Synthesist and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his work with the industrial band Skinny Puppy. Originally from Vancouver, BC, Canada, Key (real name: Kevin Crompton) played drums for bands around Vancouver as a teenager in the 1970s, and then for the New Wave band Images in Vogue in the early 1980s. During this time, he met singer Kevin Olgivie, and they formed the band Skinny Puppy, with Key playing synths. (The stylized stage name, cEvin Key, he took to "avoid the confusion of having two Kevins in the band"). Key left Images in Vogue in 1985 to focus his full attention on Skinny Puppy. He was soon joined in that band by another synth player, classically trained Dwayne Goettel. The band became renown for its music but also notorious for its grotesque stage shows, which often featured singer Olgivie (who went by the stage name Nivek Ogre) covered in blood, and imitation animal corpses which the band "dissected" on stage.
Skinny Puppy broke up after Goettel's death from a heroin overdose in 1995. Key inherited Goettel's record label, Subconscious Communications, and begin releasing records from a variety of groupings and projects that he was involved in, such as Download, The Tear Garden and Doubting Thomas. He released his first solo album, Music for Cats, in 1998; part of the compositional process for that album involved Key's allowing his pet cats to walk across his keyboards.
Skinny Puppy re-formed in 2003 with Key, Ogre and Mark Walk taking Goettel's role. Key remained with the band until its final dissolution in 2023. He continues to work on solo albums and his side projects, including Hilt with Bill Leeb of Front Line Assembly.