Here are three brand spanking new music videos we shot with Joe DeGeorge in the majestic SLoS studios. Enjoy!

“Felix Felicis”

“The Bicycle Song”

“The Scientist Song”

Joe on our set in his NASA gear Today’s post is from our rocker/scientist Joe DeGeorge.

First of all, this is an amazing project. I think that getting to know scientists as human beings and hearing them talk like regular people brings out the passion behind their scientific work. Growing up, I was always struck by the characters of fictitious scientists like Doc Brown from “Back to the Future,” “Beakman,” and some of the characters from Isaac Asimov’s books. These eccentric but completely logical characters were, subconsciously, a big part of my initial gravitation toward science. But I didn’t know very much about the personal lives of any real scientists. Here at SLoS you get to know real scientists, and I think that is valuable, especially if you’re a young person who is just beginning to become fascinated with science.

I was shocked when SLoS contacted me because it sounded like they were interviewing a bunch of accomplished scientists with cool hobbies. I am by no means an accomplished scientist, and sometimes it feels like science is more like my hobby since I spend a bunch of money to study it. And more people know me from my band about Harry Potter than from my scientific work. Still, I told my professor about the interview, and he said it seemed worthwhile to take a day off from the lab. Within weeks, I was on a train headed to NYC for the interview.

Joe rocks our set. (Photo by Laura Willcox) We were pretty excited when Joe DeGeorge came to our set. We’d met some other scientists who thought they were rock stars. But Joe really is one. In his SLoS videos, Joe talks about some similarities between rocking with his band, Harry and the Potters, and doing his science. In one of the pieces that got left on the cutting room floor, he also spoke about one of the differences:

“The sort of satisfaction I get out of music is that there’s almost this instant gratification of making something—when you play a show, people are there, and clapping for you, and excited for you. Whereas in science, if I’m just at my lab, mixing some stuff up, maybe I make a new compound—but nobody’s there, cheering for me. There aren’t a hundred people standing outside my lab, going ‘Yeah! Do it again! One more!’ I mean that would be great if that happened in science. But it’s hard to imagine a giant laboratory on stage with some guy mixing stuff together and not knowing what’s going to happen. Most of the time, people would just be like, ‘Oh—that didn’t work….’”

He’s been to Hogwarts. He’s been to NASA. And he’s been to the lab. A lot.

So what do you want to ask him?

Ask Joe DeGeorge your questions in the comments section of this post. And he’ll stop by to answer them.

UPDATE: We are no longer accepting new questions for Joe. Many thanks to everyone who did send in questions. And for those who didn’t get to ask a question, check out the comments section for this post—Joe may have given an answer to something you wanted to ask.