There is an unspoken rule that decrees “Thou shalt not rock unless thee be of vacuous mind.”

This statute is all but indissoluble. For all the years rock music has been a part of the cultural mainstream, it’s been laden with society’s side-liners and vagrants, solidifying the image of the rockstar as an outcast devoid of the tools necessary to achieve on a “respectable” level.

This is simply part of the rock mythos, as the genre’s emergence itself was akin to a social insurgency. It has always been detrimental to the field that its players maintain an air of rebellion or anarchy. Discovering otherwise could very well place the art in danger of catching a one-way train to Squaresville, man!

So, if your love of rock be dependent on this typecast, then look away! For now we shall reveal the imposters, the insurgents, and the dark underbelly of the genre where members of society’s educated elite have penetrated this once-impermeable subculture!

Subject #1: Dexter Holland
Band: The Offspring

Our first case in point has been guilty of numerous rock stereotype violations. After The Offspring’s mainstream debut album, Smash, hit record stores in 1994, rumors began to surface regarding their singer’s penchant for academic achievement. Apart from being a part of his high school’s Math Club with their bass player, Holland was also revealed to have been Pacifica High’s valedictorian! He would then go on to obtain a Bachelor’s in Biology, a Master’s in Molecular Biology, and then became a candidate for a Ph.D. in the latter subject, but abandoned the doctorate to pursue his career with The Offspring in a move which we can all agree salvaged at least some of his rock dignity.

Subject #2: Tom Morello
Band: Rage Against the Machine

In the arena of politically charged rock, none have made a larger impact than Rage Against the Machine, but composer/guitarist Tom Morello has sufficiently tarnished his image as a rock god on numerous fronts. Having an intelligent political agenda with his band can be absolved in light of how supremely hard they rock, but c’mon — an honors degree from Harvard in Political Science and working as a Senatorial aide? The man is giving us rock conservatives serious indigestion!

Subject #3: Greg Graffin
Band: Bad Religion

Appalling. Just apalling. This punk rock frontman completed his undergraduate work at UCLA, double majoring in Anthropology and Geology. He received his Master’s from the same school in Geology, and then received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in Zoology, which was supervised by famous staunch intelligent design opponent professor Willam B. Provine. Graffin’s dissertation was titled “Monism, Atheism, and the Naturalist Worldview: Perspectives from Evolutionary Biology.” When not fronting Bad Religion, Graffin can be found teaching Life Science 1 at UCLA, or receiving the Harvard Secular Society’s “Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism.” I think I’m going to be sick.

Subject #4: Rivers Cuomo
Band: Weezer

It would seem Harvard has a habit of turning our would-be rock icons into Johnny Nerdlingers. Weezer singer/guitarist/Face Dancer was well on his way to rock god status when his musical aspirations were intercepted by Harvard University, where he earned his English degree. Luckily, after obtaining the degree, Cuomo continued composing and singing for Weezer, but it’s hard to say (given his history of abandoning the rock life for fruitless scholastic pursuits) when the next inkling for another mark will take hold of his academically impressionable mind.

Subject #5: Bryan May
Band: Queen

If Sid Vicious and GG Allin are our prime candidates for rock’s God, then Bryan May is no doubt the Devil. May is a physicist. A physicist! His violations are as many as they are grotesque. Beginning his studies at Imperial College London, he would receive his Bachelor of Science degree and Associates with Upper Second Class Honours. It just so happened that while studying reflected light from interplanetary dust and the velocity of said dust in the plane of the Solar System, that rock stardom would swoop in and rescue this poor lad from the abyss. Unfortunately, the scholastic itch would continue to whittle at poor Bryan, prompting him to co-author two research papers while in Queen, called MgI Emission in the Night-Sky Spectrum and An Investigation of the Motion of Zodiacal Dust Particles, both based on his observations at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife. As mortifying as all of this is, it would not end there. Years after the death of their vocalist, Freddie Mercury, and 30 years after his research began, the interloper would complete his Ph.D. thesis, titled A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, and usurp the Chancellery at Liverpool John Moores University. And to top it off, the man now has an asteroid named after him! (52665 Bryanmay.)

If you have made it this far, I commend you. The truth sometimes can be a terrible thing, and as dreadful as these facts have undoubtedly been, it is doubly imperative that we know the enemy. With any luck and a little courage, we may one day see again our children’s rock role models as the unbathed, womanizing, morphine addicts they once were.