Queen guitarist and songwriter Brian May, who gave up studying the stars to become one, will soon complete his doctorate in astrophysics.
May, 60, will submit a thesis titled Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud next week at Imperial College London.
Here is the story. Thanks to Daniel Klein for the pointer. It’s long been my view that most rock stars are very very smart people.
Addendum: Read Dubner on smart rock stars.
Except drummers. Smart rock stars like Jagger, Townshend, and Bowie can go on and on telling stories about drummers they’ve known.
Yeah, rock stars have found a way to have boatloads of money and attractive women. They certainly would not be the first people I thought of when asked to name idiots.
Who is the picture of in the link “very very smart people”?
Not to disparage May, who is one of my all-time favorite guitarists, but since when does getting a doctorate (even one in astrophysics) indicate high intelligence?
Bergamot, what a pompous comment! Acknowledge May and get over it!
Dexter Holland of “The Offspring” was on his way to a PhD in molecular biology at USC when his band really began to take off.
He’s the guy that twirled his head around with the long braids in their first big hit “You gotta keep ‘em separated.” Or something like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Holland
This is a nice place. Punk rock stars and Arthur Jensen all in the same thread.
Tyler: Apparantly you consider Roger McQuinn very smart. Why is that?
Person perhaps the exception that proves the rule, but Jessica Simpson is by no means bright (her father is probably not too dumb though).
I’ve met and talked to Brian May quite a bit, shortly after the height of Queen’s popularity (see below). He always seemed unusually bright to me.
FWIW #1: When I lived in London in the early 80s, I had a friend who was into stereoscopic photography. You just didn’t go down to the corner and buy that equipment at the time (although I’m sure you can get it on E-Bay today). Instead, there was a club. My friend was a member (and I used to tag along) and so was Brian May.
FWIW #2: Tyler may be the only one out there to appreciate this: I have a stereoscopic photo print of me inside of Samaras’ “Mirrored Room”, and it is one of the freakiest photos you will ever see (http://www.albrightknox.org/ArtStart/art/Samaras.jpg).
Some rock stars tend to have a combination of brilliance and very short attention horizons that make them disastrous decisionmakers. Joe Strummer of The Clash was a classic example, as the new biography of him attests. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was very quick but had no powers of logic.
Of course, taking lots of drugs doesn’t help.
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