Icons and Outlaws

Drummer Lars Ulrich was born into an upper-middle-class family in Gentofte, Denmark, on December 26, 1963. The son of Lone and tennis player Torben Ulrich. In February of 1973, Lars' father obtained passes for five of his friends to check out a Deep Purple (Smoke On the Water) concert held in the same stadium in Copenhagen as one of his tennis tournaments. When one of the dad's friends couldn't go, they gave their ticket to the nin...

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Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper Thornton was born June 22, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York City, right here in the U.S., to Catholic parents, Fred and Catrine. Her mother was from Sicily. She has two siblings, a younger brother Fred (nicknamed Butch), and an older sister, Ellen. Her parents divorced when she was five.

Her earliest childhood days were spent in Brooklyn, but when she was about four years old, th...

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The band Journey came together in San Francisco in 1973 under the auspices of former Santana manager Herbie Herbert who also managed The Steve Miller band, Roxette, and Europe. They were initially called the Golden Gate Rhythm Section and were backup players for established Bay Area bands. Originally, it included Santana alumni Neal Schon on lead guitar and Gregg Rolie on keyboards and lead vocals. Complet...

In March of 1957, John Winston Lennon formed a "skiffle" group called The Quarrymen. What is "skiffle," you may be asking? It's a kind of folk music with a blues or jazz flavor that was popular in the 1950s, played by a small group and often incorporating improvised instruments such as washboards. On July 6, '57, Lennon met a guy named James. James Paul McCartney, while playing at the Woolton Parish church fete. In Britain, fêtes a...

Part 2

When Thriller was released in November 1982, it didn't seem to have a single direction. Instead, it arguably sounded like many singles. But it became apparent that this was precisely what Michael intended Thriller to be: a brilliant collection of songs meant as hits, each designed for a particular audience in mind. Michael put out "Billie Jean" for the dancers and "Beat It" for the rockers and then followed each jam with ama...

The future king of pop, Michael Joseph Jackson, was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana.

Joe Jackson, Michael's dad, was a former boxer and crane operator at U.S. Steel during the 1950s in Gary – according to a fantastic article by Rolling Stone, quoted in the book; Dave Marsh's Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream, there were actual quotas in place on how many black workers were allowed to move up the ladder int...

David Eric Grohl was born in Warren, Ohio on January 14, 1969. Mom is teacher Virginia Jean Hanlon and dad was news writer James Harper Grohl. In addition to being an award-winning journalist, Dave’s dad had also served as the special assistant to Republican Congressman and US Senator Robert Taft Jr. 

When Dave was young, the Grohl family moved to Springfield, Virginia. When he was seven, his parents divorced, and he was raised pri...

JAY-Z,  was born Shawn Corey Carter, on December 4, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York, here in the U.S..

He grew up in Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood, which was pretty rough at the time, where he was raised mainly by his mother, Gloria Carter, who says Shawn used to wake up the household at night, banging out drum patterns on the kitchen table.

His mother bought him his first boombox for his birthday...

Born in Lubbock, Texas, on September 7, 1936, Charles Hardin  Holley (he later dropped the "e"), after both grandfathers 

the fourth child of Lawrence Odell "L.O." Holley and Ella Pauline Drake. 

older siblings were Larry, Travis, and Patricia Lou. 

nicknamed Buddy from a young age, and it stuck with him throughout his life. 

Oddly enough, the newspaper announcement claimed that Buddy was actually a little girl. “A daughter...

Stone Temple Pilots. 

There are two conflicting stories of how frontman Scott Weiland and bassist Robert DeLeo actually met; one was that Weiland and DeLeo met at a punk rock icon Black Flag concert in Long Beach, California, in 1985. 

They started chit-chatting, discussing their girlfriends, only to realize they were dating the same woman. However, instead of having some beef and fighting over her, they became friends and formed...

It's here! The official trailer for the new podcast from the guys that brought you The Midnight Train Podcast!

Icons and Outlaws!

Each week we dive into the lives and times of the greatest musical legends to ever bless our earholes! From country to rock, pop to hip hop, the stories are fascinating and seemingly endless.

Plus! Each week we'll be releasing a new, exclusive cover song that we've written and recorded of that episode's ...