James William Lindberg was born July 26, 1965 in Southern California. He is an American singer and guitarist active since the 1980s. After years playing in local bands, Lindberg founded Pennywise in 1988 with former CON/800 guitarist Fletcher Dragge and two previously unknown musicians, Jason Thirsk on bass and Byron McMackin on drums. Some of the members were previously alums from two South Bay High Schools, Redondo Union High School and Mira Costa (where Lindberg graduated in 1983)
In 1989, the band released two EPs, A Word from the Wise and Wildcard, that attracted the attention of Epitaph Records, who signed the band a year later. Together, Pennywise recorded and released three studio albums: Pennywise, Unknown Road, and About Time. They had moderate chart success, with the latter album reaching the Billboard top 100, but difficulty keeping Lindberg's bandmates together caused Thirsk to leave the band in late 1995 for reasons related to alcoholism. Randy Bradbury replaced him. When Thirsk returned in 1996, Bradbury was supposed to switch to rhythm guitar. Unfortunately, Thirsk died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 29 of that year at the age of 28.
Although Pennywise considered disbanding after Thirsk's death, the band decided to continue on with Bradbury as his permanent replacement. Since then, Pennywise continued to record and perform. In August 2009, Lindberg announced that he was leaving Pennywise, citing creative differences and a the difficulties he found touring when also trying to be a good father of three.
In June 2010 Lindberg unveiled his new band The Black Pacific. The group is signed to SideOneDummy Records and have debuted two tracks, "The System" and "When It's Over". Black Pacific features Alan Vega (from Good Guys in Black) on drums and Davey Latter (from Everest) on bass, with Jim writing all of the songs, playing guitar, and singing.
Lindberg has been married for 21 years and he and his wife have a house full of daughters.