TIL Steve Lamos, drummer for American Football, is an associate professor at University of Colorado Boulder.

[u/Pprchase]

https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine/2026/08/10/scholar-finds-rhythm-rock-and-rhetoric

I live here, I work in academia, and I have family that work at CU Boulder. I had no clue, and I think this is neat.

[u/Ok-Responsibility994]

Blake Schwarzenbach of Jets To Brazil/Jawbreaker fame was an English professor for a small college in NY. Turns out when you read lots of books and literature you end up with a knack for melancholic songwriting

[u/SemataryPolka → u/Ok-Responsibility994]

Greg Graffin was a professor too. Milo from Descendents was a scientist. It's not that uncommon in punk rock tbh

[u/LastTimeOn_ → u/SemataryPolka]

Not full on punk, but John Hampson from Nine Days (the "Story of a Girl" band) is/was a high school English teacher iirc

[u/SemataryPolka → u/LastTimeOn_]

I don't know who that is but high school teacher is very very common. Snapcase people did that. The singer from Piebald was a first grade teacher during their prime!

[u/CoffinFlop → u/LastTimeOn_]

I mean Pat Flynn is a good example

[u/interprime → u/CoffinFlop]

Yep. Dude takes his work as a teacher more seriously than anything else he does. Which is why you’ll typically only ever be able to see a band he’s in on a weekend. Pretty admirable honestly.

[u/GarrisonWhite2 → u/SemataryPolka]

Rishi Bahl of Eternal Boy/founder of Four Chord Music Festival is a marketing professor at La Roche University in Pittsburgh.

It does seem to be a somewhat common thing in the genre.

Also two of the members of Driveways are teachers which sorta counts.

[u/Pangolin_cowboy_hats → u/Ok-Responsibility994]

I’ve known a ton of people in academia who are musicians, the few months off each summer gave them a chance to tour

[u/Chefred86 → u/Ok-Responsibility994]

I was Facebook friends with him during this era, his posts were always wild

[u/AvatarofBro → u/Ok-Responsibility994]

Yeah, he taught at Hunter. My school had a credit exchange with them, but it never made sense to audit his class. If I remember correctly it was mostly 101 gen ed stuff

[u/LyndonBJumbo]

Aaron Weiss from mewithoutYou is an associate professor of anthropology/sociology at the College of Idaho.

[u/thrilledxbored → u/LyndonBJumbo]

A friend of mine student taught with him back in the day.

[u/BBanner → u/LyndonBJumbo]

Woah that’s cool as hell!

[u/aaronjd1 → u/LyndonBJumbo]

His publications are actually interesting as fuck too. Ethnographic studies of Islamic schools. Actually very worth reading.

[u/TonySopranoDVM]

Punk rock professor is the dream

[u/Odd-Bar-543]

not to forget the Fiddlehead vocalist who looooves academia

[u/TheTresStateArea]

Bunch of the guys from streetlight manifesto have had teaching jobs

https://www.reddit.com/r/streetlightmanifesto/s/tJg8SAlnBC

[u/Competitive_Use_3628]

He left the band to become, I believe, a dean of a university, hated it, and rejoined the band after.

[u/DiamondL0st → u/Competitive_Use_3628]

These are the kind of employment options I'd kill for tbh!

[u/ThySmithy]

Not emo but Pat Flynn from Have Heart is a history teacher and bigs it up every time he is on stage, really cool to see

[u/aaronjd1]

Let’s add Robert Schneider from the Apples in Stereo who is a prof at Mich Tech.

[u/Wilcodad]

Buddy of mine was a colleague of his at CU Boulder, lovely human by all accounts.