A Young Kid’s Guide To Impressing Your Parents With Your Rock Music

Face it: many have been the times when you’re lying there in bed, quietly listening to your favorite band – what constitutes “quietly” is, of course, full volume – and your mom, your dad, or, worse yet, both, break into your private domain and yell at you to “turn that damn music doooowwwwn!!” and to “stop listening to those worthless bums”. But, c’mon, isn’t there something you can do to start changing your parents’ minds about what you hold most dear?

Sure! Impress them. In fact, shock them by showing how some of those bums actually went to college! Knowing what to say to your parents in these cases, and learning what interesting little piece of rock star history you can shine a light on for this purpose, is important when trying to impress dear ole mom and dad. There are many wonderful stories and scrumptious bits of data that will just have your head brimming with enthusiasm, just waiting for your parents to once again try to tell you off.

Going down a list of bands, I’ll mention a couple of things you might want to ponder and/or do some more research about:

Queen:

• Freddie Mercury: Ealing Art College– graphic illustration
• John Deacon: Chelsea College – electronics degree
• Roger Taylor: first studied dentistry at London Hospital Medical College and left it in order to get a BSC in Biology at London Polytechnic
• Brian May: this would be the piéce de rèsistance here. He studied at Imperial College London and got his degree in astrophysics. In 2007, he completed his PhD. and was also named Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University.

The Rolling Stones:

• Mick Jagger: studied economics at the famed London School of Economics but then something got in the way. Namely, the Stones.
• Charlie Watts: went to Harrow Art School, became a commercial artist
• Ron Wood: like Freddie Mercury, he also studied at Ealing Art College.

Kiss:

• Paul Stanley: went to Manhattan School of Music and Art and also to Bronx Community College but gave it up when music started to rear its head.
• Gene Simmons: Richmond College – got a degree in education and is fluent in Hungarian, German, English and Hebrew (and also speaks some Spanish – I know that from personal experience.)


The Police:

• Sting: went to Northern Counties Teachers’ Training College – got a degree in education
• Andy Summers: UCLA – studied classical guitar
• Stewart Copeland: went to California Western University and UC Berkeley

Van Halen:

• Alex Van Halen: briefly went to Pasadena City College to study music
• Michael Anthony: studied music at Pasadena City College

Sheryl Crow:

• University of Missouri – B.A. in Education, Music Composition and Performance

Bon Jovi:

• David Bryan: was studying Pre-Med at Rutdgers University and left it to go to Juilliard (music) instead

We can also add a roster of people who have studied at Berklee College of Music, in Boston, MA:

• John Myung, John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy – Dream Theater
• Steve Vai
• Tim Owens (Ripper Owens)
• Al Pitrelli
• Joey Kramer and Brad Whitford – Aerosmith
• Steve Smith – Journey
• Will Calhoun – Living Colour

So there you have it, kids. A small list which can undoubtedly be expanded with some research on your part. But always remember something: it’s really not that important to know if they studied this or that because what they play still reaches your heart. If you parents need some sort of college degree for them to pass favorable judgement on a person then that’s something that perhaps they should have learned in college that it’s wrong.

Next up: A massive greatest hits package from one of the best songwriters in pop music.