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What do you do for fun? You know, hobbies, pastimes, things that you do just for you, away from your job and all your other responsibilities. Let's See, I got, got my dogs, my wife and I like to travel. And I've always had this thing about the JFK assassination. I've read all the books, you know, the documentaries. I've even been to Dallas and the grassy knoll in the book depository. I can't explain it, I just find it all very interesting. Maybe you're into sports or collecting hockey cards or wine or rare scotch, video games, Japanese anime, beanie babies, comic books, souvenir spoons. No need to justify anything. It's just something that you enjoy doing for you. It fulfills you somehow. Now consider this. When we think of our favorite musicians, we probably imagine them being immersed in music all the time. I mean, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all they do is think about music and make music. The truth is you can't do that. No one can. Everybody needs a break from whatever it is that they do. You gotta rest the brain, recharge and go on a search for new inspiration. Put down the instruments and see what else is out there. Become a more rounded person. So that's one aspect. Another aspect is, look, I've had some success, I've made some money. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to indulge in those things that I've always dreamed of. You can't take it with you, so spend some of that cash. All right, so on. Like what? Well, I think you might be surprised. Let's take a look at the hobbies and non musical passions of some very famous musicians. This is the ongoing History of New Music podcast with Alan Cross. Hello again, I'm Alan Cross and this is one of those fun episodes where we look into the lives of famous rock stars. Not in any intrusive way, but in a manner that makes them more, well, human, more relatable. Almost everybody has some kind of hobby, a distraction, a passion that they call all their own. And sometimes a person's hobby will tell you something about them that surprises us. So I've put together a list of more than 60 rock stars and their hobbies. There's a lot of information coming your way, all delivered without judgment. And here we go. Starting with knitting. Yes, knitting. Knitting is an age old pastime that not only results in socks, sweaters and scarves, but it can also be very relaxing. Plus it's good for finger dexterity, which is helpful for virtually every musician. Kelly Deal of the Breeders is really good at it. She actually has an online store where she sells scarves. All are one of a kind, handmade by her and signed. Some are knitted, while others are made from recycled felt and wool sweaters. They run about 100 bucks each. Lily Allen, the British singer, not only knits, but is deep into embroidery. Her stuff can be found all over Pinterest. This is a bit of a detour, but Jazz Domino Holly, the daughter of the Clash's Joe Strummer, is very crafty. Not only is she a knitter, but she makes duvets, cooks, and is an avid gardener. She even put out a handbook on those subjects. And Rivers Cuomo of Weezer was a knitter. Things began when he got into meditation in the mid aughts. That led to doing clay sculptures, whittling and then knitting. It was something to do in bed while his wife read Sherlock Holmes mysteries. He says he doesn't have much time for it anymore because he's always working, but there must be some interesting stuff around the house. You can see how martial arts might be of interest to certain types of musicians. Dave Mustaine of Megadeth is really deep into this. His passion is jiu jitsu. In January 2021, he earned a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at the age of 58, which puts him in the middle of the pack. Next up is a brown belt. He's working on that, followed by various degrees of black. Suffice it to say that he can kick just about anyone's ass, and I guess we can segue from that into professional wrestling. This is where we find Billy Corgan. His involvement started in 2001 when he went to an ECW card and got to hit one of the wrestlers in the head with a guitar after being insulted. Ten years later, he founded his own pro league called Pro Resistance Wrestling. That evolved into work with Non Stop action wrestling in 2015. In fact, he became the president there, Vince McMahon in 2016, and then he left that league and bought the National Wrestling alliance in 2017, where he also serves as president. That's one of the oldest pro wrestling leagues in the world, having been around since 1948. So Billy basically brought the NWA back from the dead. And if you're not into the wwe, it's a pretty good alternative. Here are a few more non musical passions of musicians. Bob Dylan is into sculpting. One of his favorite mediums is metal, so he's a pretty fair welder. Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden was so into airplanes that he's now a fully qualified airline pilot rated to fly 747s. In fact, he also runs his own aircraft maintenance and pilot Training facility called Cardiff Aviation. Gary Neumann also wanted to be a professional pilot, but he says that music got in the way, at least at first. He's now both a stunt and test pilot. Aerobatics, flight formations, flying vintage World War II planes. He did give it up for a while though, because he lost some friends to accidents, crashes. And this brings me to Dexter Holland of the Offspring. He has a lot of outside interests. First, he has a PhD in microbiology. His 2017 thesis was on HIV research and his paper was called this takes a big breath. Discovery of mature micronal sequences within the protein coding regions of global HIV1 genomes. Predictions of novel mechanisms for viral infection and pathogenicity. So you want to know why the Offspring went so long between albums. There you go. He was working on his PhD. Dexter is also a connoisseur of hot sauces. He has a line called Guingo Bandido, which is actually pretty good. But back to aviation, he's rated to fly executive jets. He got his Pilot's license in 1996 and he always had this thing about flying around the world. So in late 2004, he did it. He took a twin engine Cessna Citation solo around the world 25,000 miles in 10 days. Existing on, he says, Doritos and beef jerky. At one point Dexter owned three planes, but two got repossessed and he was sued over payment arrears for another. But then he sold off some of the Offspring's publishing money, which took care of all that debt. And now he's free to fly wherever he wants, moving on to more non musical passions of rock stars. Slash of Guns N Roses really likes his vintage pinball games. He collects them. Trenton Reznor is into something similar vintage arcade games. Model trains are big passion. Neil Young, Rod Stewart and get this, Frank Sinatra all love their model trains. Fishing is relaxing. Dean Wein of the band Wein is into that, while Roger Daltrey of the who has taken it one step further. He's a trout farmer in his spare time. What about ping pong? Well, I can tell you that Prince was really into ping pong. He could destroy just about anyone. I would have loved to see him play Blur's Damon Albarn. He's a ping pong fanatic too. And speaking of Blur, bass player Alex James has achieved international acclaim as a cheese maker. After Blur started making big money, he moved to the countryside, bought himself a farmhouse on 200 acres covered in hundreds of sheep and cows, and turned the whole thing into a cheesemaking operation. It's really good stuff. Too. It's won all kinds of awards, it's in all kinds of British supermarkets, and one of the most popular is called Blue Monday, which is named after the New Order song. It's a creamy Shropshire blue cheese. There are also varieties with names like Queen Maude, Rotten Bastard and Mad Bitch. Alex is so good at cheese that he has been a judge in cheese competitions. He wrote a couple of books on cheese, including one called All Cheeses Great and Small, and even the Royal Family is said to enjoy the products of his farm in the Cotswolds. Before we leave Blur, it's worth mentioning that everybody in the band is is into space exploration. In 2003, the band composed a call sign for a Martian probe called Beagle 2. When the probe landed, it was supposed to broadcast a special instrumental composed by Blur to tell everyone back on Earth that things were safe and sound and operational. It was a nine note composition loosely based on the Fibonacci sequence. But unfortunately something went wrong and Beagle 2 was lost. We never heard that Little did he from Blur, but later it was speculated that Beagle 2 did survive the landing and did play the Blur song, but because it was so damaged, the antenna was pointed in the wrong direction and no one back home got to hear it. If they did, it would have sounded something like this. It's called Far Out. Oh, Poor Beagle too. Finally, to wrap this up, Blur drummer David Rountree has his own telescope and he spends hours looking up at the night sky. Oh wait, I should mention this too. Queen guitarist Brian May is a full blown astrophysicist. His PhD was entitled A Survey of Radio Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust cloud. It runs 256 pages. In case you want to read it, here's a list of more rock star hobbies. Geddy Lee is a baseball fanatic. For a while he collected autographed baseballs from the old Negro League. He had more than 200 before he donated them to the Negro Baseball League. Musician in Kansas City Taylor Swift makes her own snow globes. Wynn Butler of Arcade Fire is well known for his basketball abilities. Brody Dahl of the Distillers and the ex Mrs. Josh Homme once told me that she was a junkie for anything to do with the Kennedy assassination. So we had lots to talk about. Courtney Love collects dolls with an emphasis on Mattel's Little Kiddies. Meanwhile, Kurt Cobain used to collect old medical appliances. Bit weird, but okay, whatever. When she's not making music, Erykah Badu works as a midwife super producer Brian Eno has been very upfront about his collection of vintage porn. And how about chess? Well, you would figure that with so much time spent on the road, many artists would get into chess as a distraction, a way to pass the time. That was certainly the case with David Bowie. Bono likes to play, Madonna is a chess fan, and you might find this as something of a surprise. Another guy deep into playing chess is Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and he is good. Back in about 2011, he faced off against a recognized chess master, a Norwegian world champion, who went unnamed and apparently acquitted himself very, very well. Someone had called him a rook star standing in line to see the show tonight, and there's a light on more of our explanation of rockstar hobbies coming up.
