Professor of Rock

It’s been a horrible year in terms of losing legends in music, and sadly we just lost another one. The compelling singer who gifted us with several 80s classics from our youth. Pete Byrne, the singer from the new wave band Naked Eyes. Pete passed away from a stroke brought on by a brief illness. Pete was a fantastic guy who ruled the charts with the one-two punch of Always Something There to Remind Me and Promises Promises. The Music videos were absolute classics that rocked MTV during its peak. Coming up next, in one of his final full-length interviews, I have the story of both of those classics with Pete. I was fortunate to get to know him and have this deep-dive conversation about these classic tunes and his passion for music. Let’s get into it.

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Let's take it back!
Two of most cerebral rockers and known perfectionists Donald Fagen and Walter Becker AKA Steely Dan, just knew they had a song for their debut album with Hit potential. It was called Reeling in the Years and was a bitter retort against Donald’s girlfriend who had ripped his heart out so he wrote a “get even” song that was missing one little thing... it lacked vibrancy and passion. So, the duo followed a deep gut feeling that they needed to bring in a musician that would provide the spark they desperately needed. Up next the story of a hired gun who stepped into a recording studio in Santa Monica to pull a song out of the doldrums and turn it into one of the greatest guitar tracks of all time, one that Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin called his favorite ever and one that became a 70s classic from their 1973 classic album Can’t Buy a Thrill NEXT on Professor of Rock.
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Coming up… In 1986, these songs didn’t crack the Top 10; some may have thought they were also rans, but over time, they became bigger than songs that did, and some even bigger than the songs that made it to #1, including David Lee Roth, one of the most dynamic frontmen of the Rock Era, released a song about an American symbol of liberty, but there is a bizarre connection with a book that is titled… The Satanic Bible. Plus Tarzan Boy, a song that was sung by a singer who was NOT the person singing in their heavily played music video... and fans are still confused today. Who really sang the hit? You’ll find out. Plus the broadcast from an illegal satellite dish that inspired a song called Russians that many argue Stopped Nuclear War with 1 question. Plus the bitter Van Halen feud between Sammy Hagar and Alex Van Halen about the legacy of the band. Sammy says Alex is erasing his legacy of 4 #1 albums and a dozen massive hits, while Alex recently called Sammy an idiot. We cover the song they recorded together that can’t be denied. We’re counting down the Top 10 In-Betweeners of ’86, songs that peaked between #11 & #22 on the Billboard Hot 100. But they're just as good as the song that hit #1.

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I KNOW YOU’RE GOING TO LOVE THIS EPISODE.
If you don’t, I’ll eat my Hat live on camera. So everyone has that “one” playlist. You know the one with all the cheesy songs you’re embarrassed to admit you love. The ones you sing to the top of your lungs when no one is looking. Well, today, we’re counting down my picks for the Top 8 feel-good songs that are deemed uncool… but that we secretly love and put on blast when no one is around. For this one, we’ve got the most squeaky-clean family pop group in music history, The Osmonds, who were so fed up with their wholesome image, they snuck off to a basement studio without telling their label and wrote one of the heaviest rock songs of the decade, and it actually influenced proto-metal! And Ozzy and Lemmy loved it. Then, there’s a soft rock duo, Air Supply, that was handed a song they didn't write for a Greatest Hits album that they didn't want to record. But it became a massive hit, and Brad Pitt loved it so much he handpicked it to sing in a big movie. Then there’s Karen Carpenter, who walked into her recording session without knowing the lyrics. Her bandmate scribbled the words on a napkin and handed it to her on the spot. Even though she had a hard time reading the handwritten lyrics, she sang it that one time, and that unrehearsed performance became one of the most heartbreaking vocals in pop history. Let’s get into it.

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The 1950s gave us the birth of rock and roll — and with it a collection of song stories so bizarre and completely unhinged that they sound made up. Behind the poodle skirts and the sock hops was a decade of scandals, accidents, and twists that will shock you. Today we're counting down the Weirdest and Wickedest songs the 50s ever produced. First… the sweet, childlike duet Tonight You Belong to Me that was recorded as a family keepsake somehow became one of the most chilling songs on the internet thanks to a dark urban legend about girls forced to sing it by a lunatic. It racked up millions of views on social media… even though the real story behind the record is stranger than any ghost story.
Then… a female rock pioneer Wanda Jackson recorded a sensually charged song laced with references to nuclear devastation that American radio banned outright and many felt it was truly offensive to one particular country… only to watch it become one of the biggest hits ever in that exact country! And finally… the song Purple People Eater that its writer dismissed as the worst thing ever written was rescued from obscurity by a group of record label employees who couldn’t stop playing it in the lunchroom. Plus the story of Rock Around the Clock by BIll Haley and his Comets....Let’s go.

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