← Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
Beyond the Stage: The Weirdest Side Gigs of Rock Stars
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Welcome to the behind the Song podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host.
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I'm Janda, and in this bonus episode of the behind the Song podcast, let's get into a handful of rock stars who have either went on after their careers on the stage to do a completely different career, or who took some time in between albums and concerts to pursue a different vocational interest. Some of this stuff is pretty wild. One of the wildest is what Jeff Skunk Baxter did as a second act after he co founded Steely Dan, then left to join the Doobie Brothers, and then played on tons of other recordings as a session guitarist. He became a consultant for missile defense to the Pentagon. Now this all started in the mid-80s when his interest in recording gear got him to thinking about hardware and software that was developed originally for the military, data compression algorithms and large capacity storage devices. Coincidentally, his next door neighbor was a retired engineer who worked on a missile program with the government in the 50s and the two of them became friends. His neighbor bought him a copy of Aviation Week magazine, which got him interested in the military's missile defense systems. So Jeff Skunk Baxter taught himself on the subject. He wrote a paper that proposed converting a Navy anti aircraft missile into a missile defense system, Got it to a congressman and he became a defense consultant. He was even the chair of the Congressional Advisory Board on Missile Defense at one point. He's currently on several committees and his defense work has been reported in the Wall Street Journal. Baxter once said about all of this that his big thing was to look at existing technologies and try to see other ways that they can be used, which happens in music all the time, end quote. Which is true enough. But it's still very interesting to think about the dude from Steely Dan and the Doobies as a respected counter terrorism expert consulting the Department of Defense. Definitely one of the most unexpected vocational pivots for sure. In the case of drummer Bill Barry, it was a health scare that caused a big change. He, of course, co founded REM with Michael Stipe in 1980, when they were both still University of Georgia students in Athens. REM's enormous success followed. The band were critical darlings and their albums sold like crazy. But in 1995, Barry collapsed on stage during a performance in Switzerland, the result of a brain aneurysm. He had surgery and recovered within a month. But two years later, in 1997, as the band were all set to record their 11th album, Up, Berry sat the rest of the band down and said that after thinking long and hard about it, he was quitting REM on the condition that the rest of the band not break up, in which case he would continue. Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills agreed to go on as a trio, and Barry announced that he was leaving to the press and that was that. For his next act, he bought a bunch of land in Farmington, Georgia and became a hey farmer. He said in sporadic interviews that the aneurysm caused his energy level to dip and that he wanted to sit back and reflect and not be a pop star anymore. End quote. So from the drum kit to the tractor he went. Surely that has to be the only example of drummer turned hay farmer in all of rock and roll. He was inducted with R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame in 2007, and he joined his former bandmates on stage for a performance at the ceremony, the first time they since he left the group, he's dipped back into the music business a bit more of late, playing here and there around Athens, but he's still very much a hay farmer. And then you have the high flying Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden. He holds the distinction of not only being the lead singer of one of the biggest heavy metal bands ever to come out of London, but he can also fly you to your destination. That's right. Dickinson learned to fly in the 90s, got a pilot's license and famously flew 757s as captain of Britain's Astraeus Airlines, a charter airline. He has since branched out into owning an aircraft maintenance and pilot training business, Cardiff Aviation. He's flown members of the Royal Air Force and the Rangers and Liverpool football clubs. And of course he has piloted Edforce One, Iron Maiden's own chartered plane with which was converted to carry the band's equipment around the world on their tours. Aside from fronting Iron Maiden and his pilot captain's hat, he's also hosted TV documentaries, written books and film scripts, and he's competed in international fencing matches. Truly a Renaissance man. Despite all my rage, I am still desperate in a cage. I can list on one finger the rock stars who started pro wrestling businesses. That would be Billy Corgan of the smashing pumpkins. In 2017, he entered the ring as a wrestling promoter, buying the National Wrestling Association. He holds complete control of the brand, which has been around since the 40s and all its championships. Wrestling is a lifelong obsession for Corgan, and he juggles his music career and his wrestling business to this day. In fact, in 2025 he received the Excelsior Award from the Professional Wrestling hall of Fame for his dedication to the sport, which if you think about it, is a little like rock and roll, all the drama, the showmanship and the passion. He started a reality show, Adventures in Carnyland, to document the balance between being a rock star and running a wrestling enterprise, which you can find episodes of on YouTube. And in his spare time he also owns a tea shop, Madame Zuzu's Emporium, near his home in Highland park, north of Chicago. There are other rock stars who have wildly interesting side gigs or who went on to do work that was outside the music business. Brian May of Queen holds a PhD in astrophysics, for Pete's sake, and he spends a lot of his free time as an animal welfare activ. James Williamson, guitarist for the Stooges, went back to college after the band broke up, earned an engineering degree, started designing microchips and eventually became the vice president of technology standards at Sony. The original drummer for the Clash, Terry Chimes, left after their first album and he's been a chiropractor since the mid-90s. And who could forget Ron Blair, bassist for the Heartbreakers, who took a 20 year hiatus from Tom Petty and the band in 1981, during which time he opened a bikini shop in California, among other things. He never joined another band, just was over the music business. He said. But he came back sporadically in those years to play with the Heartbreakers, and he rejoined the fold after Howie Epstein passed, effectively replacing his replacement. I think it's pretty inspirational that these rockers branched out, followed their interests toward other pursuits. As surprising as it is to think of anyone wanting to do anything other than being a rock star. But it just goes to show you that life can be rich with multiple areas of success and fulfillment if you just follow your heart where it leads, do the work and put in the time. You never know what might come of it. So what, other artists decided to walk down a different path after spending some time in the limelight? And have you ever switched gears entirely in your career to go on to do something you always wanted to try? Let me know in the comments. And as always, thanks for listening to behind the Song and on the Way, Much more classic rock and roll.