Well known musicians who have a second career outside of music..

[Valvey]

Sammy Hagar has demonstrated a weird talent for entrepreneurship. He's started companies that install home security systems a chain of stores that sold mountain bikes. Then of course there's his tequila distillery that I believe he sold to Seagram's for a big chunk of change.

[DrumBob]

Drummer Troy Lucketta owned a roofing business.

[jbdrumbo]

Peter Gabriel is co-owner of Solid State Logic.

[hekawi]

Les Paul - inventor
John Hartford - steamboat pilot
Richie Furay - church pastor

[klasaine]

Jazz guitarist Tal Farlow - sign painter.
American composer Charles Ives - Insurance exec (pioneered 'modern' estate planning).

*These are real 'day' jobs/alternate careers.
Not to take anything away from the other musicians that write and do art but really - it's a lot easier to get a book published and a gallery show when you're a rock star and already have 'celebrity'. People will come and see your stuff even if it sucks.

[MrTwang]

Sneaky Pete Kleinow - legendary steel player with the Burrito Brothers - was also a special effects artist and worked on, amongst others, The Empire Strikes Back, Gremils Terminator and T2.

[Stirton]

Interesting thread. Seems there is a pattern emerging: (1) creative arts (2) pilots.

I could also add Professor Brian Cox, who is probably better known as a physicist than as the keyboardist in D:Ream, and Rev. Richard Coles, vicar and spoken word broadcaster, who was a multi-instrumentalist in Bronski Beat and The Communards.

[soulman969]

Solomon Burke; Mortician, Entrepreneur

[eMGee]

Al Green, pastor

[eMGee]

Tom Sholtz, mechanical engineer/inventor
George Harrison, movie producer
Ted Nugent, NRA activist
Peter Tork, teacher

[Tony474]

Originally Posted by tschommer

Bruce Dickenson of Iron Maiden is a commercial airline pilot.

Maybe a little irrelevant, but also an Olympic-class fencer.

By the same token, seemingly Vince Gill is a seriously proficient golfer.

On the flip side, former World Superbike champion James Toseland is a shyte-hot keyboard player, while I expect everyone knows about McEnroe and his guitar-playing ("Out of tune? You can NOT be serious! It was IN, IN, I tell you!").

There must be umpteen more examples of musicians with high-level sporting credentials.

[RevMike]

Phill Collins collects memorabilia from and lectures on...and is one of the worlds leading authorities on Alamo/Davey Crockett history.

[ianasdfg]

Brian May is an accomplished astrophysicist

[notdave]

Originally Posted by ianasdfg

Brian May is an accomplished astrophysicist

We know. The OP told us.

Actually he graduated but didn't complete his post-grad doctoral thesis until 2007. He got side-tracked by being in Queen. He did co-author a book with Patrick Moore (another lay astronomer, as it goes)

[trev333]

Midnight Oil lead singer Peter Garratt is the minister for Education in the current Australian Gov....

if you can't beat 'em, join 'em , I guess...

[TimTam]

A lot of the examples so far are pastimes / professions that musos got to pursue at least partly because of their musical success.

Originally Posted by Stirton

I could also add Professor Brian Cox, who is probably better known as a physicist than as the keyboardist in D:Ream, and Rev. Richard Coles, vicar and spoken word broadcaster, who was a multi-instrumentalist in Bronski Beat and The Communards.

Cox and Coles on the other hand are good examples of musos who had to get "real" jobs when it became obviously that music was not going to pay the bills long term.

Several of my heros ended up that way - Howard Devoto (Magazine) and John McGeoch (Magazine, Banshees, PIL) for example. IMHO they were amongst the geatest musos of their generation, but couldn't make it pay. Howard was (is ?) an archivist (amongst other jobs ?). McGeoch had retrained as a nurse before his early death at 48.

You wouldn't want your kid getting into any professions where the success rate isn't good - music, art, acting, sport. Get an education and a real job first.

There must be many "once famous" musos now in dead-end jobs or still struggling to make a living from music.

[grandstick]

Steve Morse of the Dixie Dregs was a commercial airline pilot back in the mid-to-late 80's.

[gitold]

Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull is a very successful salmon farmer.
David Bromberg retired from playing for years and is one of the worlds foremost authorities on violins. Classical artist hire him when they are going to spend $800,000 on a Stradivarius to make sure it's the real deal.

[ianasdfg]

Originally Posted by notdave

We know. The OP told us.

Actually he graduated but didn't complete his post-grad doctoral thesis until 2007. He got side-tracked by being in Queen. He did co-author a book with Patrick Moore (another lay astronomer, as it goes)

Ooops, my apologies to OP for being lazy

Brian May is pretty impressive when on Sky at Night

Another famous celebrity scientist Brian Cox was the keyboard player in D:Ream

[Thundersleet]

'Weird Al' Yankovic has a Bachelor's degree in architecture from the California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo.

Philip Taylor Kramer (July 12, 1952 – February 12, 1995) was a bass guitar player for the rock group Iron Butterfly during the 1970s. After this he obtained a night school degree in aerospace engineering, worked on the MX missile guidance system for a contractor of the US Department of Defense and later in the computer industry on fractal compression, facial recognition systems, and advanced communications. His disappearance on February 12, 1995 caused a mystery lasting for years.