Professor of Rock

Up next, an interview with 80s icon Terri Nunn from New Wave band Berlin about her band’s biggest song. It was a #1 hit… It was a central song from Top Gun one of the biggest movies of the decade. It was even nominated for an Oscar! Thing is, as we’ll find out... some of the band members didn’t want any part of the song because they didn’t write it. First of all, Berlin wasn’t even the first choic...

Coming up…a down & out songwriter named Mentor Williams and a down & out singer named Dobie Gray after the TV show came together to collaborate on a song that nobody wanted. “Drift Away" The writer was living in his brother Paul Williams's shadow who was one of the most famous songwriters ever having written numerous hits for the Carpenters, Three Dog Night, and Rainbow Connection for Kerm...

Ok, you’re not going to believe this story… Coming up.. a song.. a record that changed everything… Spinning Wheel by Blood Sweat and Tears. It dominated the charts because it was so fresh…so impactful It didn’t sound like anything on the radio at the time. With the amazing pipes of David Clayton Thomas. Up next the band’s co-founder Bobby Columby tells the story of this song that was a crossover h...

Hey teacher, leave them kids alone! Today we’re telling the story of the classic 80s track Don’t Stand So Close To Me by the Police. The controversial song is about a classroom instructor who crossed the line with one of his students. And since Sting was a teacher before joining this band, a lot of fans wondered if it was really about him. Was he speaking from a real experience? Besides that, this...

So I was looking through some old interview footage and I found this cool zoom session I did with two of the greatest drummers from hard rock and Metal. The Appice brothers Carmine and Vinnie Appice. They both played for two of the greatest rock singers ever… Ozzy Osbourne and Ronnie James Dio. They have some great stories including an inside story about an 80s rock masterpiece Dio’s Holy Diver th...

Coming up… Two of rock and roll’s greatest storytellers Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings formerly of the 70s band the Guess Who share the hilarious story of writing a #1 double sided hit… American Woman and No Sugar tonight. The two hits came from different experiences … One came when the Randy Bachman, who was not from the United States visited Haight Ashbury for the 1st time… He witnessed a tou...

In the mid 80s Australian band Midnight Oil was one of the hottest box office draws on their continent, poised to sell out arenas around the country…But instead of accepting the lucrative payouts, they chose to tour the MOST remote areas of the region- for a pittance of what they could’ve made. In these places, singe Peter Garrett and his band witnessed the harsh conditions and poor health that ra...

Coming up, an interview with a true 80s icon. Colin Hay of Men at Work. This band was as big as anyone in 1982 and 1983. They actually pulled off something that not even the Beatles did… when their debut record, Business As Usual spent 15 weeks at #1 and they had 2 #1 hits Down Under and Who Can It Be Now and 4 top tens…they won a Grammy for best new artist and were on the cover of Rolling Stone…...

Coming up, it’s the story of the 1983 Hit Der Kommissar that had two very different lives. First released by a German-speaking 80s star, named Falco, the song went Top 5 in at least 10 different countries. But It crashed and burned in America… Although Falco would have his revenge with a different hit called Rock Me Amadeus a few years later….But then an American ‘prog-rock band gone new wave pop...

It was a last-minute song written at record speed. When rock’s greatest trio Rush finished their 9th studio album Signals, they realized they still had 3 minutes and 57 seconds of space left. No big deal right? Well, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart wanted to give their fans the most bang for their buck. So they decided to squeeze one more song onto the record. Only they didn’t write many s...

In 1983 into 1984 every artist and band on the planet was massively outdone by one massive blockbuster. The Biggest selling album of all time. Michael Jackson’s Thriller…. The Police, Pink Floyd, Hall and Oates, Styx Foreigner, YES, David Bowie… All had to be second bananas and then some of the biggest albums of that times never got to #1 because of it. I’m talking Van Halen 1984, Def Leppard Pyro...

Coming up an interview with one of my favorite singer’s ever…He’s one of only a few artists in rock history who’s had a hit with three different bands and as a solo artist. Paul Carrack sang the 80s hit Tempted for Squeeze, Silent Running and #1 hit the Living Years for Mike + the Mechanics, the solo hit 1987’s Don’t Shed A Tear and today’s 70s classic How Long by Ace. He tells the story of this 7...

Coming up, an interview with the singer and guitarist from a hard rock band that exploded onto Radio and MTV in the 80s with a song that changed everything. Cult of Personality by Living Colour. Written by Singer Corey Glover and guitarist Vernon Reid. The opening riff blew minds and speakers… This band challenged the party all the time pop-metal bands of the moment giving us a dose of reality tha...

When Pink Floyd’s leader Syd Barrett descended into madness due to a break from reality and using drugs. The band was concerned that losing their frontman could be the end of their career so Roger Waters stepped up and took over songwriting duties. Then they pulled off the massive album Dark Side of the Moon with the help of a brilliant young engineer named Alan Parsons who decided not to do their...

Today, it’s a band that started off strong in the 60s continued to dominate in the 70s with great songs like Night In White Satin...then Went away for a bit only to make a huge comeback in the 80s with an entirely new sound The Moody Blues… and in the process released one of their most successful songs ever. Your Wildest Dreams…a #1 AC hit from 1986 and #9 on the Hot 100... It’s a nostalgic track...

One day Dire Straits Frontman Mark Knopfler was shopping in a retail store and he happened to eavesdrop on two meathead workers ranting about Rockstars and how easy they have it. It was such an interesting conversation that he borrowed a piece of paper and wrote down what they said verbatim. He turned it into one of the biggest hits ever. Yet this frontman got lambasted by critics for using their...

Up next Rock’s most notorious bad boy Axl Rose had been working on a piano song for about 8 years… It was actually the only song he knew how to play on the piano and he wanted his band Guns N’ Roses to record it. But as guitarist Slash would point out...they weren’t a Ballad Band.. they wanted to rock. It would be called November Rain. They tried recording this epic that had more in common with cl...

It’s quite possibly the most vulnerable song about a broken relationship of the Rock Era. The late Gordon Lightfoot wrote an absolutely gut-wrenching ballad where a man, who was once a hero, calls himself out as the culprit for a failed marriage, and pleads with his wife not for forgiveness, but for empathy. It’s the story of the 70s classic If You Could Read My Mind. Years later Gordon’s daughter...

Okay, so this one’s an episode I’ve been needing to do for a long time. And I’ll be upfront with you. It’s a topic that really gets under my skin, so I’ll try to be positive. Today we’re counting down my all-time, Top 5 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame snubs… bands and artists who are well overdue for the so-called honor, but routinely get passed over year after year. There is a long list of rock hall s...

A flare gun fired by an idiot attending a concert led to the burning of a casino and a towering fire in the sky. The rock band Deep Purple happened to be in attendance and was supposed to record their new record Machine Head there the next day…they saw the whole thing. A few days later the band’s bassist Roger Glover had a nightmare about the fire and a legendary song title came to him Smoke on th...

Today’s song was a comeback #1 hit for a legendary band named the Doobie Brothers who lost their iconic singer, Tom Johnston to Sickness. What A Fool Believes was written in a cool way… It was actually a collaboration between 2 legends Michel McDonald and Kenny Loggins. There were both aware of one another and wanted to write together. So a meeting was set… Kenny Loggins pulled up to Michael McDon...

So here’s one for you. How many songs do you know that were cut from a ground-breaking album, turned into a B-side several times, and then placed on a movie soundtrack as an afterthought… only to then rocket up the charts to become a #1 single? Doesn’t happen very often, right? Well, the Red Hot Chili Peppers did just that with their 90s rock classic Soul to Squeeze. Actually, Anthony Kiedis, Flea...

Legend Carole King wrote or co-wrote over 2 dozen hits for other people before she got a chance to record her own record... With husband Gerry Goffin.... Goffin King was the songwriting team of the 60s. In the 70s when she wanted to go solo the only problem is SHE HATED the sound of her own voice. She was criticized by some in the industry about it saying it was hoarse and too thin. One night lege...

Coming up the hard rock and glam metal bands that ruled MTV and the concert circuit in the 80s are well documented from Motley Crue to Def Leppard to Bon Jovi and Whitesnake but one band that was just as big in that moment but don't get the credit they deserve is Ratt. Today we have an interview with the lead singer Stephen Pearcy. Many forget Ratt and their 80s hard rock album Out of the Cellar s...

Coming up, it’s the story of two musicians who achieved global success both as songwriters and band members. They also happened to be romantically involved. You can credit them with two #1 Hot 100 hits for one of the biggest stars in the industry, How Will I Know and I Wanna Dance With Somebody, and another massive hit for themselves Waiting for a Star to Fall, a feel-good 80s staple, has become a...