As David St Hubbins suggests in Spinal Tap, many rock stars truly believe that there is a “fine line between stupid and clever.” Of course we all know that’s nonsense and most rock stars are in fact complete numpties. But among the ignorance and stupidity of rock and pop there are a few beacons of intelligence that we think deserve some praise. In our top ten we’ve got an airline pilot, professors, a zoologist, even a big bang theorist as well as musical academics who returned to university to hone their skills. Sit back, pull up an academic journal and feast your brain cells on Neon Filler’s top ten brainboxes of rock and pop.
1. Greg Graffin, Bad Religion
The self proclaimed ‘Punk Professor’ Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin has managed to effortlessly combine his successful academic career with being an icon of the US punk scene for the last 30 years. A double major in anthropology and geology, a masters degree in geology and a PHD in zoology are just some of his credits for Graffin, who is also professor of life sciences at UCLA and recipient of Harvard Secular Society’s 2008 “Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism”. At the ceremony he even played some acoustic versions of Bad Religion songs. Among his latest projects is a book called Anarchy Evolution, which is due out this year.
2. Brian Cox, D:Ream.
Things certainly got better for Brian Cox, keyboardist for D:Ream. After the 1990s dance pop act split and their hit ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ was adopted as an election tune by the Labour Party in the UK in 1997, Cox perused a successful career as a physicist. His academic credits include a first class honours degree in physics from the University of Manchester. He was later awarded his PhD in high-energy particle physics from the same university. Having achieved a small amount of pop stardom and being happy in the spotlight Cox is in big demand when TV and radio needs a friendly egg-head to explain the latest scientific trend. Topics he has presented programmes on include The Hadron Collider and The Big Bang.
3. Brian May, Queen
Few eggheads are as hairy or prolific as Queen guitarist Brian May, who has developed a new career as a respected astro-physicist. After achieving a degree in physics and maths before Queen became big he had to cut short his PhD at Imperial College London in the 1970s to concentrate on his squealing solo work with the band. In recent years he has returned to academia, co-authoring the book, Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe, with Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott and finally completing his PhD thesis in astrophysics in 2007, with the Flaming Lips-esque title – A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud. Now Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University May has the rare honour of having an asteroid named after him, the Asteroid 52665 Brianmay.
4. Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machines securing of the Christmas number one slot last year was a plot of Machiavellian genius as the band was marketed as the perfect antidote to Simon Cowell’s TV talent show production line of dross. Given the political intelligence needed to engineer the overthrow of Black Prince Cowell it is perhaps no surprise to discover that guitarist Tom Morello is quite the political egg-head, having gained a political science degree from Harvard.
5. Milo Aukerman, The Descendents
As lead singer with The Descendents the brain power of Aukerman even made it into the title of the 1980s California punk band’s first album Milo Goes to College. The Descendents had to take a number of breaks to fit in Aukerman’s sideline in scientific research, which included completing his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin.
6. Owen Pallett
Owen Pallett’s braincells are what got us thinking about this list. His album Heartland this year is a work of musical genius, perhaps unsurprisingly given that Pallett has a degree in composition from the University of Toronto and is something of a musical prodigy. Learning violin as a toddler he composed his first music at 13 and composed two operas while at university.
7. Bruce Dickinson, Iron Maiden
According to The Economist’s Intelligent Life supplement Dickinson is one of the rarest egg-heads around, a polymath, in that he is an expert in many, many areas. Take a look at his CV and it is hard to argue with this assessment. As well as being an icon of heavy metal, he is a trained commercial pilot, a skilled fencer (swords that is, not the garden variety) and has even presented a TV programme about spontaneous human combustion.
8. Blur’s Dave Rowntree
Since Blur split Rowntree has been spending his time immersed in books. He is training to be a solicitor and works for a criminal law firm in East London. But it is not just legal egg-headery that has placed Rowntree on our list. He has a keen interest in science and computers, becoming involved with fellow Blur member Alex James in the Beagle 2 Mission to Mars and has even written a device driver for the Linux operating system – whatever the hell that means. He also speaks regularly on creative industry and new media policies and legal issues.
9. Sam Beam, Iron and Wine
It is a surprise that any of his students learned anything given the soft voice of Iron and Wine frontman Sam Beam, who was at one time a professor of cinematography at the University of Miami.
10. John Renbourne
Folk guitar legend Renbourne took some time out in the mid 1980s to graduate in music composition from Dartington college of Arts, now part of University College Falmouth, in the west of England. During his time there he had to gain special permission to alter the date of his second year exams, as the original date clashed with his gig with Doc Watson at Carnegie Hall. Surely this is the most creative excuse for ducking out of a test ever given.
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