,” Dinklage revealed in a Playboy interview in 2013. “I was like Sid Vicious, just bleeding all over the stage. Blood was going everywhere. I just grabbed a dirty bar napkin and dabbed my head and went on with the show.”

He continued, “We didn’t care much about personal safety. We were smoking and drinking during our shows, and one time my bass player fell off the back of his amp because he passed out. It was one of those bands.”

Photo: John Lamparski/WireImage