A short time ago I went to a concert headlined by Blues Traveller with Spin Doctors and Gin Blossoms. It got me thinking. Chris Barron of the Spin Doctors and John Popper of Blues Traveller were friends in high school. They were in a band together but found success in separate bands.
So what are other examples of this? It can’t be like Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee. They knew each other from a young age but are in the same band. It’s only about those that knew each other in high school or younger. And it has to be musicians. Lauren Hill went to Zack Braff’s bar mitzvah but they aren’t both in music. People who went to a performing arts high school together seems almost like a cheat but it would still count.
Frank Zappa and Don Van Vliet (a.k.a. Captain Beefheart) were friends in high school, and collaborated musically as young people, before going their separate ways, though both of their musical careers focused on avant-garde and experimental music: Beefheart with his Magic Band, and Zappa with the Mothers of Invention and his solo work.
Kirk Hammett and Les Claypool were high school friends in the late '70s; they reconnected in 1986, when Metallica’s first bassist, Cliff Burton, had died, and Hammett invited Claypool to audition for the band. All parties apparently agreed that Claypool wasn’t a good fit for the band, and he instead went on to fame with Primus.
Dick Taylor, founding member of the Pretty Things, and Mick Jagger knew each other from grammar school and met again at Sidcup Art College. Taylor was a founding member of the first reincarnation of the Rolling Stones, but soon left to form his own band, the Pretty Things.
Buzz Osborne (Melvins) went to school with Kurt Cobain (Nirvana). Also there was Matt Lukin (Mudhoney). Three foundational grunge bands out of 1-2 schools.
There was a circle of teenage musician friends at Fairfax and University high schools in mid-1950s Los Angeles that included Bruce Johnston (The Beach Boys), Phil Spector (The Teddy Bears), Jan Berry and Dean Torrance (Jan and Dean), and a musician/producer of a fabricated studio band: Kim Fowley (The Hollywood Argyles - “Alley Oop”).
Liverpudlians Ian McCullogh (Echo & the Bunnymen) and Julian Cope (The Teardrop Explodes) were both in the same band in their teens, The Crucial Three. After their new bands achieved a modicum of fame, they had a falling out.
Bruce Dickinson and Rob Dickinson didn’t just know each other, they were cousins. They went on to form Iron Maiden and Catherine Wheel, two very different bands both named after medieval torture devices.
Steve Lukather and Mike Landau, two very well respected studio guitarists, have been friends since childhood. Steve is, of course, also the guitarist for Toto, and Mike has had various bands including Raging Honkies and Burning Water, but is best known for his session work. Between the two of them, they have played on thousands of albums.
Stretching the definition of professional musician, Cameron Diaz sang in the movie Annie. And she went to high school with Calvin Broadus aka Snoop Dog.
Bev Bevan and Robert David were school friends in Birmingham, England in the 1960s. Bevan, a drummer, went on to be a key member of The Move, which morphed into Electric Light Orchestra; David began to perform under the stage name Jasper Carrott, and though his biggest success was apparently as a comedian, he recorded several albums in the 1970s, and his novelty song “Funky Moped” (with Bevan on drums) hit #4 on the UK chart.
A lot of these aren’t necessarily childhood, and neither is this one: Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller went to St Marks high school in Dallas together and were good friends and band mates, until Scaggs split to go do his own thing.
