New branch of school looks to put the ‘rock’ in Rocky River
By Charles Cassady
Insights
Published Jan. 3, 2007

“School’s out for summer! School’s out forever!” goes the classic Alice Cooper anthem of rebellion. Yes, despite “Schoolhouse Rock,” raucous pop tunes and classroom education rarely seem mutually supportive.

But a new franchise project due to open in Rocky River in 2007 may change all that. In fact, this one draws kids in based on the siren song of rock.

It’s the local branch of the Philadelphia-based Paul Green School of Rock Music, set to tune up at 20148 Detroit Road, opposite St. Christopher Church.

Manager Shelley Norehad and music director Tommy Rich of the local Paul Green School of Rock Music School.

“We’ll be the first in Ohio,” said Shelly Norehad, of Bay Village, who is managing the facility, one of 31 Paul Green schools across the country now doing business or in the process of opening.

“I just listened to rock growing up and enjoyed it,” said Norehad, a business major in college, “and thought this was a great opportunity.” She said she and her husband, Mike, were tipped off by a musician friend in Chicago about national franchise offers with the Paul Green School, which has enjoyed great notoriety thanks to the success of the 2003 Paramount Pictures comedy “School of Rock.”

DVD cover from the movie "School of Rock."

In that film, Jack Black played a slovenly, jobless rocker who finagles his way into a teaching position and secretly educates prep-school kids in electric guitar riffs and power chords. It was suspiciously similar to the real-life story of Green, a Philadelphia musician who founded a school in 1998 that teaches serious rock and roll to kids of elementary and high-school age — and had already owned the Web site www.schoolofrock.com. Now, with that Hollywood boost, the Paul Green School sends its “All-Stars,” or standout pupils, on the road to play at grownup auditoriums like the B.B. King Blues Club in New York City — and the Winchester Tavern & Music Hall, in Lakewood, which hosted a performance of the Paul Green School of Rock All-Stars last Wednesday night.

In attendance were the Norehads, representatives of the Philadelphia main school, and Tommy Rich, the newly hired music director of the Paul Green School in Rocky River.

Rich, of Shaker Heights, is a multi-instrumentalist who played drums in the bands American Noise, Big Zipper and Donnie Iris and the Cruisers. Rich had never taught formally before, “but it’s not a big jump for me because I’ve been producing records for the past eight years,” he said.

When he first heard that the School of Rock was hiring, he, too, thought it was a tie-in with “that goofy movie with Jack Black.” Rich got an education in the real School of Rock from the Sundance Film Festival documentary feature “Rock School,” which went along with Paul Green to show his no-holds-barred, R-rated teaching methods. Cameras caught the temperamental Mr. Green yelling and swearing at the kids and punching the walls until they got their Carlos Santana solos and Black Sabbath covers down well enough to satisfy him. The on-screen Green explains that the rock life is tough, and he runs his school like a boot camp to make sure the students are up to it.  

“I think we’re pretty confident that Tommy will not be screaming profanities at the kids,” said Shelly Norehad, who will have two of her own three daughters in the inaugural classes in Rocky River.

Nonetheless, Tommy Rich said that the school here will be about music as work, not playtime: “The first thing they’re going to learn is ‘Roadie 101.’ How to break down your gear, how to get it up and running.” The school will have a supply of drums, amplifiers and keyboards, but students are expected to provide and get to know their own instruments.

Guest speakers will cover songwriting and music copyrighting, and how to make a living in the field. And, yes, the language might get parental-advisory rough. “We’re real musicians, the real stuff…and if it ain’t for you, it ain’t for you,”  Rich said.

School of Rock is divided up into 12-week sessions, three times per year. At the end of each, the students, ages 9 to 19, get to show off their chops in concert at an established music club. Already, the Paul Green lesson plan has the first show as mandatory: “‘The Wall,’ by Pink Floyd, front to back.” It’s not too difficult, but not too easy either, Rich said.

The various School of Rock franchises are then allowed to choose from curriculum that emphasizes different musical themes and readies the students to deliver in different climactic shows, such as music of The Who, or Judas Priest vs. Iron Maiden. Individual music directors are allowed to improvise their own productions as well. “I saw a blues show in Philadelphia with the kids doing old-school blues,” said Rich.

If you didn’t get to the Winchester last week, don’t despair. “We are having open houses at the Rocky River school - 20148 Detroit Road - in January,” said Norehad. Dates are Jan. 17, from 6 to 8 p.m. and Jan. 27, from 1 to 3 p.m.

For more information, go to the famous Web site, schoolofrock.com, and click on the link for Cleveland/Rocky River. Or you can phone (440) 213-3826.