3 Classic Rock Bands That Were Founded by High School Friends

You can easily imagine the scene. One school friend turns to another and says, “Hey, we should form a band!” It’s the most hopeful and possibly most naive sentence ever uttered. But somewhere it’s happening right this minute. With dreams of rock stardom on their minds, the two buddies nod and plan how they will buy a guitar and a drum kit.

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Of course, in reality, about 99.9% of the bands fail within their first few weeks. But sometimes there is the rare occasion when they grow and grow and start to flourish. Sometimes that original idea from one high school friend to the other turns into a globetrotting marquee musical group. Want a few examples? Let’s examine these three notable classic rock groups.

The Beatles

It’s almost impossible to believe, but each of the four members of the famed British band known as The Beatles was born in Liverpool, England. What was in the water? When the group began, John Lennon was 16, Paul McCartney was 15, and George Harrison was also 15. Later, when he formally joined the group, Ringo Starr was 22 years old. But while Lennon and McCartney didn’t go to the same school together, their relationship began in their mid-teens when Paul first saw John’s early skiffle band, The Quarrymen, and knew they had to collaborate. The rest is (almost impossible to believe) rock history.

Simon & Garfunkel

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were childhood friends growing up. The two future songwriters and performers met first in elementary school in Queens, New York, in 1953. As teenagers, their first musical project was called—wait for it—Tom & Jerry. But years later, in the 1960s, they formed their more serious adult band, Simon & Garfunkel. The duo focused on harmony-driven Americana music. Over the years, the duo has experienced ups and downs, as any close friends might, but they’ve reunited several times, and their music lives on forever.

Pearl Jam

In Seattle in the mid-to-late 1980s, there was a new musical movement bubbling up. Everywhere you went, artists were collaborating and coming up with new sounds that in many ways reflected the grey, rainy region they called home. One band called Pearl Jam was founded by artists who had known each other for years. They had even played in previous groups. Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard knew each other from high school and played in bands like Green River and Mother Love Bone before co-founding Pearl Jam with the likes of Mike McCready and vocalist Eddie Vedder. Indeed, without the close-knit community of musicians in Seattle, grunge may never have gotten off the (wet) ground.

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