By Wonderwall.com Editors
12:00pm PDT, May 5, 2024
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Let's take a trip down memory lane to see some of your all-time favorite rock stars during their early years in the music business, starting with this legend…
Bon Jovi frontman Jon Bon Jovi was in his early 20s in this snap from 1985 — one year before his band's hit third album, "Slippery When Wet," debuted.
Read on to see more more rock stars at the start of their careers…
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In 2024, Billy Idol celebrated the recording of his classic album "Rebel Yell" — which featured hits like "Eyes Without a Face" — by releasing an expanded deluxe 40th anniversary edition of the project, complete with unreleased tracks and more.
He originally recorded "Rebel Yell" at New York City's Electric Lady Studios and released it in November 1983, five years after he was snapped in this casual shot taken circa 1978.
MORE: The most iconic rock couples through the years
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Joan Jett sported her signature shag 'do and a whole lot of attitude in this portrait taken in September 1975 — the same month she turned 17.
Less than a year later, her all-female band The Runaways released their self-titled debut album featuring hits like "Cherry Bomb."
Joan later formed her own super-successful band — Joan Jett & the Blackhearts — which was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.
MORE: What your favorite country music stars looked like when they were young
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Keith Richards was snapped playing guitar in 1964 — the same year the Rolling Stones guitarist turned 21 and his band released their debut album.
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The Prince of Darkness didn't look so dark while posing in London in 1975. Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne was in his late 20s in this baby-faced snap.
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Joni Mitchell — widely regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time — got her start performing in her native Canada in the '60s.
She's seen here at 25 during California's Big Sur Folk Festival in September 1969 — a year after she dropped her debut album, "Song to a Seagull," and a year before she released early hits like "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock."
Joni went on to win nine Grammys and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
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Late Rock & Roll Hall of Famer David Crosby is seen here in his 20s in London's Soho Square on Aug. 6, 1965, during The Byrds' appearance on "Ready Steady Go!" Three years after this photo was taken, he co-founded the band Crosby, Stills & Nash.
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Lenny Kravitz was 25, married to actress Lisa Bonet and a new father to future actress Zoe Kravitz when he posed for this portrait in 1990, mere months after the release of his debut studio album, "Let Love Rule."
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U2 frontman Bono — seen here in Belgium a few months after his 20th birthday in 1980 — once rocked a wild mullet. U2 formed in Dublin in 1976 but didn't achieve breakout success until the 1983 release of their "War" album.
They'd go on to win more than 20 Grammy Awards with subsequent recordings.
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Who's that girl? It's Debbie Harry! The "Heart of Glass" singer and Blondie frontwoman looked appropriately blonde and beautiful following a 1978 concert in New York.
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He was just a baby! In mid-1982 — a few years before he joined Guns N' Roses and started sporting top hats — a 16-year-old Slash was photographed playing with his very first band, Tidus Sloan, during a lunch break at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles.
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There's a reason why we call it hair metal! Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan posed for this portrait sometime in the late '80s — not long after his iconic band released their hit debut album, "Appetite for Destruction," in 1987.
Duff and his wild mane left GNR after more than a decade in 1997. He rejoined the group in 2016, four years after they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
In recent years, he's collaborated with Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop and released several solo albums including 2023's "Lighthouse."
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Barry Gibb — seen here at 23 in 1970 flanked by his late fraternal twin brothers, Maurice Gibb and Robin Gibb (who were 20 at the time) — formed the Bee Gees with his siblings in 1958. The British brothers enjoyed major success in the late-'60s and '70s and became music superstars during the disco era in large part because of the popularity of their vocal harmonies on the soundtrack for 1977's "Saturday Night Fever."
The trio, who sold more than 120 million records worldwide and scored nine No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
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After cutting his musical teeth in the punk scene, Shane MacGowan — the England-born son of Irish immigrants — co-founded the Pogues in 1982. (He's pictured here at 25 the following year.) The band, which favored Irish instruments and delivered sometimes politically-tinged music, is perhaps best known for their 1988 album "If I Should Fall from Grace with God," which features the wildly popular Christmas song "Fairytale of New York."
When Shane died in 2023, Ireland's President Michael D. Higgins was among the many famous friends and fans who paid tribute, branding him "one of music's greatest lyricists."
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English singer Kate Bush was 19 when she topped the U.K. singles chart for the first time in 1978 — the same year she posed for this photo — with her debut single, "Wuthering Heights." She went on to release two dozen more U.K. Top 40 singles as well as hits like 1985's "Running Up That Hill," which became her first Top 40 song in America (and enjoyed a resurgence in 2022 when it was heavily featured on the Netflix show "Stranger Things").
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Robert, is that you?! A 20-year-old Robert Smith — the frontman for The Cure — posed for this portrait in 1979, the same year the band released their debut studio album, "Three Imaginary Boys."
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Aww! Nirvana drummer, Foo Fighters founder and two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Dave Grohl was still in his 20s when he posed for this portrait sometime in the early '90s. (Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain died in April 1994, a few months after Dave turned 25.)
