High School Is the Place to Start a Band
Before music programs were gutted and kids ran to their turntables and "Guitar Hero" consoles, there was a time when high schoolers played in bands. A garage or basement was the only safe place from the jocks, the theater rats, and computer lab.
Playing in a band was a rite of passage for any self-respecting teen who couldn't drive and was too scrawny to land a girl. For most, a group would never make it past summer break. But a lucky few would not only survive a few semesters, success would give their members a reason to drop out, hit the road, finally get some action, and exact sweet revenge on all the former jocks now working at Home Depot and waving lighters at shows.
How times change. Take a look at these bands who started as school buddies. Maybe it will make you think twice about making fun of the glee club (among their ranks may be your next lead singer). Or maybe you'll trade your Xbox for a Telecaster.
GALLERY: See all our favorite bands that formed in high school
U2
U2's formation constitutes one of the most fabled high school band stories of all time. It's 1976, and 14-year old Larry Mullen, Jr. posts a note on the board at Dublin's Mount Temple Comprehensive School looking for musicians to join The Larry Mullen Band. Soon they were Feedback, then The Hype, then, finally, U2, or the Bono Experience.
The Beatles
Fifteen-year old Paul McCartney and 14-year old George Harrison both attended the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and played in competing skiffle bands. Harrison was in The Rebels, and McCartney was in The Quarrymen with his friend John Lennon, age 16. McCartney convinced Lennon to bring Harrison in, and soon they were all leather-clad dropouts with no future.
Linkin Park
Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, and Rob Bourdon all attended high school together in Agoura Hills, California. Their band, Xero, made recordings in Shinoda's bedroom, added members, lost members, and changed its name to Hybrid Theory, which ended up being the title of a 2000 debut under a new band moniker, Linkin Park.
Barenaked Ladies
Canadians Ed Robertson and Steven Page had gone to school together since the fourth grade but didn't really hang until running into each other after a Peter Gabriel concert in the late 1980s. Barenaked Ladies made their debut at a 1988 battle of the bands. Things went up from there until Page left the band in early 2009 to "pursue other opportunities." Some of those opportunities presumably included recovering from a cocaine habit.
The Rolling Stones
Keith Richards and "Mike" Jagger (as Mick was called in the '50s) attended Wentworth Primary School in Kent, England. Predictably, Richards' academic career was marked by truancy while Jagger graduated with sterling grades. Still, it was Richards who convinced Jagger to later drop out of economics school so he could devote his full time to rock 'n' roll. The bad boy always wins.
Live
The members of this Pennsylvania band came together in 1985 for a middle-school talent show. No word on whether or not they won, but 20 million albums later they're still together. And as much as I dislike their band name, it's better than some of their other high school-era choices: Club Fungus and Body Odor Boys.
The Offspring
It's 1984. Picture, if you will, Dexter Holland and Greg K. on a high school cross-country team. Now picture them recruiting school janitor Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman because he was old enough to buy booze. What you have are the makings of Orange County punk greatness.
Maroon 5
Now, flash-forward ten years to a rich West L.A. private school, where the boys of Maroon 5 are playing in a band after class called Kara's Flowers, named after a mutual crush. While rocking a Malibu beach party they land a manager and, soon after, a major record deal. It pays to send your kids to private school.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
These were public-school boys all the way, graduates of Fairfax High. Anthony Kiedis, Michael "Flea" Balzary, Hillel Slovak, and Jack Irons played their first gig as Tony Flow and the Miraculously Masters of Mayhem in 1983. They tightened up the name, but the mayhem continued.
Fishbone
Angelo Moore and Norwood Fisher were junior-high kids in Los Angeles when they started the punk-ska band Fishbone in 1979. They quickly gained a reputation as one of the best live acts in town. In fact, they didn't even release their first recording until 1985 - the self titled "Fishbone" EP. School by then was a distant memory.
