STEELY Dan’s Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter became a missile defence expert after quitting fame.
He was a guitarist in the American jazz rock band before famously quitting in 1974 to join the Doobie Brothers, after learning Walter Becker and Donald Fagen planned on kicking him out of Steely Dan anyway.
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A decade later Baxter made a huge pivot away from music – after becoming an avid reader of Aviation Week magazine.
And he ended up blowing the minds of government officials by writing a report on how to improve missile defence systems.
The rock star learned the science all on his own and came up with a mind-boggling theory that went on to be tested and put into use in the military in the eighties.
The success of his five page report kicked off a long and successful career as a defence consultant.
The Pentagon began hiring him out, and he specialised in leading enemy forces in war games.
He quickly earned a reputation for his terrorist-style tactics.
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Commenting on his bizarre talent, he once said: “I’m told I make a very good bad guy.”
Explaining how he came up with his ideas, the brainbox continued: “We thought turntables were for playing records until rappers began to use them as instruments, and we thought airplanes were for carrying passengers until terrorists realized they could be used as missiles.
“My big thing is to look at existing technologies and try to see other ways they can be used, which happens in music all the time and happens to be what terrorists are incredibly good at.”
Steely Dan’s name came from William Burroughs’s drug-addled novel Naked Lunch.
The group first parted ways in the eighties and later reformed to release comeback record Two Against Nature in 2000. and final album Everything Must Go three years later.
The band later reformed to release comeback record Two Against Nature in 2000 and final album Everything Must Go three years later.
Co-founder Walter Becker died aged 67 in 2017.
Walter released solo albums 11 Tracks of Whack in the Nineties before 2008’s Circus Money, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with lead singer Donald Fagen.
Jim Hodder died in 1990 aged 42, before releasing debut album Can’t Buy a Thrill.
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