10 times rock stars appeared on TV before they were famous
Ah, television – where would we be without it? In years past, countless young rock stars like Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Jimmy Page took to the small screen, not knowing that their appearances would one day be looked back on as evidence that their fame was somehow written in the stars.
If you look hard enough – which we very much have – you’ll find the archives are teeming with pre-fame famous faces. The TV shows of the late 1950s and early 1960s are particularly fruitful in this regard, perhaps because broadcasters were becoming increasingly aware of the need to start airing programmes designed for and featuring young people.
It’s also the case that young people were becoming more newsworthy. Youth culture was becoming more widespread and more influential, with the well-documented skiffle craze of the late ’50s appearing to foreshadow that eventual explosion of British rock music in the ’60s.
Simply put, young people were no longer expected (or willing) to be seen and not heard. We’ve trawled the archives to bring you ten examples of rockstars who appeared on TV before they were famous, many of whom defined the golden age of rock music. We’ve also included some more contemporary acts for good measure. Enjoy.
10 rock stars who appeared on TV before they were famous:
David Bowie – BBC Tonight
Back in 1964, the BBC interviewed a then-17-year-old David Jones (Bowie) as part of the BBC Tonight programme. The young musician came to the broadcasting services’ attention after founding ‘The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-haired Men’, which sought to end the persecution of long-haired gentlemen all across the post-Beatles nation.
The interview, conducted by television presenter Cliff Michelmore, features a visibly enraged Bowie and his schoolfriends “protesting” the treatment that he and his floppy-haired comrades have suffered on England’s streets.
The interview generated a huge amount of publicity for the group’s cause, later securing Jones an interview with the London Evening News. It was in the follow-up conversation that he again explained the purpose of the society: “It’s really for the protection of pop musicians and those who wear their hair long,” the founder and president said. “Anyone who has the courage to wear their hair down to his shoulders has to go through hell. It’s time we were united and stood up for our curls. Everybody makes jokes about you on a bus, and if you go past navvies digging in the road, it’s murder!”
Mick Jagger – Seeing Sport
Before he was the gyrating, androgynous frontman of The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger made his first TV appearance to demonstrate a pair of state-of-the-art climbing shoes. In the footage, we see a 15-year-old Mick – still going under the name Mike Jagger at this point – making one of his numerous appearances on ’50s TV show Seeing Sport, which was hosted by none other than his father, the teacher and TV presenter, Joe Jagger.
Mick and his brother Chris made regular appearances on Seeing Sport, and here Mick can be seen showing off some of his mountain climbing shoes. Nothing too fancy here, though. No ultra-lightweight modern shoes are needed to climb the “High Rocks” near Tunbridge Wells, no, just “ordinary gym shoes … like the kind Mike is wearing.” No wonder the boy became known for his fancy footwork. It’s all in the shoes, my friends.
Jimmy Page – All Your Own
The year before Jagger appeared on Seeing Sport, future Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page appeared on BBC children’s television programme All Your Own with his skiffle band. Thanks to Lonnie Donegan, Skiffle was massive in the UK at the time, giving young guitarists like Page their first taste of band life.
The premise of All Your Own was simple: children would share a particular skill or burgeoning talent to host Huw Weldon. This particular episode, which also provided the first television appearance for John Williams and the King Brothers, handed Page his very first taste of the limelight when he performed ‘Mama Don’t Want to Skiffle Anymore’. On being asked what he planned to do after completing his school studies, the 13-year-old Page replied, “I want to do biological research to find a cure for cancer if it isn’t discovered by then.”
Jimi Hendrix – Night Train
Before Jimi Hendrix was spotted by Chas Chandler and sent to England to form The Jimi Hendrix Experience, the young musician made a living as a backing guitarist for blues and R&B acts like Little Richard and The Isley Brothers. The Isleys had already released a string of hit records, and when Hendrix met them in 1964, were just about to record their new single ‘Testify’, on which Hendrix played guitar. “One of the Isley Brothers heard me playing in a club and said he had a job open,” he remembered. “So I played with the Isley Brothers for a while, and they used to make me do my thing.”
In this rare footage from The Isley Brothers’ performance on Night Train in 1965, Hendrix’s “thing” appears to be swaying side to side with the rest of the backing band. You’ll find no guitar pyrotechnics here, the emphasis being entirely on the Isley Brothers, who duck and sway their way through this powerful horn-led number.
U2 – RTE
The Hype came together in 1978 at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, Dublin, where the members were organised under the guidance of drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. After removing a few members, including guitarist Dik Evans, the band won a talent contest in Limerick in March and changed their name to U2. Two weeks before, the band had been invited to perform on RTE’s Youngline programme.
When The Hype landed the TV gig. Adam Clayton, the token adult of the clan, had not yet turned 18. Bono was also just 17, while The Edge and Larry Mullen, Jr. were both 16. Cherub-like and completely wet behind the ears, the band previewed a primitive take on their early post-punk sound with tracks ‘Street Mission’ and ‘The Fool’.
Madonna – Fame
In 1982, Madonna was on the edge of superstardom, but she didn’t know it yet. In a moment of desperation, she applied for the television series Fame, which was responsible for parachuting many careers. Unfortunately, she didn’t get the role, but Madonna released her eponymous debut album and won in the long run.
In the video clip, Madonna lies about her age by pretending to be 21 when she’s 24 and promotes her debut single, ‘Everybody’. Surprisingly, she appears nervous during the audition, and Madonna’s acting skills leave a lot to be imagined. Remarkably, it’s easy to understand why she was rejected, which was a blessing in disguise.
Peter Doherty – MTV
If anybody reading this has not seen the famous clip of Peter Doherty queueing up outside HMV to buy Oasis’ Be Here Now, I implore you to view it immediately. When asked by presenter Eddy Temple-Morris for his thoughts on the band, a fresh-faced teenage Doherty says: “I subscribe to the Umberto Eco view that Noel Gallagher’s a poet and Liam’s a town crier.”
In 2019, Doherty appeared on Phil Taggart’s Slacker Podcast and finally explained the truth behind the viral video. He said: “I wanna clear this one up. I was working in the Trocadero centre [in central London] demonstrating wind-up frogs and I knew that there was something going on ’cause I saw TV cameras and photographers and there was a giant cardboard cut-out of Noel and Liam, so I went down there.”
Adding: “I just wanted to get on the telly. Joined the queue, grabbed the cardboard cut-outs, was doing these stupid ‘please photograph me’ things, jumping on the back of an open top bus with these cardboard cut-outs and then the next morning running to the newsagents thinking I was gonna be on the front of the newspaper with these cardboard cut-outs.”
He continued: “I wasn’t queuing for an Oasis album. My sister was a big Oasis fan, and I later tuned into them and decided they were brilliant, but at the time I was far more interested in getting photographed on the back of a bus with a cardboard cut-out.”
Matt Healy – This is Your Life
The 1975 singer Matty Healy grew up with his parents in the spotlight, and consequently, Healy made his television debut as a 10-year-old in 1999. The musician’s mother, Denise Welch, was being celebrated on the BBC programme, This Is Your Life, which each week featured a different special guest, and looked back upon their career.
At one point in the programme, Healy is asked about his plans and explains his hopes to become an artist. He tells the host Michael Aspel: “I’ve been playing the drums and I’ve got quite good progress on that. I’d just really like to be a top-class musician basically, and buy mum a new mansion in Los Angeles.” While he still has yet to purchase his mother a mansion in LA, Healy is making the 10-year-old version of him proud.
Sam Fender – Vera
Following the deserved success of his second album, Seventeen Going Under, Sam Fender is on course to rise to the very top. However, as a teenager, the musician had a dalliance with acting, and in 2010, a teenage Fender made a fleeting appearance in the first episode of the ITV detective drama Vera.
In 2019, Fender spoke to Chris Moyles on Radio X and revealed: “I went to an amateur group on a Saturday. Me Gran basically was like, ‘you’re a wayward child and you need to hone all of this […] I was hyperactive”. “I got killed in the first ever episode of that ITV detective programme called Vera set in the North East. I lasted like 10 seconds I think.”
According to Fender’s IMDB, in 2012, he appeared in an episode of the CBBC drama, Wolfblood, which marked the end of his acting career.
Yungblud – Emmerdale
While music has always been part of Dominic Harrison’s life, thanks to his father running a series of guitar shops, he also held a passion for acting. Before signing a record deal with Interscope in 2016, Harrison featured in the Disney Channel series, The Lodge as a musician, Oz. However, despite having a contract, Harrison decided against returning for the next series and chose to focus on his music.
However, things could have turned out differently if his role in the British soap opera, Emmerdale, had morphed into a permanent position. Yet, according to IMDB, it was limited to a one-off appearance as Matt, who wasn’t even handed a surname. The programme has been running for half a century and is set in rural Yorkshire. It’s filmed in Harrison’s home county, and in all likelihood, many others he knew growing up who also had an interest in acting will have made similar cameos in Emmerdale.
