Professor of Rock

Up next.. the story of an all time classic rock song from both the singer Lou Gramm and guitarist Mick Jones who wrote it.. All-time 80s anthem JukeBox Hero by Foreigner! They each had a great song and pretty much combined it into one with dual experiences… legendary guitarist and producer Mick Jones said it came from letting a fan come backstage after he’d waited 5 hours in the rain to get ticket...

Coming up, it’s one of the most instantly recognizable and impossible to resist songs of the rock era. Take on Me by A-ha. It's music video ain’t chopped liver either… maybe the definitive video of 80s MTV . Take On Me is a song that rises high above its genre and era. But it would be a long and rocky road for this band to get there. Morten Harkett and his band A-ha would rise to global fame but i...

Coming up, it’s one of the darkest days of one of the rock era’s most storied bands. 1987's Tango in the Night was Fleetwood Mac’s 2nd biggest record. Most people forget that. It also had more hits than any of their albums tied with Rumours with Little Lies, Everywhere, Seven Wonders, and Big Love. Already known for having more than their fair share of secrets, intrigue, and infighting, one tragic...

Coming up legendary singer Steven Tyler of Aerosmith wrote one of rock’s greatest masterpieces at the age of 14. A 14-year-old kid! Not only that… This 70s classic is a pretty heavy song for a 14-year-old to understand let alone write. The 70s hard rock classic Dream On is the one that put the screaming demon and the Boston boys on the top of rock royalty. But when Tyler brought the bonafide rock...

Coming up, we’re going to go behind the Top 10 songs of this very same week from the year 1982. But that’s not all. After we count them down, we’re re-ranking each song according to all-time streams and views, to find out which song has made the biggest mark on history. So who do you think will take the top spot today? Will it be a veteran band like Journey, a previous chart-topping act like Rick...

Up next one of the greatest guitarists of the rock era, Steve Stevens tells the story of meeting legendary singer the new wave Elvis… Billy Idol and working on their first hit together…White Wedding, the head banging rocker that many have played at their weddings. Which is funny because it’s actually an ANTI-marriage song. Also many were confused with the lyrics thinking that the singer wrote it a...

Up next an interview with legendary singer Eric Burdon of the rock and roll hall fame band the Animals who’s signature song has empowered so many over the years but especially one of the biggest all time superstars of them all who credits this song as the direct inspiration to everything he’s ever written. Bruce Springsteen has said that We Gotta Get Out of This Place is the song that’s inspired e...

A lot of people forgot about this band from the latter part of the 80s… Today’s act actually scored three US Top 10 hits from their debut album All That Jazz. The Sophista pop band named Breath pulled off an 80s hat trick... Not an easy feat. Especially since up until then they were riding out a losing streak of four failed singles. They were all but done. But it would be an impressive comeback an...

Most people assume that today's song from one of the biggest bands ever was a #1 hit because it’s such a classic radio standard...played all the time. In reality, it missed the charts entirely. Desperado by Eagles is one of their biggest songs ever. But Desperado wasn’t a hit because it was never actually released as a single. Written by Don Henley when he was a teenager. The 70s classic has quite...

After years without a hit in their native land and a grand total of zero hits in America, Thin Lizzy was on their last leg… Phil Lynott and co were told by their label if their next record wasn’t a hit they’d kick ‘em to the curb. They were in debt, they were desperate but this band was made up of working-class Fighters…however today’s classic song, the Boys are Back in Town was one that the band...

Coming up, were covering one of the biggest songs from a legendary rock band that has been streamed over a billion times and despite it’s popularity It never actually charted on the Hot 100. Simple Man by the kings of the south Lynyrd Skynyrd. The only reason it wasn’t a hit is because it wasn’t ever released as a single.. It finally charted decades later … Funny story: Apparently, the band’s prod...

Warren Zevon was told by one of the founding fathers of rock, Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers that he should write a novelty song about a horror movie icon… So he wrote a total joke song…One he called a piece of crap called the Werewolves of London... It became his only hit! It’s a song about a mysterious, sophisticated gent who could be seen dining at Chinese restaurants, and drinking Pina Col...

Today the lords of rock Led Zeppelin are back in full force. We take Another deep dive into the heaviest band in history with Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham… It’s the story of A key track from their landmark fourth album, Led Zeppelin IV otherwise known as Rock N Roll and it actually came out of an improv jam session while the band was taking a break from writing anothe...

It was one of the most storied #2 hits in rock and roll history from a band that was criminally underappreciated in their day. The Zombies' 1964 classic “She’s Not There” blew everyone’s mind including the Beatles. Half a century later, People are getting hip to their genius. Up next the entire band from Rod Argent to Colin Bluntstone tell the story of this their biggest hit. It hypnotized listene...

“Over the first 22 years in the history of the Grammy Awards, no single artist had swept the so-called “BIG FOUR,” Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and New Artist of the Year.” Until 1981…. Christopher Cross made history while competing against some of music's heaviest hitters: Barbara Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Barry Gibb, Lionel Richie, Billy Joel, and Pink Floyd. He did i...

Coming up.. they were a rock supergroup Made up of parts from 3 legendary Prog rock bands Yes, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and a new wave band The Buggles… Together they formed Asia who mastered the early 80s with the biggest straight ahead blockbuster rock record of 1982…they stole the #1 spot from the likes of ACDC, Foreigner, Pau McCartney and Fleetwood Mac it was actually the bigg...

Coming up next an artist who changed everything. He grew up with aspergers. He was lonely and misunderstood but found solace in the writings of science fiction..he wrote this song as a teenager on an out of tune piano about a robot prostitute.. It ended up selling a million copies and going to #1 and no one knew what the song was really about. Up next in our interview this artist tells us the stor...

Coming up, another great story from an interview I did with one of rock's greatest storytellers. Mr. Randy Bachman from the Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive BTO… This 70s rock hit came when BTO was on tour with the Doobie Brothers. The band was on the road going to a gig when during a traffic jam a truck driver boxed their tour bus in… so a little while later this rock legend confronted the...

On the run from a dishonest record label and a bum contract, multi-platinum, grammy award-winning, rock hall of Famer Billy Joel dropped off the grid and hid out in a dive bar in LA. There under an alias, he spent six months on the down low playing music for down-and-out crowds. It didn’t pay much, and there was no glory in it, but it was a life-altering decision. That’s because it taught him how...

Up next we go behind the signature song behind a ground-breaking album that boasted 11 Top 40 singles on the Hot 100, and seven #1 hits*. Just unbelievable numbers. I’m talking about Saturday Night Fever the soundtrack from 1978 that really is a Bee Gees album. the record was so big you almost have to call it a movement…The song most associated with this movement the Bee Gees Staying Alive has bee...

In the space of just over two years, Phil Collins scored twelve Top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. 12...That’s insane. And actually, that list includes five #1s, and the lowest single really came in at #7. So 12 Top 7 singles? And as it just so happens, today we’re covering that #7 song. Take Me Home from his 25 X Platinum album No Jacket Required from 1985. But what makes this story even mo...

Wow. You’re in for a treat, the greatest female rock singer in history, Ann Wilson takes us through her band, Heart’s greatest Hidden gems including a walk through their peak in the 70s. After Dreamboat Annie, their first album made the global superstars they had a legal battle with their label Mushroom Records when the label released their follow-up album without the band’s approval and unfinishe...

Following on the heels of two gigantic #1 Hot 100 hits in 1985, today’s featured song the 80s classic Head Over Heels, written by iconic synth rock pioneer Roland Orzabal and sung with his partner Curt Smith of Tears for Fears, was in line to make it three in row…but would it happen? Ambitious and anthemic, this song boasts some highly intelligent lyrics that take many listens to unriddle. It came...

Coming up two legendary artist tell the story of an all star collaboration Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald and their 70s classic This Is it. At the time Michael McDonald was fronting one of the biggest bands in rock with the Doobie Brothers and the Kenny Loggins had just left a classic duo in Loggins and Messina to create a solo career… They had just collaborated on the grammy winning song What...

Coming up, the story of a journeyman rocker, who finally scored fame when he reached his 30s. Billy Squire’s breakout hit The Stroke was a provocative sledgehammer - misinterpreted by innuendo that led the way to one of the biggest albums of the 80s. It sold 4 million copies... In 1981... he was on top of the business he loathed, but ironically... just a few years later, after releasing his highes...