The Tony Award nominations were announced this morning, and the two strongest contenders for Best New Musical feature songs you may actually find on your iPod.

"In the Heights," with its Latin- and hip-hop-infused score written by 28-year-old Lin-Manuel Miranda, led the pack with 13 nominations. "Passing Strange," a coming-of-age tale told through rock & roll, was co-written by Stew -- formerly of LA-based pop rock band The Negro Problem -- earning Stew four of the production's seven nods.

One of the (many) great things about "Passing Strange" is that it features real rock & roll, not some “theaterized” derivative played by a handful of Broadway hires. It's Stew’s band onstage, and watching an authentic, soulful frontman take you through this two-hour story is enough to make the musical-haters out there reconsider.

MTV News spoke to Stew recently about why, despite the occasional "Rent" or "Hair," it’s taken so long for the music you hear in clubs or bars to make it into the theater:

“My fifteen-year-old would love to be able to go to the theater and know that when she walks in there’s going to be some music that corresponds to what she hears at home on her iPod,” he told us. “She would love that.”

But he acknowledged that jamming on pop rock tunes in a club with your band is a very different ballgame than the years-long process of creating a two-hour musical story.

“It’s like going to war!” he said of writing a musical. “Rock is easy compared to the theater.”