Rockstar's Jobs Before Fame!

From gravediggers to janitors, fish handlers to bra factory workers, and embalmers to slaughterhouse workers, Planet Rock takes a look at the jobs rock stars had before they hit the big time.

Musicians featured include late AC/DC legends Bon Scott and Malcolm Young, The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Chris Cornell, ex-Black Sabbath band mates Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi, Jon Bon Jovi, Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris, David Bowie, Motörhead’s Lemmy, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, and Eric Clapton.

Some of the rock stars still look back fondly on their previous jobs, while others are glad to have escaped the 9 to 5 existence.

Bon Scott – Postman

The AC/DC legend was a postman in Fremantle, Western Australia in his late teens. Tenuously linked, postmen now deliver mail to Bon Scott Crescent in Moncrieff, which was named in the late singer's honor earlier this year. Other notable people who were postmen include Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney, and Steve Carell.

Mick Jagger - Porter in psychiatric hospital

While he was a student at the London School of Economics in his teens, Sir Mick worked part time as a porter at the Bexley Mental Hospital. Brought up in the nearby Wilmington, Mick (who is worth an estimated £260million) was paid a reported four pounds and ten shillings a week.

Ozzy Osbourne - Slaughterhouse worker

Before Black Sabbath, Ozzy was a jack-of-all-trades working as a construction site laborer, trainee plumber, apprentice toolmaker and car factory horn-tuner. However, it was his job in an abattoir that left a lasting impression on Ozzy. "I had to slice open the cow carcasses and get all the gunk out of their stomachs," he said. "I used to vomit every day; the smell was something else."

Gene Simmons – Assistant to Vogue magazine editor The young Chaim Witz (who later renamed himself Gene Klein) was a self-certified "excellent typist" and in the mid-sixties landed himself a job as an assistant to an editor at fashion bible Vogue Magazine. Fortunately, he downed the typewriter and a few years later started KISS with Paul Stanley. The rest, they say, is history.

Joe Strummer – Gravedigger In his early 20s Joe decamped from London to Newport, South Wales, where alongside being the part-time frontman of band The Vultures, he worked as a gravedigger at St Woolos Cemetery. When the band split in 1974, Joe packed in his job and moved back to London and formed new rockabilly outfit The 101ers.

Lemmy – Jimi Hendrix’s roadie A far cry from some of the humdrum jobs on this list, the late Motörhead legend became a roadie for the Jimi Hendrix Experience in his early twenties when he was sharing a flat with Noel Redding and the band's manager Neville Chesters. He was paid £10 a week to go on tour with Jimi plus the extra incentive of "handfuls of acid."

Eric Clapton – Bricklayer’s assistant Kicked out of art school in 1961, Clapton was told he had to work for his granddad Jack Clapp if he was to carry on living under the same roof as him and wife Rose. Making £15 a week, Eric said working with a master bricklayer "was no laughing matter" due to the hard work but "I really did love it. (My grandfather's) legacy to me was that I should always do my best, and always finish what I started."

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