Rock stars also go to school!
What comes to mind when you think of rock stars? Anything but post graduate studies, right? Well you would be amazed at the number of artists in famous bands or artistic movements actually have high levels of education.
For example, I recently found out (via Easternblot) that Brian May, lead guitarist from Queen, gave up on his PhD to go on tour in 1969. A good idea, I would say.
Other musicians that also hold high levels of education:
- Dexter Holland – Lead vocalist of The Offspring was pursuing his Msc in Molecular Biology when he decided to dedicate his full time to the band.
- James Lilja – Also from The Offspring (for a couple of years) got his medical degree in Gynecological Oncology. Who would guess…
- David Farrell – Bassist for the nu/metal band called Linkin Park got his degree at UCLA
- Lou Reed – Lead guitarist and vocalist of The Velvet Underground (and much more…) got a university degree in English at Syracuse University
- Tom Morello – Former Rage Against the Machine now Audioslave guitarist attended Harvard University and graduated in Political Science.
- Scott Stapp – Lead vocalist and founder of Creed got himself a degree at University of Notre Dame
- Art Garfunkel – American song writer and singer that happens to to have a Masters degree in Mathematics! (OK, he’s not a rock star, but still a very famous singer)
Well, that’s a list of a couple I managed to remember hearing they had university degrees. Do you know of any other artists that have higher education and kept rocking on?
Related posts:
I should have maybe linked my older post in the one about Brian May, but I wrote about musicians before: Andrew Kenny of American Analog Set also quit grad school in favour of his band. They’re not quite as famous, though.
Great topic! I am going to totally date myself here, but I remember that Young MC had a degree in Economics or some such before he started recording rap music.
Blogrolling…
The Barcode Blog My Biotech Life The Happy Tortoise A Natural Scientist Greg Laden Gaddeswarup’s blog Balyblab……
I seem to recall that a couple of rocks star hold postgraduate degrees in music, but I’m at a loss to recall which.
I found a wikipedia entry with a list of such artists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musicians_by_academic_degree
Wow, didn’t find that list on Wikipedia when I was looking for that. But it’s also true that I was focused on rock stars… (except for Art Garfunkel, obviously…)
Thanks for the pointer :)
[...] this year I wrote a post regarding rock stars that went to school and got themselves a degree. A little research and they started popping up here and [...]
lead singer of Bad Religion has a PhD from UCLA in zoology (?) and also works as a lecturer.
I never left playing rock music!
The thing about music is that you can play any time you like, and you don’t have to do it all the time to be proficient– the thing about surgery is that you have to do it all the time to just not be dangerous.
The amazing thing about the Internet is now my current band, 11x, will be able to publish our stuff online for download, for anybody to hear. We couldn’t do that in 1985!
JL
@aleks
true, he’s a double major in Antropology and Geology, with a PhD in Zoology.
Don’t forget Dr. Greg Graffin of Bad Religion! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Graffin
Ah, silly me. Should have read the other comments. Brain is slooow from slogging through answering reviewer comments / rewriting a paper. Will need to go on another post-midnight walkabout in Manhattan soon!
While it’s not mutually exclusive, people with the talent and guts to try to become rock stars probably are well aware that they don’t need college education and probably have no interest in following a career path that would start there.
Dean Wareham (Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean & Britta) went to Harvard. So did Andy Pratt.
Talking Heads (David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth) all went to RISD.
Mira, keyboard player and singer from Ladytron has (or was pursuing (not sure)) a PhD in Genetics
interviews where she mentions about:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/showbiz/music-news/2008/06/01/60-second-interview-ladytron-s-mira-aroyo-78057-20591556/
http://www.emilystrange.com/beware/radio/Ladytron/ladytronInterview.cfm
a scientific paper with her name as co-author
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=14892965
a presentation she gave at some symposium
http://www.bioch.ox.ac.uk/graduate/DPhilSymposium00.html#Aroyo
dudes from Boston… i recall one of em had an advanced degree in math from MIT??
Yet another: Tom Scholz from Boston has both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree from MIT.
Milo Aukerman of the Descendents has a Ph.D. in biochemistry