Professor of Rock

It was the biggest song of 1980, by a band that defied all classification. Blondie. I mean you just couldn’t put this band in a box. With connections to new wave, rock, punk, disco, reggae, and r&b, you never knew what you were going to get with Blondie. Versatile and experimental, they were musical chameleons. So it’s no surprise that they jumped at the chance to try something new when the op...

Up next, the last musical will and testament of an all-time legend. Jim Morrison of the Doors! Taken from the planet at the age of 27… Today’s song, Riders on the Storm was nearly as haunting as his death… It’s a sinister and mystical epic about a spree killer that has some incredible insight into the artist who created it as well as the human psyche. After lighting up the world with Break on Thro...

The story of Glam Metal band Warrant and their MASSIVE 1990 Hit Cherry Pie! Written by lead singer Jani Lane. The song may've been a curse. Jani said as much himself.. It was also one of the last big hits of the Glam Metal genre that towered over the 80s. It may have been the song that ended the genre, coming at a time that GRUNGE took over and obliterated the excess of the music and the neon deca...

Coming up…. an electrifying tale about a fateful encounter between a musical prodigy and the devil himself. Set against the backdrop of the American South, the encounter boldly turns into a fiery, foot-stomping duel known as The Devil Went Down to Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band. A musician’s life is on the line. In the 80s classic hit, if he loses the bout, the devil gets his soul forever! It...

Coming up, an interview with an artist who is on the shortlist of greatest singers ever. Part 2 of our sit down with Paul Rodgers who made his bones with many huge rock bands from Free to Bad Company to The Firm. Paul Rodgers killed it with every band he was in. In fact, he is one of a few artists in rock history to sing and write a top 5 hit with 4 different bands. Today he tells the story of a s...

It’s arguably the greatest duet ever recorded and well it almost didn’t happen. Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie. So First of all the iconic bass riff that galvanized the song was forgotten after the musicians took a dinner break… Then David Bowie almost blocked it from release because he was unhappy with it. the unorthodox structure of the duet came from every member of Queen including Fre...

Coming up, Eagles were the most popular band in the world when they released the landmark 70s album Hotel California... It became a #1 hit and made them even bigger with 2 huge hits, the title track and New Kid In Town… Don Henley and Glenn Frey and company were on fire... the irony here is that this #1 song was the band singing about getting replaced by an up and coming artist and becoming forgot...

The backstory of today’s classic rock epic reads like the front page of The National Enquirer. Another Brick In The Wall by Pink Floyd from their landmark record The Wall but at first it was only a minute long and musically it was a little boring… it would take producer Bob Ezrin's secret mission and a fair amount of subterfuge to turn this Another Brick In the Wall to into the monster anthem it i...

Many have speculated on the real story behind this historic 70s classic. Peg by Steely Dan is an all-time. But the duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have been famously tight-lipped about it. Well, today we try to solve this mystery from the two foremost perfectionists of modern music. The song is historic for myriad reasons. It contained 40 of the greatest musicians in the world. It introduced...

The story of Good Lovin’ by the Young Rascals or later known as just the Rascals. Every now and again you hear a song that has so much magic, you know it’s gonna be a smash. Here's the story of this rock classic from an interview with Felix Cavaliere the lead singer and keyboardist of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band. The song explodes in the first 3 seconds and hooks you. The #1 hit story next...

Written in just 10 minutes, today’s songwriting virtuoso, Elton John had this landmark track ready to go before his bandmates woke up for breakfast… Staying in a haunted 18th-century mansion at the time, Elton John and his band were out to write the album of their lives and they did…when this album and this song launched they darted to #1 Honkey Chateau and his 70s classic Rocket Man. But as it wa...

Coming up… a 70s classic that has one of the most iconic opening lines of the decade… Sign says long-haired freaky people need not apply was a happy accident The song came to singer Les Emmerson of Five Man Electrical Band when he was cruising on Route 66 and saw all of these billboards advertising different things in the middle of nature. It was actually obscuring mother nature and Les wondered w...

Skinny ties and mullets… A quirky band named the Cars with two singers (Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr) who split the difference between rock and new wave and power pop. They sabotaged radio with their 1978 song that seemed to start the 80s off two years early. Just What I Need became the ultimate Singalong classic. The character in the song is a little unhinged but the chorus is so catchy and relata...

Bad Moon Rising, written by John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival was released in 1969… It stands as a timeless musical monument to one of the most turbulent periods in American history. The classic swamp rock song encapsulates the fear & uncertainty that characterized an era of social upheaval, political unrest, and cultural shifts. It came from a very strange place, to say the least....

Dangerous, volatile, and even outright destructive, today’s band is what rock is all about. Guns N’ Roses Broke onto the scene in the mid-80s, their hard-hitting music and reputation absolutely freaked out the media establishment… Radio refused to play their 1987 Masterpiece Appetite for Destruction, they were blacklisted by MTV, oh and parents confiscated what few tapes actually got sold… As unbe...

We’re heading back to the Summer of 1985, to immerse ourselves in song so saturated with nostalgia euphoria that you may never want to take it off repeat. Summer of 69 by Bryan Adams. It was an up-tempo rocker and a legitimate rite of passage for every 80s kid. But I have to admit that it doesn’t mean what I thought it did when I was growing up. For years people have debated its message. Bryan Ada...

A hit song can come from anywhere… a billboard, a magazine cover, a summer romance, a TV evangelist, or… maybe the idea for a song could come from a cheap bottle of wine. The incomparable Neil Diamond has written a song about ALL of the sources I just mentioned. One never knows where & when imagination will strike, and that’s what makes the backstory of the 70s classic Cracklin’ Rosie so cool....

Coming up… an interview with one of rock’s most legendary singers… Robert Plant, Freddie Mercury, Ann Wilson of Heart, they’ve all cited him as the great one. I’m talking about Paul Rodgers… The man who helmed Free and Bad Company and the Firm with Jimmy Page. Paul tells us the story behind arguably his most iconic song…Alright Now by Free It took radio by storm and according to stats it’s played...

Coming up... this song was written to be part of a rock opera that legendary guitarist Pete Townshend of the Who wanted to make into a film but he couldn’t get it off the ground so he threw it on his band’s next album which happened to be the all time classic Who’s Next! It became one of the most powerful rock anthems ever. So powerful that the legend’s iconic scream was so piercing when the band...

The first 500 people to use our link: https://skl.sh/professorofrock1023 will get access to one of Skillshare’s best offers: 30 days free AND 40% off your first year of Skillshare membership! It’s a song that would spawn hundreds upon hundreds of clones… LITERALLY...I’m telling you everyone wanted to be just like AC/DC's fire-breathing guitarist Angus Young...Everyone wanted to sound like him, and...

What do Queen’s We Will Rock You, The Beatles’ Come Together, Aerosmith’s Walk This Way, and AC/DC’s Back in Black all have in common? Well, today’s featured song Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard. Each of these songs played a role in the creation of this 11th-hour hybrid track. Actually, Joe Elliot didn’t think it was worth recording. And just wanted to save it for the next album. I mean, Def...

Coming up an interview with one of the pioneers of Thrash Metal: Anthrax... In our exclusive interview, we’ll find out why guitarist Scott Ian from Anthrax’s classic 1985 music video for Madhouse was banned by the suits at MTV. And how a Stephen King book inspired their next 80s classic record. And how a failed duet called I’m the Man with the Beastie Boys became their breakout hit when they had t...

Coming up….the saga of how a teenage girl at a clothing store completely bewitched a journeyman lead singer- Who wrote a song just minutes after meeting her that would become the fastest-selling debut single since the Beatles… The story of MY SHARONA by The Knack. This song eventually outdid them with 10 million copies sold. Times were good for The Knack with Doug Fieger...they had the #1 song of...

Sometimes you just gotta kick back and let it rock. And that’s what today’s song is all about. One of the 80s’ ultimate party anthems, Poison and their hit Nothing But a Good Time is a high-octane antidote for the daily grind. But even though it nearly reached the top of the charts and anchored a multi-platinum record with Open Up and Say Ah!, this song actually came from humble beginnings. Living...

There’ve been hundreds of hits based on the apotheosis baby I made a horrible mistake and I want you back but this one is the king of all those songs…a 70s classic as told by the singer. He wrote it when his wife walked out on him… after he wrote it he knew it was A #1 hit He was so sure he guaranteed the record label… Well, he was right and decades later it’s still one of the biggest songs ever w...