Professor of Rock

Where do I even start with this POR classic? Over 50 musicians came in and out of this one-hit wonder band in its time... Dexys Midnight Runners. And its principal, the singer Kevin Rowland absolutely detested his #1 hit Come On Eileen. He hated it because he didn’t think it was mixed right… He was so angry about it, he didn’t listen to the song for 40 years, which is hard to believe because we all LOVED IT. Come On Eileen was such a big song it bested the biggest-selling artist on the planet during its unprecedented peak. This was the song that stopped him. It was a dirty song in more ways than one and it still moves the needle. A bottle-lightning classic and besides its controversy a former band member would come out of the woodwork and claim the singer stole it from him. The story of an 80s classic next on Professor of Rock.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sadly, it’s now a lost art, but we've all been there. That moment when your favorite band announced their new album and you could practically feel the electricity in the air. Remember when that anticipation built for months, sometimes even years. You're counting down the days… then finally the album drops, and… you hate it. You can’t believe what you’re listening to. And you can’t even force yourself to finish the record. Well, today we're diving into some of rock's most crushing letdowns – those highly anticipated albums and songs that fell flat, and made you want to get your money back. You’ll hear the story of Heart's #2 hit All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You that a top producer wrote for one of rock’s best vocalists, but it made her want to gag. She reluctantly recorded it, but later refused to sing it again. Also, there’s Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy that was hyped up for the better part of two decades and cost $13 million to make, and it turned out to be one of the biggest flops of all time. That went through 10 different guitarists in the process, including 2 of the best ever. Plus, Metallica the band that sued their fans and made a list of 335 K fans they wanted to punish for downloading their new song without permission. And then the Red Hot Chili Peppers album One Hot Minute, which was actually a pretty big hit, but the band hated it so much that they’ve essentially erased it from their history. Get ready for some good stories from some bad albums, NEXT on the Professor of Rock. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up, it’s the remarkable story of a #1 rock song from 1984 that was written on the porcelain throne. ya the Yes #1 classic rock standard, Owner of a Lonely Heart was written by Trevor Rabin while sitting on the pot In fact, Trevor said he wasn’t ashamed to sing in the loo. well, it’s hard to argue with the results. But even more importantly, this song was instrumental in bringing one of the greatest prog-rock bands of the 70s back from the dead and into the 80s. After years of being broken up, the founding members including Chris Squire and singer Jon Anderson, plus some new faces including producer Trevor Horn all converged around this song… giving them a new lease on life and a new musical direction. And to help us tell the story, we’ve got exclusive interviews with the iconic frontman Jon Anderson who co-wrote and sang this song… as well as some behind the scenes insight from the legendary record man Phil Carson who helped reunite this band. You’re not going to want to say “no” to this one. The story is… NEXT on Professor of Rock. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going “Casey Kasem style,” counting down ten stone-cold classics from 1983. It’s our weekly Saturday Morning countdown where we feature songs from a throwback year that left a lasting mark on rock history… and shockingly never made the top 40, even though many of these are some of the biggest songs of the time. It's a musical mystery — how did these rock standards get passed over? As usual, we’ve got some great stories and guests, including how Billy Idol stole the master tapes for his new record and held them hostage to get the label to change the cover art on the album. He was about to bootleg them to the public if they didn’t cave. Or how about the song Blue Monday that New Order wrote because they were sick of coming back out on stage for encores. Their plan was to just have sequencers play it and have a robot sing it while they walked off. But it became their most famous song. And then there was the band that made up a word in their song as a joke, and it became a classic. And then there was the Journey classic Ask the Lonely that got pulled from an album at the last second and was banished to a crappy movie. Stick around for the latest episode of Professor of Rock.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next the story of one of the greatest, most epic rock songs in history: Layla. It has so many subplots, it’s a shock that it hasn’t been made into a biopic because you could never make this up. The song came from the writings of a 12th-century poet, and then hundreds of years later, that ancient story fell into the lap of legendary singer-guitarist Eric Clapton, who happened to be in the same situation as the man in the tragic story. Clapton was in love with his best friend’s wife, but that’s nothing. The song became shrouded in a cocktail of vices, from killing, adultery, drugs, and stealing… When I say stealing, the song was stolen from an iconic singer Rita Coolidge, who I have on the show to explain her side. The angled web of the greatest rock songs ever is finally revealed in all of its truth and drama next on Professor of Rock.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Next we’re sharing the greatest underdog stories in music history. In our countdown of the strangest feats in music. including athen the incredible the incredible artist who sold almost 90 million records without ever playing a live concert. As well as an instrumental song that had over 2000 overdubs that became the soundtrack for one of the scariest movies ever, the Exorcist & went on to sell 18 million copies. A s well as a group of monks that came out of nowhere and leapfrogged over Soundgarden, Mariah Carey, Pink Floyd, and Pearl Jam to sell 4 million copies in the middle of grunge. Find out what happened in these stories and more, as we count down the Top 10 Most Unconventional Musical Feats ever. NEXT on Professor of Rock.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next, the iconic singer of the #1 rock band in the world tapped his buddy Sebastian Bach and Skid Row to open for him on their world tour in 1989. Skid Row was a bunch of rookies whose debut album hadn’t even come out yet, but they had a secret weapon, Sebastian Bach, a young kid with a five octave range, and these rookies blew the #1 band in rock off the stage… They were the talk of the industry, and once they put out their album, they would scale the top of the charts with several massive hits, including the power ballad I Remember You that most of the band thought was too cheesy for the record… Until Sebastian unleashed an otherworldly note. He said he wanted to hit a note that no one would ever be able to top, and he more than delivered… It took I Remember You to the top of the charts, and I have Sebastian with me today to give the first-hand account next on Professor of Rock.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers broke through with their massive album Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and it made them one of the biggest rock bands of the time… but then their next album, One Hot Minute, flopped massively with a different guitarist. And they were in a tailspin.. So they fired their new guitarist and convinced their former guitar hero to come back to the band. They needed a comeback and felt they had a great song in the hopper... Californication. The only problem was the lyrics were incredible, but the music wouldn’t gel…In fact, this singer tried 10 different arrangements, but it got progressively worse. He got so frustrated that he threw the song away. But their guitarist saved them from the trash can and just when the record was about to be turned in he came to the rescue with the exact music the lyrics needed. He had actually just relearned to play the guitar after kicking drugs for good. But then the band handed in the record to the label, and their 3 best songs were shredded by the label. They called them second-rate, but they had the last laugh when all 3 songs hit #1, including the one that got saved from the trash bin.. Coming up next an amazing story of perseverance on POR.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today, we’re leaning into a two-word question that every rock fan has asked about their favorite bands… “What if?” What if The Beatles hadn’t broken up? Or The Police? What if we didn’t lose icons like Freddie Mercury, Bon Scott, or Keith Moon? Or if Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane hadn’t crashed? Or if David Lee Roth had stayed with Van Halen? What would have happened? Well, with modern technology blurring the lines between science fiction and reality, maybe we can find some answers. For this episode, I am putting AI to the test to see if it can answer some of these “what if” questions. I’ve got two of rock's most revered bands in mind: Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. And I want to know if Artificial Intelligence can tell me what would have happened to these bands if just one key moment had played out differently. And then I want you to tell me what you think about the results. Could this have happened in some alternate universe? Or is AI just full of crap? We’re going to try to get to the bottom of two unsolvable band mysteries next on Professor of Rock.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next… an incredible story from the POR vault with the two masterminds behind one of the most recognizable synth-pop songs of the '80sJack Hues and Nick Feldman of Wang Chung tell the wild story of how Michael Jackson wanted to record their song “Dance Hall Days” for Thriller—but only if he could change the lyrics.The band said no, and instead turned the track into their own breakout hit in 1984. It’s a wild, what-if tale straight from the mouths of the artists who lived it—only here on Professor of Rock.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.