Ongoing History Daily: Interesting career alterations

It’s interesting how some very successful mainstream musicians started out doing something very different before changing directions.

• Max Martin, the producer, was a Swedish metal band before he discovered he was very good at writing and producing gigantic pop hits.
• Jack Antonoff was a very indie rock sort of guy with the bands Fun and Bleachers before he starting working for The Chicks and Taylor Swift.
• To a lesser degree, Pat Smear used to be an a very intense punk band called The Germs before he was hired as a touring guitarist with Nirvana and then a full-time member of the Foo Fighters.
• The same with the Foos’ bass player Nate Mandel. He was in a string of super-heavy hardcore bands before he landed with the emo-ish Sunny Day Real Estate. That gig then transitioned into his membership in the Foo Fighters.

Just because you start off in one genre doesn’t mean you have to stay there for the rest of your career