7 Famous Musicians Who Got Their Start in College Bands

Good news for melodious hopefuls pursuing a degree : attending a conservatory is n’t the only fashion to break into the industry . As it turn out , plenty of super - famous dance band and performers kick off their careers with the connection they made in college .

Aside from all that drinking and ramen - eating and sleeping till noon – oh , and pass away to separate every once in a while – campus biography provide plenty of opportunities for melodic experimentation . ( Hey , someone ’s got ta soundtrack all those parties . ) We round up seven example you might not have realized honed their chops on the quad . Most of their pre - fame names are just as embarrassing as everything we imagine was cool in college , too .

Thom Yorke

It ’s knockout to suppose Thom Yorke pre - Radiohead , but rockstars are made , not born . Long before Yorke was challenging the limitations of guitar rock to make something as experiential as it is beloved , he met Ed O’Brien , Phil Selway , and Colin and Jonny Greenwood at the Abingdon School , and the melodic teens soon formed On a Friday , a ring named for the only 24-hour interval they could exercise together .

A few class and a gap year subsequently , Yorke headed to the University of Exeter , where he expend his free prison term puzzle out with euphony of all kinds . He was in a classical ensemble , worked as a DJ , and , most importantly , tested outwhat wouldlater becomeRadiohead songs with a band called the Headless Chickens . In 1991 , Yorke reunite with his Friday friend , and they begin play Headless Chickens songs under the name Radiohead . Seems like a missed opportunity for a supergroup called the Radioheadless crybaby if you necessitate us .

Vampire Weekend

Before founding Vampire Weekend in 2006 , frontman Ezra Koenig and drummer Chris Tomson were the masterminds behind what Koenig knight " an observational hip-hop quislingism " called L’Homme Run ( get it ? ) . The shortly - lived project began when Koenig and Tomson meet at Columbia University , where they ’d eventually befriend VW bassist Chris Baio and former penis / multi - instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij .

In the television above , Koenig and Tomson point out where on campus they wrote their first record album , recorded other tracks , and pimp gargantuan burritos . If anything , this should suffice as a singing reminder : your lousy college prank task could lead to a bright calling .

Lana Del Rey

LDR studied philosophy at New York ’s Fordham University and develop a music vocation on the side , recording under her birthing name , Lizzy Grant . In 2005 , she pay testimonial to her school ’s Bronx surroundings with the song"Fordham Road,“which references several campus street . Grantsigned a record softwood during her fourth-year yearin 2008 . It was n’t until she relocate to Brooklyn and assume the Lana moniker that her calling began to take off . Sometimes it ’s all in the rebrand !

Coldplay

retrieve orientation , when you make all those friendly relationship you think will last forever but just survive through midterms ? Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and guitar player Jonny Buckland had more or less better luck , meeting during newbie orientation course week at University College London .

They also crossed paths with eventual bandmates Will Champion and Guy Berryman . " We met each other because we were living in the halls of residence,“Berryman told his alma materin 2005 . " It was like this block of rooms , everyone has their own elbow room and downstairs was the bar and the pool mesa so everyone met in and around that arena and hoi polloi would introduce themselves to each other . I can call up meeting them all over a dry pint . "

Champion recalled : " I retrieve in the first week or so people sit down around and playing music and I call up specifically jamming with Chris , there was amazing acoustic on this large stairwell and we just sit and play guitar and I remember one jam where I was on the very bottom floor lying down at the bottom of the step , and he was on the fifth trading floor – sort of like a five - base musical experience . "

john legend

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Martin and Buckland expend that essential fledgeling twelvemonth trying to start a band , which they called Pectoralz and , later , Starfish . It was n’t until they fleshed the act out as a foursome and stuck to amore sophisticated namethat things really took off .

Queen

Queen ’s narration actually begin pre - Freddie Mercury . Guitarist Brian May and his friend Tim Staffell started a stripe called Smile while attending London ’s Imperial College ; the pair added drummer Roger Taylor , who was surely attracted to the act because he was studying dentistry , and Smile became a full band . Their first gigwas at the Imperial College Student Union in 1970 , which was a reformist execution quad , even then : Jimi Hendrix had act the same level earlier .

Tim later on leave the radical and a young student named Farrokh " Freddie " Bulsara bring together in his absence seizure , rename himself Mercury and the mathematical group itself Queen . Their eventual winner took them far away from campus , but apparently , even outside rock gods can know the power of higher education : May re - enrolled some 30 year afterward , eventually earning an astronomy PhD. in 2007 .

John Legend

Before John Legend was making the whole dang world swoon , he was John Roger Stephens , a University of Pennsylvania English educatee focalise on African - American lit . Smart guy , right ? When he was n’t busy knocking back books , Stephens was already find out to belt out , breast the fabled Penn a cappella radical the Counterparts . The track above , from their 1997 albumHousekeeping , might not be the nerveless thing in the humankind , but it sure enough prove that Legend has had those chops for a long metre .

Muse

This English stone ring catch their showtime at Teignmouth Community School . All its members were playing in dissimilar enactment before Muse was assume , and their many , many moves can be a bit confusing , so carry with us : frontman Matt Bellamy unite drummer Dominic Howard ’s Carnage Mayhem … before they shift their name to Gothic Plague , two emphatically darker titles . Their pal Chris Wolstenholme was playing the drum in another ring until they forced the misfortunate fop to piece up the basso , and the leash formed the radical Rocket Baby Dolls . Once people started liking them they realized just how silly their name was , and changed it to Muse in 1994 . That ’s much more inspirational , right ?