John Wesley Harding(Wesley Stace) graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge. He was working on a PhD in humanities when he dropped out to start singing fulltime.
-Lil
Not a rock star, I guess, but “Weird Al” Yankovic has an architecture degree from Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo. He got the name “Weird Al” working at the campus radio station.
Peter Wolf, lead singer of the J. Geils Band, attended the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston. I have no idea if he graduated or not, but I love having the chance to bring up the piece of trivia that goes along with it: while there, his roommate was David Lynch. And, apparently, Lynch asked Peter to move out, because Peter was “too weird”.
From Graffin’s Wikipedia entry:
“Graffin double majored in anthropology and geology as an undergraduate at UCLA. He then went on to earn a masters degree in geology from the University of California, Los Angeles and received his Ph.D. in evolutionary paleontology from Cornell University. However, according to a video clip originally from the Bad Religion official website and also available from The Cornell Evolution Project homepage, the PhD thesis was officially a Zoology PhD thesis, supervised by William B. Provine at Cornell University. The thesis was entitled “Monism, Atheism and the Naturalist Worldview: Perspectives from Evolutionary Biology”. It is described as being essentially an evolutionary biology PhD but having also relevance to history and philosophy of science.”
Al Jourgenson from Ministry has a Masters in History. When he retires from music (likely never at the rate he’s going), he plans to become a professor.
Evolutionary biology. Huey Lewis attended Cornell as well.
I believe he wrote his thesis on the history of the cowbell.
Actually, Al Jourgensen of Ministry has a Masters in History. I have no idea what Al Jourgenson has.
You thinking of Carcass? None of them were actually MDs, but you wouldn’t know that from listening to them.
Sterling Morrison of the Velvet Underground earned a Ph.D. in medieval studies from the University of Texas. He later became a tugboat captain.
I almost forgot: Ry Cooder and Barret Hansen—AKA “Dr. Demento”—graduated from my alma mater, Reed College.
I came in here specifically to mention Queen. An overeducated bunch.
Freddie Mercury went to Ealing Art College for Art and Graphic Design
Brian May, as mentioned, was in the PhD program at Imperial College of London in Astronomy.
Roger Taylor studied dentistry at the London Hospital Medical College before switching to North London Polytechnic and getting his BS in biology.
John Deacon studied electronics at Chelsea College.
My dad used to think they were a good influence on me.
Blackrock College is not a third level instituition. It is the irish equivalent of an american high school.
Don’t be a twit. Do you feel better? :rolleyes:
Fair enough. I’ll admit I’m ignorant of the subtle distinctions of the Irish educational system.
Rivers Cuomo, of Weezer, is still working on his education - he is three credits short of getting his degree in English literature from Harvard.
I’m surprised no one has already mentioned Boston’s guitarist Tom Scholz who has obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT. He also worked for Polaroid and has 34 patented inventions to his name.
Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil has degrees in Arts (from the Australian National University) and Law (from the University of New South Wales).
He’s now a member of federal Parliament.
Yep, here’s the RISD (that’s how you spell RIZ-dee) scoop on David Byrne et al:
rock stars go to art school???.
RISD’s also got Martin Mull as a two-time alum, and I’m told his first foray into the performing arts was in the field of rock and roll. However, he proved to be better at comedic acting.
Ron Jeremy has a BA in theater arts and a Master’s in something or other. (Cite.)
He’s not technically a rock star, but he did sing on-stage with Kid Rock at least once.