Who says college and music don't go together? They do, according to groundbreaking, earthshaking classic rock band Boston's Barry Goudreau.

      "It all started back when I was in college," he says. "I went to CU and I was in a band with a friend of mine over at MIT. I put an ad in a local paper for a keyboard player, and Tom Scholz answered the ad."

      That was 1971, and over 30 years and 25 million albums later, the mega-band Boston has given us hits like hits like "Longtime," "Used to Bad News," "Let Me Take You Home Tonight" and "Don't Look Back."

      Sitting in the lobby of a Manhattan studio during a break, Goudreau tells me the tale of great perseverance. "Every label turned us down," he says as he shakes his head. "Even Epic, the label that eventually signed us, had first turned us down. In fact, the head of the label had a copy of the rejection letter framed on the wall of his office to just show people how everybody makes mistakes!"

     InsideCx: Once Boston was signed, you seemingly made few mistakes, judging from the huge success straight out of the gate with your first album release, Boston.

     BG: And after only six months, we were headlining. It happened really, really fast. We didn't have time to think about it; I mean, there was so much to be done. We didn't have roadies, we didn't have soundmen. We had nothing. So we had to kind of learn as we went. Trial by fire, I guess, is the best way to put it!

      Our first arena tour was opening up for Black Sabbath, and they were just super to us. They realized that we were selling a lot of tickets for them and they were really appreciative for us, and we appreciated them. We hung out together. Who would have thought that Boston opening for Black Sabbath was a bill that would work? But it worked tremendously well.

      When we moved to headlining we had acts like Van Halen and Bob Seger open for us. And we always appreciated the acts that opened for us, because we felt as though if the opening acts are good it just makes our show better. I think that's the attitude to have. Not that it's some competition. There's enough room for everybody.

     InsideCx: It seems like there was more diversity in the acts of shows back then.

     BG: Back in the 1970s, and more so in the 1960s, there were all kinds of different acts at one show. A blues act, a hard rock act, you know, all at the same show. Nowadays it's kind of packaged into genres. It's a lot different.

     InsideCx: Speaking of nowadays, your songs are still played all over the classic rock stations today. How does that feel all these years later?

     BG: It's kind of a disconnect, it's on so much. I'm in the car with my family and one of our songs comes on and back then I'd be, "ahhhhh," but now it doesn't work that way. I remember the first time I heard "More Than A Feeling." I remember exactly where I was. I was in my car the first time I heard it and I nearly went off the road! We knew it was five years in the making, so when it finally happened it was extremely gratifying.

     InsideCx: What advice would you give to up-and-coming musicians, the ones waiting for that day they hear their first song on the radio?

     BG: That's a tough one, because honestly I don't keep up, so I wouldn't know what to tell them. It's so different from when we came up. But I think you have to make music because you want to do it and you have to do it. If success and money come, that's great, but if it doesn't, you have to do it because it's what you love to do.