Punk musicians have a bit of a stereotype: the slacker, the alcoholic or the drug-addict, the guy who’s more interested in getting laid than in sophisticated pursuits.
That’s why it can be a bit of a shock to find out that some of those musicians are actually highly educated and some even continue their academic pursuits while also being famous musicians!
So in this blog, let me blow you mind by introducing you to some of the most highly educated musicians from some of the least likely sources.
5 – Milo Aukerman, The Descendents – PhD, Biology
This one is not going to be a surprise from anyone who has heard of the Descendents, as the title of their first album kind of gives the game away: Milo Goes to College.
The album was released in 1982, and was named as Milo was quitting the band to study biochemistry at the University of California.
He is literally the embodiment of Mike from the movie SLC Punk.
Music and science have been Milos two loves since childhood, and that has meant he’s switched from one to the other throughout his career.
After 1982, Milo would rejoin the band off-and-on to tour or record with them, but otherwise the band existed without Milo, in the form of All. This was the exact same band who performed with a different lead singer and who recorded their own material.
While working as a biochemist, Milo worked at DuPont, a chemical company, and studied the flowering gene of Arabidopsis (rockcress). That is pretty much as much as I can explain, as reading just the titles of his papers left me dazed and confused.
He has 10 published research works online though, if you’re interested.
It just blows my mind that this learned man is the same guy who wrote the lyrics:
I queefed – Enjoy
Smell my feces – Enjoy
Sniff my ass whilst I pass gas
Enjoy my good friends – Enjoy
This back-and-forth between music and science finally ended in 2016 when Milo decided to leave science for good and focus solely on the Descendents.
The only question now is, where does this leave All?
4 – Tom Morello – BA, political science
I didn’t put a band with Tom Morello in the sub-title, because it’s hard to pick just one!
To start with, he is most well-known for playing lead guitar in Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave.
However, Tom Morello is also successful in his own right under the moniker Nightwatchman (Which sounds like a DC superhero), as well as being in Bruce Spingsteens E Street band, the supergroup Prophets of Rage and ANOTHER supergroup, Street Sweeper Social Club.
With all that work being in so many bands, you’d be surprised that he has any time left for any other interests.
But Tom Morello is also well known for his left-wing and socialist views, and activism work. Which takes us back to his education.
Tom Morello attended Harvard university In the 1990s and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science.
He was still playing music back then as well though, trying to do both at the same time.
“[I remember] practicing guitar for four hours a day in a stairwell, trying to read Max Weber at the same time.”
A political sciences degree is useful in analysing and making sense of the current state of the world.
But it’s also very useful for hitting back at trolls who think musicians shouldn’t have political stances.
Its unclear what started a comment to question Mr. Morello’s political stance, but regardless, they complained about “Another successful musician instantly becom[ing] a political expert”. As though one person cannot also think critically abut subjects outside their career path.
But Tom Morello responded in the best, most condescending way possible.
“One does not have to be an honors grad in political science from Harvard University to recognize the unethical and inhumane nature of this administration but well, I happen to be an honors grad in political science from Harvard University so I can confirm that for you.”
So he not only has a degree in political Science, but a masters in comebacks.
2 – Greg Graffin, Bad Religion – PhD, Zoology
Greg Graffin is the lead singer of the punk band Bad Religion and, like Tom Morello, is well known for his left-wing politics and for being very outspoken about politics.
So when I learned that Greg Graffin had a PHD, I assumed it was in Politics and International relations or something like that.
Nope – He has a PhD in Zoology from Cornell University!
Although his interests’ are less to do with Zoo animals, and more to do with humans, as we are also animals!
Graffin’s thesis title was ‘Evolution and religion: questioning the beliefs of the worlds eminent evolutionists’
I can’t tell you much about it, as a copy isn’t freely available online. But the GoodReads review of it is 4.02.
It seems that this is just the thesis, not changed at all. From the comments however it seems that is still makes for a decent book!
His academic career didn’t stop at receiving his Doctorate however, he actually has had several spells teaching at Cornell.
Cornell may be an Ivy League school, but I can absolutely imagine some young punk fans in his lecture halls, absolutely not taking in anything he says but instead being annoyed he didn’t wear his Suffer t-shirt for his lecturer to autograph!
Greg Griffin has actually co-authored several other books as well: Anarchy Evolution and Population Wars.
As incredible as this may be, for Bad Religion fans, it probably isn’t all that shocking if you’ve heard any of their lyrics.
There’s a reason this webcomic exists:
2 – James Lilja, The Offspring – M.D.
James Lilja is most well known for being the first drummer in the band The Offspring, back when they were called Manic Subsidal.
He drummed for the band for 3 years, between 1984 – 1987, playing on the bands first demo tape and co-writing the song ‘I’ll be Waiting’.
However, Dexter Morgan, lead singer of the band said that Lilja was just so focused on getting into medical school that he had to give up on the band, and left amicably in 1987.
“In fact, he was so intent on getting into medical school that he didn’t really even practice with us much — which is part of why he’s not our drummer anymore!” Holland wrote.
In 2003, James Lilja was double board-certified. This means that he was certified in two septa fields. Those were as an obstetrician-gynaecologist and gynecologic oncologist.
However, the most fascinating part of Liljas life is when he was on trial medical malpractice.
In 2018, Lilja was facing a claim of negligence by Stephenie Sargiotto.
During the jury-selection, a potential juror went into cardiac arrest. Lilja then jumped to the rescue and applied CPR and even used a defibrillator until paramedics arrived.
The case was a mistrial, and later went to arbitration, where it was dismissed. I couldn’t find proof of that, and the reference to it on his Wikipedia page says ‘citation needed’, but several people on reddit said it, so it MUST be true!
The opposing lawyer than immediately called for a mistrial, as this deed may bait the jury in favour of James Lilja. Which makes sense. I don’t think a juror is going to find it easy to convict him when he was a literal lifesaver!
Oh, and in 2024, James Lilja performed on stage again with the Offspring for the first Tim in nearly 4 decades, where he drummed on the track ‘Beheaded’, which he co-wrote with Dexter Holland.
Oh, and speaking of…
1 – Dexter Holland, The Offspring – PhD, Molecular Biology
This is one of the strangest ones on this list, just because of the optics of the band.
I know that looks can be deceiving and to not judge abook by its cover, but the frosted-tips singer of The Offspring, who wrote songs like ‘original prankster’ and ‘Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)’ is also a doctor of molecular biology.
His journey into science started at the university of southern California studying pre-med biology major. Rather than continue with academia, he chose to work with The Offspring, though he returned to science later in life, as a graduate student.
In 1995 Dexter did an interview with a Hungarian version of the German newspaper BRAVO (Which may explain why the transcript is so shoddy, but that’s neither here nor there), in which he said he would rather he a scientist at 45 than be playing music.
I just started my thesis, and would soon like to finish it. Hey, in two years you might call me Dr. Dexter Holland.
I was always the best in math during high school. I find math just as exciting as I do punk rock.
I won’t wanna play music when I’m forty, I’d rather be a professor at a university.
As it happens, he missed that by a bit of a way. The Future is Now, and Dexter is currently 58 at time of writing and still going strong with The Offspring.
He also stated that “in two years time, you may call me Dr. Dexter Holland”, and while he was a bit out on the date, he did finally receive a PhD in Molecular Biology in 2017.
In his academic work, his thesis was on microRNA sequences in HIV.
Wrap up
There are a lot of punk musicians who are smarter than you think, and they have the credentials to back it up!
Punk isn’t the only music scene to have unexpected doctors in it.
For example, Michael Bishop of GWAR has a PHD in music, Brian Wecht of Ninja Sex Patry has a PHD in Particle Physics, and Sir Brian may has a PHD in astrophysics.
Oh, I found all those through examples through the Wikipedia page for celebrities with advanced degrees. Because there really is a Wikipedia page for everything!
