Rock School - Series One

Series One

The first series was broadcast in the autumn of 2005 and took place at Christ's Hospital school in England. The chosen class of Year 9 students were all classically trained and it is insinuated that they had no interest in rock music.

The band consisted of Josh Bell (also known as "The Emperor") as lead singer, Dudley Beal ("Dudders") as drummer, Jesse Newton ("Bagpuss") as guitarist, Kwamé Asiedu ("Mr. Cool") on keyboards and bassist Camilla Biggs (who refused to have a "rock name"). Stylists were Fiona Musson ("FiFi") and Frances Scott ("Francis"), while the stage managers were Lucian and Richard White ("Mr White"). On 21 October, the manager, Rodney Serunjogi ("Rods"), revealed the band's name to be "The Class". After an initially difficult start the band successfully played to a crowd of Motörhead fans at the Hammersmith Apollo, and in the final episode of the series The Class got an all-expenses paid trip to LA where all the members came together to perform a special tribute of "God gave rock 'n roll to you" for Gene in a local venue.

The highlight of the programme was arguably Josh, "Emperor", so named because of his love of the game Warhammer. The 13-year-old sparked plenty of controversy among his classmates as his weird antics made him an outsider. A fluent speaker of Quenya and learning Klingon by the end of the series, Josh is completely tone deaf but was chosen by Simmons for his determination and perseverance. Simmons saw something of himself in Josh, as he had faced similar adversity as an outsider when growing up in New York. Completely transformed by the experience, Josh saw himself as a rock god by the end of filming and had even grown his hair in homage to Brian May however this new personna irritated his classmates as they thought his arrogance got the better of him.