`Celebrities' or companies that are into Prog.

[LEG-art]

Howard Stern- (American shock jock), A long time ago, I heard that he was into King Crimson and PFM.
Rick Moranis- (Honey I Shrunk the Kids/Ghostbusters), is/was a prog fan and mentions Genesis' Selling England By the Pound.
Dennis Miller- (Comedian), did a Peter Gabriel/Water of the Skies joke/reference on his old HBO talk show
CBS radio news in NYC, plays a lot of more commercial PG, Genesis, ELP, and Yes clips as background music to relevant news.
Jon Huntsman Jr. (American politician and 16th governor of Utah), likes progressive rock and played keyboards during high school in the band Wizard. On July 30, 2007, he signed a proclamation creating "Dream
Theater Day" for the state of Utah.

Does anyone know any `people in the public eye' that are into Prog?

[Udi Koomran]

Steve Davis

[Man In The Mountain]

Howard Stern- A long time ago, I heard that he was into King Crimson and PFM.

Yes, many years ago he got together with a bunch of guys from his crew that could play, and they all did a cover of Court of The Crimson King, which was Howard's idea.

[progguy]

Yes, many years ago he got together with a bunch of guys from his crew that could play, and they all did a cover of Court of The Crimson King, which was Howard's idea.

Stern also sang along with it when he interviewed ELP in the early 90s. Hilarious. And it was a fairly good interview, all things considered; unlike Regis and Kathy Lee and Arsenio Hall, Stern had some knowledge of, and appreciation for, the music of his guests.

[Bucka001]

When I co-wrote the VdGG book I interviewed major VdGG fans such as Anthony Minghella (Academy Award winning director of The English Patient), Jonathan Demme (Academy Award winning director of Silence of the Lambs), Ian Rankin (famous British novelist), Michel Faber (novelist, NY Times bestseller), and others I can't think of off the top of my head! All of them were VdGG fanatics, though.

[devoidzer0]

Michael Gelman, the producer of Live With Kelly and Michael (previously Regis and Kelly and before that Regis and Kathy Lee) is a card carrying prog fan. He's booked members of Yes (Howe and Bruford) and all of ELP as guests on the show in the late '80s/early '90s (the appearances have been posted here before and are on YouTube).

[GuitarGeek]

The creators of The Venture Brothers appear to be at least conversant about progressive rock. Everyone jumps up and down about the scene where Rusty introduces Dean to progressive rock (warning him to stay away from the King Crimson records and to be careful air drumming along to Bill Bruford's playing), but it goes way beyond that one bit.

In the episode where we saw flashbacks to Rusty's college days with Pete White, Baron Undherbeit and Mike Suriyama, there's a poster on the wall of Rusty's dorm room that looks suspiciously like the cover of Gong's You album (there's also one that parodies the Yes Dean logo, but with it spelled as "Yea", instead of Yes).

David Bowie is an actual character on the show (though he refuses to do his own voice), I suppose most of his career might not be considered "prog", but one episode had what appeared to be a very specific allusion to the Berlin trilogy of albums (with Brock telling Bowie that "I oughta kill you just for that stunt you pulled in Berlin"), so that's at least "art rock". And there's been allusions to Space Oddity, Tin Machine, Station To Station, and even Bowie's acting career (with Dean referring to him as "the man from Labyrinth").

Eno also appears in one episode, which also used "here come the warm jets" as a line of dialog.

Reportedly, Dean Venture is named after Roger Dean.

(though apart from the apparent Gong poster, my favorite is still when Dr. Girlfriend is kidnapped by Iggy Pop and Klaus Nomi. She says "I'm sick of being man handled by your stooges!". Klaus replies, "But I wasn't in The Stooges!").

[mnprogger]

Dean Norris (Breaking Bad) - Kevin Gilbert fan
Michael Chiklis (The Shield) - prog fan
Amy Poehler (SNL/Parks and Rec)- Rush fan
Maggie Lawson (Psych) - Muse fan
Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) - Muse fan
Adam Sandler (SNL/movies)- prog fan
Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park) - prog fans

[LEG-art]

Chris Jericho (WWE Wrestler), is a Dream Theater fan.

[bill g]

Roseanne Arquette (actress) - loves older Genesis and Anthony Phillips, and did some really nice sleeve notes for the remaster of 'Geese & The Ghost', even naming her favorite moment on the album (which was in G&TG pt 2)

Meryl Streep (actress) - supposedly loves Sally Oldfield.

Phil Collins (actor) - once listed Jon Anderson among his favorite songwriters, and reportedly once tried to drum along with a show by prog band 'The Musical Box'

[Yanks2014]

Roseanne Arquette (actress) - loves older Genesis and Anthony Phillips, and did some really nice sleeve notes for the remaster of 'Geese & The Ghost', even naming her favorite moment on the album (which was in G&TG pt 2)

You forgot to mention that she did the very prog thing of dating Peter Gabriel.

[Banquo]

[JIF]

Chris Jericho (WWE Wrestler), is a Dream Theater fan.

So, that explains how he appeared on Systematic Chaos.

[DrGoon]

Jeremy Clarkson (presenter, Top Gear) - fan of Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, Camel, ELP...
Matthew Wright (TV presenter) - fan of Hawkwind (and sang with them)

[BravadoNJ]

Howard Stern also told Ian Anderson that he saw them live on the TAAB tour.

[JKL2000]

Supposedly pretty much everyone over at the Anusol plant is pretty big into prog.

[bRETT]

Comedian Richard Lewis -- big Procol Harum fan.

[mnprogger]

Tim Duncan (NBA player) - is a Dream Theater fan
Mike Piazza (ex-Major League Baseball player) - is a Dream Theater fan

[Banquo]

Mike Piazza (ex-Major League Baseball player) - is a Dream Theater fan

Aw man... and I used to think that Piazza was cool.

[JIF]

Aw man... and I used to think that Piazza was cool.

He is cool. It's not cool to say Dream Theater is not cool on a prog site.

[Clepthema]

Sherman Hemsley (believe it or not) was a Yes fan!

[JIF]

Sherman Hemsley (believe it or not) was a Yes fan!

We do believe it, because someone started a thread about Sherman being a big prog fan. It was started when he died.

[Clepthema]

We do believe it, because someone started a thread about Sherman being a big prog fan. It was started when he died.

[Digital_Man]

Sherman Hemsley is probably the most documented and well known case of a celebrity prog fan.

Steven Colbert apparently is a Rush fan and has had them on his show. He might like other prog too . I'm not sure.

The OP mentioned Dennis Miller. I remember a long time ago watching his short lived late night show(before his HBO show) where he mentioned VDGG and Peter Hammill. I had just heard of VDGG and PH not too long before that and was pretty stunned when he mentioned that. He also mentioned Brian Eno's "here come the warm jets" album. He mentioned the "p" word too. This was around 91/92.

Around the same time as the Dennis Miller thing, Whoopi Goldberg had her own talk show and I remember her mentioning Jethro Tull. NOt sure if she is really a fan or not though.


As for companies, I have to admit I'm drawing a blank. Usually the only time I hear about prog is if I'm on here or some other prog site or at a prog show.

[GuitarGeek]

Sherman Hemsley is probably the most documented and well known case of a celebrity prog fan.
.

I was looking earlier this evening for photos of Nektar from the 70's. Could only find a few press photos (I was actually looking for concert pictures), but Google did turn up a picture of Sherman in a Nektar t-shirt. Looked like it must have been from the late 70's.

I believe there's also supposed to be a TV talk show appearance he did, I think on either Mike Douglas or Merv Griffin, where he apparently talked about Gentle Giant, I think it is, and even did a bit of a silly dance to one of their songs. Unfortunately, I've never seen this footage.

Talking about Rush, there was a gag on Freaks And Geeks, in one episode where the Peart disciple/drummer kid had an argument with his dad, and sort of "invited himself" to stay at the one girl's house (the cute brunette he has the hots for). So there's a scene where he's listening to Tom Sawyer, really really loudly, and the girl's father (played by Joe Flaherty, who I believe is actually friends with the members of Rush) storms in, and after chastising the kid for playing music so loudly during "quiet hour", he then tells him that "the drummer you listening to sucks!". The kid sputters out, "B-b-but that's Neil Peart!!!!", and the father says "Well, Neil Peart couldn't drum his way out of a wet paper sack". The father then introduces the kid to jazz drummers, like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. So apparently, between Flaherty and the writers of the show, they knew how to drop in a Rush allusion and sort of poke fun at Neil's disciples at the same time!

(Oh, and there's other Rush allusions on the show too, I believe there's one episode where the kid is drumming along, badly, to Spirit Of Radio, I think it is, and another when he's talking about his drumkit and he says "Two more pieces, and it'll be as big as Neil Peart's" or something like that)