He Also Did / Music

• Bryan Adams is also a photographer who has published six books of his work, been exhibited in galleries worldwide, and won multiple awards for his fashion photography. One of his pictures of Queen Elizabeth II was used for Canadian stamps in 2004 and 2005.
• Yasushi Akimoto, the producer and creator of AKB48, also created the One Missed Call horror film franchise and the magical girl manga Nurse Angel Ririka SOS.
• Dr. Alban is a medical doctor and continued to worked as such after becoming a pop star.
• The late Outsider Musician GG Allin was a hardcore shock rocker who smeared himself with feces in concert, but in 1989 he recorded an EP of country music that lent credence to the idea that Allin's onstage persona was mostly a put-on.
• Bill Anderson, a Country Music singer known as "Whisperin' Bill" for his soft, often spoken-word delivery, has written songs for several artists from the 1960s to the present. He also hosted the game shows The Better Sex and Fandango (the former with Sarah Purcell), and formerly co-owned a franchise of a family restaurant chain called Po' Folks (which named itself after one of his songs).
• Ashley Parker Angel, who was in the boy band O-Town and also had a solo career, was also the voice of Alex in Lunar: The Silver Star.
• W. H. Auden wrote librettos for Benjamin Britten's opera Paul Bunyan and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, the latter in collaboration with Chester Kallman. Auden and Kallman later wrote an English translation of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.
• Singer-songwriter Hoyt Axton composed songs for everyone from Anne Murray to Ringo Starr to Three Dog Night to Steppenwolf. He also got into acting, with his most visible role to tropers being in the movie Gremlins. He also qualifies with another odd musical example—a piano riff from his song "Captain America" was Sampled Up as the Epic Riff for Fatboy Slim's "Praise You".
• The B-52s did "Revolution Earth". You know, that slow, vaguely Celtic-sounding, completely sober hope-for-the-future song with a single, female vocalist throughout?
• Tony Banks, better known as a founding member of/keyboard player in the prog rock band Genesis, also did Seven: A Suite For Orchestra, an album of original classical music performed by The London Philharmonic Orchestra. He later followed this with the album Six: Pieces For Orchestra.
• Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, a guitarist best known for his stints with Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, became a defense consultant in the late 1980s.
• The Bee Gees also wrote several songs for other artists, most notably "Islands in the Stream" by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.
• Tony Bennett was also a painter. Some of his works are displayed in San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel.
• Leonard Bernstein's Candide and Mass contain minor lyrical contributions from Dorothy Parker and Paul Simon, respectively. Bernstein spent most of his career conducting symphony orchestras, but many people remember him mainly as the composer of West Side Story.
• Victor Borge owned a large chicken farm in New England and was one of the major promoters of the Cornish game hen in the United States.
• Aleksander Borodin, the Russian 19th-century composer most famous for his opera Prince Igor, was also a notable chemist.
• Johannes Brahms is almost synonymous with 19th century German Romanticism, and his compositions are among the most frequently performed and recorded of any western classical composer, but he also collaborated with music historian and publisher Friedrich Chrysander on what remains one of the most widely-used editions of the complete keyboard works of French Baroque composer François Couperin (whose music Brahms was instrumental in popularising after a century and a half of relative neglect).
• John Cage, 20th-century composer known for his avant-garde works, was also an amateur mycologist (botanist specializing in mushrooms).
• Nick Carr, one of the regular composers for SpongeBob SquarePants, was involved a lot with Saban Productions in the 1980s-1990s, working as a music editor on Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Beverly Hills Teens, C.O.P.S. (Animated Series) and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! and as a music engineer for She-Ra: Princess of Power.
• Mary Chapin Carpenter usually only wrote for herself, but she also penned Wynonna's 1994 hit "Girls with Guitars".
• Ed Cobb was a bandmate of Glen Larson (as mentioned above) in The Four Preps, but he also did work in The '60s as a songwriter and Record Producer, often doing music that was far afield from the Preps' pop vocal style. He wrote and produced the Garage Rock classic "Dirty Water" by The Standells, and wrote and produced the original Soul version of "Tainted Love" by Gloria Jones, long before Soft Cell turned it into a synthpop hit.
• Stewart Copeland of The Police composed music for the original Spyro trilogy, one piece of which was also used as the theme song to The Amanda Show. He also has scored films and written operas.
• cosMo, infamous for Vocaloid songs with singing that would wear out most human voices quickly, also makes non-Vocaloid songs for BEMANI games, including the infamous SOUND VOLTEX boss song "For UltraPlayers".
• David Allan Coe, a country singer best known among mainstream audiences for "You Never Even Called Me by My Name" and "The Ride" (as well as the writer of Johnny Paycheck's "Take This Job and Shove It"), also did a couple of dirty comedy albums in 1978 and 1982.
• Alberto Contini of extreme metal band Bulldozer went on to become a huge figure in the Eurobeat and J-Pop genres. He has worked with Dave Rodgers multiple times (including making multiple songs for Super Eurobeat compilations) and has produced tracks for the Super Eurobeat series as well.
• IOSYS is best known for their Touhou Project arranges, but they make many original songs as well, and have made a few songs for BEMANI games and anime such as Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel and Penguin Musume.
• Jill Colucci, writer of "I'm Gonna Be Somebody" and "Anymore" by Travis Tritt and "No One Else on Earth" by Wynonna, also co-wrote and sang "The Funny Things You Do", the original theme to America's Funniest Home Videos.
• Alexander Courage, whose best-remembered composition is the Theme Tune for Star Trek: The Original Series, had worked as an orchestrator on MGM musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun, The Band Wagon and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
• Sonny Curtis, best known for "I Fought the Law" with The Crickets, also wrote the theme song for The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
• Chip Davis, the mastermind behind Mannheim Steamroller, started out writing commercial jingles, then writing and producing the work of C. W. McCall (see below), using the same musicians who worked on the early Mannheim Steamroller albums.
• A prolific composer of Mormon-themed music, Lex De Azevedo, produced the 1967 Garage Rock classic "Nobody But Me" by The Human Beinz.
• B.G. "Buddy" DeSylva was one of Broadway's top lyricists in the 1920s, following a steady partnership with George Gershwin with an even more profitable team-up with Lew Brown and Ray Henderson. However, he gave up songwriting after the early 1930s and worked from then on mainly as a movie producer at Fox Film/20th Century Fox (for which he produced five Shirley Temple movies) and later Paramount, though he also returned to Broadway to produce a few musicals in 1939—40 and co-founded Capitol Records.
• Devo is best known for "Whip It" and their "energy dome" hats. However, most people have heard a few works by lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh: all of the music on Rugrats, most Wes Anderson movies, and even the jingle from the "Get A Mac" commercials. Several members of Devo have been composing under the company Mutato Muzika since the mid-90's; Mutato Muzika is best known as the musical talent behind the Naughty Dog Crash Bandicoot series.
• Before launching his immensely successful music career, Neil Diamond was a member of the NYU fencing team that won an NCAA title in 1960.
• Howard Dietz was a songwriter who often worked with Arthur Schwartz, and many of their songs were featured in the Jukebox Musical movie The Band Wagon. But before he started writing songs for musicals, as a Hollywood advertising man he created the world-famous trademark of Leo the Lion. No wonder Dietz revised the lyrics of "Triplets" for the movie The Band Wagon to include the line "MGM has got a Leo." And on the subject of The Band Wagon, the Private Eye Monologue was written by Alan Jay Lerner, of all people.
• Pino Donaggio is now considered a master of Horror film scores, but she tarted off as a classically-trained violinist, then became a much-loved pop singer in Italy, best-known for "Io che non vivo (senza te)", the original Italian version of "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me".
• During his long break from making music, Jason Donovan sang two tracks from one of Cass And Slide's albums, one of them being a Limited Lyrics Song.
  • He also voice acted, voicing characters in the Buzz video games, Animals United, and Boj, alongside others.
  • According to a comment here, he starred in a few Australian magazine ads for either Kmart or Target^note Kmart Australia has been completely independent from the American company since 1978. Target Australia has never had any corporate relation to Target Corporation in the US. (it is unknown which one) in 1984(?), prior to having his Star-Making Role in Neighbours.
  • According to what he said in his autobiography, he also once tried scripwriting, pitching an idea that was based on his life as a popstar and his experience the dark side of fame. Wonder how that'll turn out on screen...
• Cameron Duddy has directed several of Bruno Mars' music videos. He's also a musician himself, and plays bass in the Country Music band Midland.
• Bob Dylan once covered a cheesy Christmas song called “Must Be Santa”. No, really. It's as hilarious as it sounds.
• Sure, you've heard "Hotel California" and "Take It Easy" dozens of times. But did you know that the Eagles also did the theme song from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978)? Yep, that's "Journey of the Sorcerer", from the album One of These Nights, the same album that gave us "Lyin' Eyes".
• Elio, the leader of the Italian rock band Elio e le Storie Tese, not only is the lead singer and sometimes guitarist/bassist of the group; he also has a conservatory degree in transverse flute, is an electronic engineer, and a television and theatre actor as well as a voice actor (having voiced for a while Butthead for the Italian dubbing of Beavis And Butthead, among other stuff). He's also an avid baseball player, which in the soccer-obsessed Italy is quite a feat in itself. Meanwhile, his fellow band member Mangoni is an architect who also enjoyed a brief political career.
• Brian Eno, best known for his work in ambient music, also created the startup sound for Windows 95.
• Musician Yamantaka Eye, best known as the frontman of the avant-garde band Boredoms, has done many art, most famously designing the cover for Beck's Midnite Vultures.
• Doug Fieger, lead singer for The Knack (of "My Sharona" fame), went on to write the English-language lyrics for two songs in the very different genre of popular Brazilian music recorded by the vocal jazz quartet The Manhattan Transfer in 1987. The most notable of the two is "Soul Food to Go (Sina)" ("Sina" being the original Brazilian song covered).
• Singer-songwriter Amelia Fletcher, besides being effectively the mother and Trope Codifier of the twee pop genre, is also an economics professor noted for her work on competition theory, and her CBE is for services to economics.
• Peter Garrett, the lead singer of the band Midnight Oil, was elected to the Australian parliament and served as a cabinet minister.
• Mort Garson, eccentric Moog synthesizer pioneer and creator of several Cult Classic Electronic Music albums in The '60s and The '70s, was previously a straight pop music composer, and co-wrote the dreamy #1 hit "Our Day Will Come" for Ruby & The Romantics in 1963. After the Moog albums, he moved onto TV and film scoring.
• Leroy Gomez, lead singer of the 70s Latin-Disco band Santa Esmeralda ("Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood") played saxophone on the Elton John album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
• Steve Goodman's writing talents were so far afield of each other, you might not realize he wrote the iconic "City of New Orleans", the farcical "You Never Even Call Me by My Name", and the Chicago Cubs anthem "Go, Cubs, Go!"
• Lesley Gore, most famous as the 1960s teen singer who sang "It's My Party", "Judy's Turn To Cry", "Maybe I Know", "You Don't Own Me" and "Sunshine, Lollipops And Rainbows", emerged as a singer-songwriter in The '70s ^note though she had often contributed her own material to albums in her teen star days. She co-wrote the R&B soul ballad "Love Me By Name", which was covered by Dusty Springfield and became an album track on Quincy Jones' Sounds...And Stuff Like That album, and collaborated with her brother Michael on several songs from the 1980 film Fame. She also co-wrote the song "My Secret Love" for the Grace of My Heart soundtrack.
• Herbert Grönemeyer, one of the most famous German rock singers ever, also starred quite prominently in Das Boot.
• Swedish drummer Tobias "Tobben" Gustafsson is best known for working with Death Metal bands, particularly as a founding member of Vomitory. He also played drums on Amon Amarth's 2016 album Jomsviking after their previous drummer quit, and composed some DLC soundtracks for Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV.
• George Harrison (you know, of The Beatles) also was the executive producer for Monty Python's Life of Brian after the original producers ran off scared. He also had a cameo role in the movie. The production company he formed for this, HandMade Films, made other movies in The '80s.
• Bill Hayes was one of the first examples of a One-Hit Wonder in the rock era, scoring a #1 US hit with "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" in early 1955. He eventually moved into acting, most notably a long stint on Days of Our Lives, playing Doug Williams, half of Doug and Julie, often consider the Ur-Example of a Soap Opera Super Couple.
• Victor Herbert is best remembered as an operetta composer, but he also wrote a concerto for the cello (which he played) and put his musical theatre career on hold for a few years while leading the Pittsburgh Symphony.
• Frederick Hollander composed the Marlene Dietrich songs in The Blue Angel, and went on to write music for the Dr. Seuss songs in The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr. T.
• Nightwish keyboardist and composer Tuomas Holopainen made a solo Concept Album based on The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.
• Most people know Bruce Hornsby as the frontman of the soft rock band Bruce Hornsby and The Range, best known for their sole #1 hit "The Way It Is". But he also has an impressive resume, which includes being a touring keyboardist for The Grateful Dead and collaborating with several of the former members on their solo projects (including being a member of Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart's band The Other Ones), being a session keyboardist for the likes of Bonnie Raitt and Don Henley, and releasing collaborative albums with Ricky Skaggs. Hornsby also wrote "Jacob's Ladder", the third and final US #1 hit for Huey Lewis and the News.^note Which was intended for a Hornsby album that Lewis was producing, but Hornsby didn't like the version his band played. He then gave the song to Lewis, suggesting that The News play it the way his band did.
• Yes, the same James Newton Howard who played keyboards with Elton John on his albums and tours from 1975 through 1981 (he played with Elton during his 1980 Central Park concert, and scored Elton's Gnomeo & Juliet film project years later) and scored Elton's 1987 Live In Australia album went on to score Batman Begins, The Sixth Sense, The Hunger Games and The Prince of Tides. Through Hunger Games he scored a minor pop hit with "The Hanging Tree", which featured the vocals of the franchise's star, Jennifer Lawrence. Howard also did the memorable orchestral arrangements on several big pop hits ("Don't Go Breaking My Heart" and "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" in his Elton John days, plus Toto's "I Won't Hold You Back" in 1982).
• Charles Ives is famous now for his innovative musical works, but had the habit of not trying hard to have his stuff performed or published in his lifetime. He was known in his day for his innovative business practices as the head of an insurance company, where he wrote such books as Life Insurance with Relation to Inheritance Tax, often considered a cornerstone of modern estate planning.
• Fusion/smooth jazz keyboardist Bob James produced the first two solo albums by Kenny Loggins.
• Most people know Jean-Michel Jarre for his electronic music, starting with his 1976 hit album Oxygène, and maybe for his gigantic outdoor concerts. But there's even more to him:
  • Jarre has been a painter since he was a kid. Back then, he sold his paintings on Paris' famous flea market claiming his big brother had made them. He doesn't even have a big brother.
  • He once broke the 100-meter-dash record at the Sorbonne.
  • He can play the guitar. In the late 60s, his role model was mostly Hank Marvin of The Shadows (little did he know that both the band and Marvin as a soloist would later cover his own big hits, or that he'd even collab with Marvin). There's even a French film, Des garçons et des filles, in which Jarre can be seen playing with his band—and singing. Almost half a century later, during the Electronica tour, he brought the guitar back, but this time heavily distorted.
  • Not only did he compose the very first electronic ballet for the Paris Opera (Aor, 1971), but he was also the youngest composer ever featured at the Opera back then.
  • He made a movie soundtrack for Les granges brûlées in 1973. It was re-released on CD in 2013 after having been a sought-after rarity for decades. (His contributions to other films have been taken from his regular albums.)
  • He played a major part in the French music of The '70s. He composed songs and wrote lyrics for even more, catering to artists like Christophe (whose big and often-covered hit "Les mots bleus" got lyrics from Jarre), Françoise Hardy, Patrick Juvet or Gérard Lenorman. He sometimes even produced albums for them.
  • The alarm sound of the very first Swatch MusiCall generation was composed by Jarre. In fact, he included a sample directly from the watch in "Chronologie 4", "5" and "8".
  • He has been a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador since 1993. He played his 2006 Merzouga — Water For Life concert in Morocco in this role.
  • He was elected CISAC president in 2013.
• Sidemen for Joey Dee and the Starlighters ("The Peppermint Twist") included, at one time or another, Joe Pesci (on guitar!), Jimi Hendrix, Charles Neville of the Neville Brothers and members of The Young Rascals. Often the Ronettes would dance and sing back-up at the Peppermint Lounge.
• Elton John had, prior to making it as a singer-songwriter, worked as a session musician; he played piano on the Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", and sang on low-budget soundalike covers of famous songs, which were sold in local department stores; he was basically Drew's Famous before the fact. This is the source material for the unofficial covers album, "Elton John: Chartbusters Go Pop!" Some of these covers include "In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry, "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum and... "Young, Gifted and Black" by Aretha Franklin. He also came up with the story for and produced Gnomeo & Juliet.
• Before becoming the lead guitarist for tool, Adam Jones was a special effects artist for several feature films such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Predator 2, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Ghostbusters (1984), Dances with Wolves and Jurassic Park. Not as overtly surprising as many examples, as his talents are on display in several of the band's music videos. He also co-wrote the "X-Files/30 Days Of Night" crossover comic.
• Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk is a passionate bicycle racer, as was Florian Schneider to a somewhat less extreme extent. Hütter was actually invited to accompany the Tour de France, and he created the cover to the Tour de France album himself.
• Kris Kristofferson played several sports in college, including American football and Rugby Union and was later a Rhodes scholar and then a US Army Captain. Throughout his decades-long music career, he has also appeared in many films, including Convoy, the Blade trilogy and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
• Cyndi Lauper is also a Broadway composer; she won the Best Score Tony Award for Kinky Boots.
• Daliah Lavi is best-known in German-speaking countries for her German schlagers. She was also James Bond 007 (one of several in Casino Royale (1967)).
• Avril Lavigne is credited with co-writing hits for Kelly Clarkson ("Breakaway") and Miranda Cosgrove ("Dancing Crazy"). The former was nearly performed by Avril herself before she decided to give it to someone else instead.
• Pioneering female rapper MC Lyte has done work as a voiceover artist for clients such as the Starz network, Tide, AT&T, the National Urban League, and many others. Notably, she provided the voice for Tia of the Diva Starz toyline. She's also a DJ, having DJed at Michael Jordan's 50th Birthday Celebration and his 2013 wedding reception, as well as at Jay Leno's farewell party.
• Led Zeppelin, both collectively and individually.
  • While casual listeners may know them strictly for their rock songs, the band has done other songs (especially folk) that are so far removed from rock they cannot even be properly classified as the genre. Especially "That's the Way".
  • As for the individual members, Jimmy Page was a respected session guitarist and John Paul Jones a respected arranger in The '60s. They were instrumental in helping to create the Herman's Hermits sound, and worked on Donovan hits. Also, John Paul Jones nearly left Led Zeppelin to become... the choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral! John Bonham was, in fact, the drummer on Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man", and Jimmy Page played rhythm guitar on The Kinks' debut album. Page did not, however, play lead guitar on "You Really Got Me", according to interviews given to Dave Davies despite claims to the contrary.
• Fred "Too Slim" LaBour of Riders in the Sky was also one of the biggest proponents of the "Paul is Dead" theory; his contributions were him trying to spice up a review of Abbey Road he did for a college newspaper.
• John Lennon did some writing on the side, publishing two books of Lewis Carroll-inspired wordplay in his Beatles years (In His Own Write, A Spaniard in the Works) and contributing a sketch to the 1970s stage show Oh! Calcutta!.
• Till Lindemann, lead singer of Rammstein, is a certified fireworker. This shouldn't come as a surprise as he wouldn't even be allowed to pull of his on-stage pyrotechnics shenanigans otherwise.
  FEUER FREI!
• Before Udo Lindenberg became the "Panic President" in The '70s, he was the drummer of Klaus Doldinger's Passport. It's actually him who plays the drums on the Tatort theme. His switch from a drummer to a singer was a smooth one: In his early days as a German rock singer, he accompanied himself on the drums.
• Andrew Lloyd Webber, famous for such works as Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, and The Phantom of the Opera, also did the score for The Odessa File. Under the pseudonym Doctor Spin, he also remixed the Tetris theme.
• Best known for his New Year's Eve radio (and later TV) broadcasts that ran from 1929 until his death in 1977, big band leader Guy Lombardo was also a champion hydroplane racer. He finally quit in 1959 after a ferocious 250-mph crash while trying to break the world water speed record in the jet-powered Tempo Alcoa.
• The drummer/percussionist for Dream Theater, Mike Mangini, has said in an interview that he actually quit the music business for a short while...to pursue a career as a computer programmer working on the Patriot Missile system.
• Stephen Mason, the lead guitarist for Jars of Clay, qualified as a master barber in 2014 and now has his own shop in Nashville. He's also notable as Nashville SC superfan Soccer Moses, who appears at as many games as his schedule allows dressed as the Biblical figure and bearing a sign reading "LET MY PEOPLE GOAL". Story here.
• C. W. McCall of "Convoy" fame was technically a character played by Bill Fries, a copywriter for an Omaha, Nebraska ad agency, created for a series of bread commercials that became a Breakaway Advertisement, leading to McCall's moderately successful music career. After retiring the McCall persona, Fries moved to the small mountain town of Ouray, Colorado and served three terms as its mayor.
• David McCallum Sr. (father of the actor of the same name) was, for many years, the concertmaster (first chair of the first violin section) of the London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. He was also the leader of Mantovani's orchestra throughout the 1960s^note  When The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was at its peak, Mantovani joked "We can afford the father, but not the son.", was part of the orchestra that performed on The Beatles' songs "A Day in the Life" and "All You Need is Love", and gave Jimmy Page the idea to play his guitar with a cello bow during live performances of "Dazed and Confused".
• Yoshikazu Mera is a countertenor who has recorded Bach cantatas and other Baroque music with the Bach Collegium Japan. He also did the Princess Mononoke Theme Tune.
• Johnny Mathis was an accomplished athlete at Washington High School in San Francisco, competing in track and field (high jump and hurdle as his specialties) and basketball. He later attended San Francisco State College on a track scholarship, and is still considered one of the best all-around athletes the city has ever produced. He was discovered by a Columbia Records executive while singing at a San Francisco nightclub on weekends during his college years. Later, he was invited to try out for the 1956 US Olympic team in the high jump at the same time he was scheduled to make his first album recordings in New York City; on the advice of his father he chose the latter, and six decades later he's still performing.
• Glenn Medeiros, who had a handful of big hits as a teen heartthrob in The '80s ("Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You", "She Ain't Worth It") became an educator after his music career cooled down, and is currently the principal and president of the Saint Louis School, a very eminent Honolulu prep school
• John Morris, Mel Brooks' Associated Composer, was also the dance arranger for a number of musicals, including Peter Pan, Bells Are Ringing, Bye Bye Birdie, Mack & Mabel, and two flops on which Brooks worked as a librettist.
• Tommy Mottola went from being a manager to the president of Columbia Records, and was the discoverer/mentor/husband/Svengali/ex-husband of Mariah Carey, but before all that he attempted a singing career under the stage name T.D. Valentine. One of his songs, 1969's "Love Trap", gained a cult following on the British Northern Soul scene.
• Like Herbert Grönemeyer above, Marius Müller-Westernhagen started as an actor, too. For example, he played the lead role in Theo gegen den Rest der Welt.
• Modest Mussorgsky, most renowned as the composer of Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on Bald Mountain, spent most of his adult life employed by the Russian civil service.
• Carl Orff is undoubtedly most famous as the composer of Carmina Burana; his subsequent concert works and operas never came close to its lasting acclaim. However, one major effort of Orff's later years, never intended for concert performance, was the Schulwerk musical education program for children, whose materials have been loosely adapted into many languages.
• Brad Paisley is also an animator, and has used this skill in some of his own music videos.
• Basil Poledouris appeared as an extra in several episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series – he was a Redshirt in "Obsession", a Klingon in "Errand of Mercy", and an Ekosian trooper in "Patterns Of Force".
• Elvis Presley sang a lot of gospel. Listen to a satellite radio station that is all-Elvis, all-the-time and you will realize this. In fact, all three of Elvis' competitive Grammy wins were in the Gospel category. More generally, Elvis sang a lot of many different things. Besides rock 'n' roll and variety, he also sang gospel, yes, but also country, jazz, soul (listen to his Ray Charles covers), funk (If You Talk In Your Sleep), blues and many other genres. Many, many of Elvis' first singles would have Country on one side and R&B on the other, partially as a way to get white folks to listen to 'black' music.
• Music/Video game related, Turbo Lover of The Protomen (who voices Dr. Wily) has another band called Cheer Up, Charlie Daniels which can only be described as innocent, happy sounding rockabilly as opposed to Orwellian and villainous (albeit laced with Double Entendres). Female lead The Gambler (the voice of Emily, Light's love interest) and lead guitarist Sir Robert Bakker (who are married in real life) formed the center of the Nashville-based, dinosaur-centric band 'Happy Birthday Amy'. Before that, The Gambler and lead singer Panther were also in yet another band together. Not to mention fourth drummer The Reanimator and second guitarist Cobra T. Washington, who also perform as part of Nashville metal band 'Destroy Destroy Destroy'... The band is like a supergroup composed of members from all across the Nashville indie music scene, fighting in an all-out last-ditch effort to save music from itself.
• Queen provides several examples:
  • Guitarist Brian May is also an astrophysicist. At the Turn of the Millennium, he returned to his studies after a break and got his PhD. He was chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University in England from 2008 to 2013.
  • Bassist John Deacon is an electrical engineer who built an amplifier good enough for Brian to record with it.
  • Tim Staffell, the co-writer of 'Doing All Right', and the bassist for Brian May and Roger Taylor's earlier band Smile, went on to become a model maker for the first series of Thomas & Friends. Among his contributions are the faces for the engines, many of the human figures, at least one truck, and, most notably, the system which enabled the engines to 'puff'.
• Yes guitarist/keyboardist/singer Trevor Rabin, a member of their 1980s "YesWest" lineup who co-wrote their first and only number one hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart", went on to a career in film scoring, writing the scores to Remember the Titans, Snakes on a Plane, Con Air and Armageddon (1998).
• Gerry Rafferty, best known as the singer and guitarist from Stealers Wheel and for the defining "sexy sax" song "Baker Street", was formerly (during The '60s) in a folk music duo called The Humblebums. The other person in the group was Billy Connolly, who's better known as a comedian and actor.
• Sid Ramin did orchestrations for Broadway musicals such as West Side Story, Gypsy and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, usually working in collaboration with Irwin Kostal or Robert "Red" Ginzler. (Ramin, Kostal and Ginzler all worked as uncredited assistants to Don Walker on shows such as Wonderful Town and The Music Man.) He also composed the Theme Song for The Patty Duke Show, and the Top Ten Jingle that became "Music to Watch Girls By". Ramin's lyricist for the Patty Duke theme, Bob Wells, is better known for writing the words of "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On an Open Fire)". Two other classic Christmas songs were written by composers who went on to write classic TV themes: "Silver Bells" by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (Mister Ed), and "It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year", co-written by George Wyle (Gilligan's Island).
• Tapio Rautavaara, one of the most beloved singers in Finland, also won the Olympic gold in javelin at the 1948 London Olympics.
• Mike Reid, the country singer/songwriter known for Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" and Ronnie Milsap's "Stranger in My House" (which won him a Grammy), as well as his own #1 hit "Walk on Faith", has written several award-winning musicals. Oh, and he played defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals for five years.
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is one of the most celebrated Russian nationalist composers of the late 19th century and taught an entire generation of composers while employed by the St. Petersburg Conservatory. However, he was also an officer in the Russian Imperial Navy, and later became a civilian Inspector of Naval Bands, combining his musical and military careers.
• Mary Rodgers, like her father Richard, was once a composer for Broadway musicals, one of which was Once Upon a Mattress. Then she retired from musical theatre and wrote a book called Freaky Friday. Richard Rodgers, for his part, took a break from Broadway musicals along with top orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett to write the soundtrack for Victory at Sea.
• Kenny Rogers didn't only sing Country Music, he also sang Psychedelic Rock. Back in the late 60s, he had a band named First Edition. Their song "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" appears in the famous Disney Acid Sequence in The Big Lebowski.
• The classic hit "Come On a-My House" was written by two cousins who were much better known for their other work: Pulitzer-winning writer William Saroyan and Chipmunks creator (and the original David Seville) Ross Bagdasarian. In fact, a character (Miss Miller) actually sings the tune in The Chipmunk Adventure.
• Boston founder and frontman Tom Scholz is a qualified engineer (with bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT) who worked as a senior designer for Polaroid while recording his first demos. He also started his own company, Scholz Research & Development, for designing and manufacturing electronic music equipment.
• Paul Shaffer, besides being the longtime bandleader/sidekick for David Letterman, was a mainstay during the first five seasons of Saturday Night Live as musician and featured player in sketches which also got him a membership in the Blues Brothers Band, starred in a short-lived 1977 sitcom called A Year at The Top, played Artie Fufkin ^note Polymer Records in This is Spın̈al Tap, and co-wrote the campy dance anthem "It's Raining Men".
• Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park helped compose the mnemonics for Mastercard's audio branding.
• Slash, musician and songwriter of Guns N' Roses, is a pinball player and collector, who owned over twenty tables at one point. He designed a Guns N' Roses pinball game (produced by Data East) because he realized there hadn't been a music-based table in a while and decided to remedy that. A decade and a half later, he went to Jersey Jack Pinball to help design another one.
• Stephen Sondheim was a writer for the series Topper. He wrote the screenplay to The Last of Sheila with Anthony Perkins, and wrote the non-musical play Getting Away With Murder with George Furth.
• Yoko Shimomura is known for composing the awesome soundtracks of games series like Kingdom Hearts and the Mario & Luigi games, as well as Live A Live and the first Parasite Eve game. However, most people don't know that she also composed most of the Street Fighter II soundtrack (Sagat's theme and the Round Start and New Challenge jingles were composed by Isao Abe). This is a double subversion though, as while both the game and its soundtrack are memorable, they are usually not associated with Yoko Shimomura.
• Jeremy Soule - best known for his work on the soundtracks for Baldur's Gate, The Elder Scrolls, Knights of the Old Republic, Guild Wars and Secret of Evermore also did the music for many Humongous Entertainment games, including Putt-Putt, Freddi Fish, and Pajama Sam, as well as the Harry Potter licensed games.
• Eric Stefani, the keyboardist for No Doubt, used to be an animator working on shows like The Simpsons, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rugrats, and Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.
• Gwen Stefani of No Doubt used the band's hiatus to embark on a brief but noteworthy career as a pop diva, including hits such as "Hollaback Girl" and "The Sweet Escape".
• While Jellyfish never really penetrated the mainstream consciousness, lead singer Andy Sturmer certainly has. He helped Puffy AmiYumi break into the American market by acting as their manager and composed the theme song for Teen Titans (2003). The band itself also penned and performed an original song for an obscure Super Mario Bros. compilation album officially released by Nintendo in 1991. Keyboardist Roger Manning has also had a prolific career as a session musician, recording and touring with artists such as Beck, Johnny Cash, blink-182, Cheap Trick, Air, Morrissey, and The Go-Go's, to name a few. He was also the co-founder of the infamous novelty duo The Moog Cookbook, which did Moog synthesizer-based instrumental renditions of popular songs.
• Sir Arthur Sullivan would be disappointed to learn that he's now mostly known as "Gilbert and" (although probably not surprised, as it had already started in his lifetime). He wanted to be known more for his serious music and wrote a large number of hymns including "Onward, Christian Soldiers".
• Tally Hall, a group known for having dark humor in their music, performed the songs in the children's cartoon Happy Monster Band.
• Tatsh of BEMANI fame, well-known for songs such as "Xepher" and "RED ZONE" (the latter being a collaboration with NAOKI) is known better by Cytus fans as Persona. He also produces songs for other rhythm games, most notably Groove Coaster and Taiko no Tatsujin where he occasionally uses the 世阿弥 (zeami, officially romanized as "Xeami") handle, and produces Touhou Project arrangements under the circle name of TatshMusicCircle.
• Torfrock not only provided the title song for Werner - Beinhart!, but their two main singers also became voice actors in all Werner films. Klaus Büchner is Werner's voice, and Raymond Voß lent his to the rocker president Dieter and (except for Volles Rooäää! in which both characters featured too prominently) the construction tycoon Günter Günzelsen. A bit earlier, Büchner was one half of the duo Klaus & Klaus during Torfrock's hiatus in The '80s.
• Dan Truman of the band Diamond Rio ("Meet in the Middle", "One More Day") has also worked in a side project that records music for missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which he is a member.
• U2's Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. recorded a cover of the Mission: Impossible theme for the first movie.
• UndreamedPanic, an electronic musician from the Brony fandom, is also the creator of the horror game Siren Head Southpoint.
• One of the first credits for Country Music artist Keith Urban was singing backup on a live album... by INXS. He also had a cameo in the video for Alan Jackson's 1994 song "Summertime Blues", wrote a few songs (including one for Toby Keith), and played guitar on several artists' albums. He did one album in 1997 as one-third of The Ranch, and one of his last "he also did" gigs was playing guitar on Garth Brooks' Double Live, recorded at Central Park in 1998.
• Classical Music violinist Vanessa-Mae competed in the 2014 Winter Olympics as an Alpine skier for Thailand under the name Vanessa Vanakorn (controversially, since the International Skiing Federation accused her and the Thai Olympic Committee of fixing competitions so she could qualify, but she later sued the federation for defamation and got an out-of-court settlement).
• Voltaire is most well known for his gallows-humor music, but prior to becoming a musician in the late 1990s, he was an award-winning stop-motion animator who did commercials for IKEA, Wendy's, MTV, Nickelodeon and even a Super Bowl commercial for Budweiser. He's also published two non-fiction books and three graphic novels, as well as being a college professor at the School of Visual Arts (New York), and designing toys.
• Rick Wakeman is best known as the blisteringly fast and hyper-technical organist, synth player and arranger for an earlier lineup of Yes, but he also contributed the memorable classical piano part to Cat Stevens' feel-good gospel-pop cover of "Morning Has Broken", a fact which has no doubt caused many a Yes fan an "a-ha!" moment upon learning it's him. He also played the piano and synthesizer parts on "Sabbra Cadabra" by Black Sabbath; the story goes that Yes were recording Tales from Topographic Oceans in the same studio, and Wakeman was bored due to the recording process taking so long, so he started hanging out with Black Sabbath in the other studio. The band invited him to play on "Sabbra Cadabra", and Wakeman refused to be paid for his work, so they compensated him with beer instead.
  • Wakeman had a career as a session musician before joining Yes, most notable of which was his work with David Bowie, particularly the Mellotron on "Space Oddity" and the piano for "Life on Mars".
• Mike Watt, best known as the bassist for the punk rock group Minutemen, has done a lot of session work with other artists - Mostly he's worked with groups in the punk or Alternative Rock vein, but more surprisingly he played on several songs on Kelly Clarkson's My December.
• Cherielynn Westrich, keyboardist for The Rentals—the Solo Side Project band for Matt Sharp when he was Weezer's bassist that scored an alt-rock hit in 1995 with "Friends of P."—got involved with car building and customizing after her music career, and in 2020 was elected to the Iowa state legislature as a conservative Republican.
• Jack White is also an upholsterer. And since this is Jack White we're talking about, he's hidden vinyl records in at least some of the furniture he's upholstered. It took until 2014 for people to start finding them.
• Hank Williams III is a part of a deep Country Music legacy... and he also plays Hardcore Punk and Death Metal from time to time. He's made his punk influences blatantly obvious by using a modified Black Flag logo, but his albums usually fell under the line of Country Music, until his label put out his Country Metal album Hillbilly Joker without his permission, not even bothering to advertise the fact that it was a metal album. His independently-released metal albums under his own name escaped the confusion, as did his band Assjack.
• John Williams, before becoming a film composer, played the piano in Henry Mancini's band, including the famous Peter Gunn riff.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic compiled an album of Desi Arnaz's best musical numbers from I Love Lucy (Babalu Music) and has directed a number of music videos, both his own and others. He also has a degree in architecture. He's even a voice actor, providing voices for characters such as Cheese Sandwich in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Milo in Milo Murphy's Law, Wreck-Gar in Transformers: Animated, and Darkseid in Teen Titans Go!.
• Yuuhei Satellite is well-known amongst Touhou Project fans for their Touhou arranges. Two of their members, Iceon and senya, also provide music for the BEMANI series, the former under his "Starving Trancer" and "Xceon" aliases, and the latter under her real name, Mayumi Morinaga.
• Hans Zimmer, composer for Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, among many more films, also produced the single "The History of the World (Part 1)" by The Damned. He was credited for "overproducing" it in the original liner notes. In the early 1980s he worked with The Buggles and appears in their video for "Video Killed the Radio Star". He also wrote the theme tune for the 1980s quiz show Going for Gold.
• ZZ Top played the saxophones on "She Loves My Automobile" themselves.

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