The best podcasts for Classic Rock Interviews, Commentary & History

As a lifelong fan of rock music, I created The Ugly American Werewolf in London Rock Podcast to help keep the music I love alive and to engineer a way to speak with my heroes. While living in London just a few blocks from Abbey Road Studios, I wanted to explore all the historic haunts I’d heard about growing up a fan of English rock in the USA. But when the pandemic hit I couldn’t see live music or tour the venues I’d heard so much about. So I reached out to my old college roommate, Gary “Action” Jackson, and we started to talk about records and artists we loved back in the day and shared some that we’d discovered over the last couple of decades. It was a fun way to get through a hard time in our lives and reconnect with a friend that shares the passion for rock music. But after more than 100 episodes, we’ve connected with so many people around the world who share our love for this music. This list is to introduce classic rock fans to friends we’ve made through the show that have great podcasts in their own right. Some of these folks are our brothers and sisters from Pantheon Podcasts - a collective of music shows from all genres, there’s truly something for everyone on Pantheon - or folks who we’ve had on our show or we’ve guested on theirs. But each of them works hard to bring you interviews, reviews, and discussions of the music we all love. Rock isn’t dead as long as we’re here to keep it alive!! Mac B aka The Ugly American Werewolf in London Rock music has been the one true passion of my life. Whether collecting records, seeing live music, watching documentaries, reading biographies or just talking with friends, rock music is the one thing that I have loved my entire life. I’ve put in the requisite 10,000+ hours listening, researching, absorbing and appreciating this music over more than 40 years. And as most people who are passionate about something know, your friends and family (especially your spouse) doesn’t always share the knowledge, understanding or passion you do. So I created this show as an outlet to grow and share that knowledge and passion. Though I once had a life as an investment banker and startup venturer, I’ve eschewed that for the chance to have weekly talks with my fellow rock n roll aficionado Action Jackson and to speak with the legends that made the music we love. As an American living in the UK, I was fascinated by the culture and wanted to learn more about bands who didn’t make it in the US but were big in the UK. That led to the creation of our show to give the US vs. UK perspective for bands through our guests, discussions and charts.

The Ugly American Werewolf in London Rock Podcast is a weekly show between two old friends from college, The Wolf (Mac B) and Action Jackson, who have a love and passion for classic rock, hard rock, prog rock, heavy metal, early MTV and more. We love all the minutia of rock history and want to know which lineup recorded that album, which studio did they use, who wrote the songs, what were the b-sides to the singles, etc. We often review classic albums around big anniversaries like 30th, 40th, 50th and relate to how we came to know the record, the videos, seeing the band live and where they rank in our hearts. We love interviewing rock legends we grew up admiring like Steve Hackett (Genesis), Geoff Downes (Asia, Yes), Carl Palmer (ELP, Asia), Chris Slade (Ac/DC, The Firm, David Gilmour), Guy Pratt (Pink Floyd), Gary Kemp (Spandau Ballet), Jim Cregan (Rod Stewart), Deborah Bonham and more. But we also like having fellow podcasters on the show to cross pollinate our listeners and share our love for rock music. We are proud of the community we’ve developed with our show and want to share our love of rock music with the world.

While I like to think our show is fantastic, we couldn’t be where we are without the influence of other podcasts we listened to. Each of the shows on our lists are shows we enjoyed listening to and getting ideas from as we formulated our concept of The Ugly American Werewolf in London Rock Podcast. They share the same passion and knowledge of the music but have their own formats and opinions. Each show has a professionalism and style of their own and have consistently had great interviews with artists we love and admire. Plus, at this point we’ve either guested on their podcast (Shout It Out Loudcast, The Hook Rocks), they’ve guested on ours (The Rockonteurs) or we’ve been on each others (Def Lep Pod, Vintage Rock Pod). We wouldn’t be where we are without them and we appreciate all that they do to help keep rock alive!