Butch Vig

For much of the 1990s and 2000s, Butch Vig enjoyed dual star status as the producer of such iconic alternative and hard rock albums as Nirvana's game-changing Nevermind (1991), the Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream (1993) and Sonic Youth's Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (1995), while also serving as drummer for the popular rock act Garbage, which released a string of Top 20 albums between 1995 and 2011. He began his career as a producer while still in college, overseeing LPs by punk acts like Killdozer, which captured the attention of alternative acts like Nirvana for their dense sound and punishing volume. Nevermind's status as zeitgeist for the alternative rock movement minted Vig as the producer du jour for much of the 1990s, but by the midpoint of the decade, he sought to channel his creative energies in other directions. The result was Garbage, which scored numerous radio hits with such fierce anthems as "Stupid Girl" and "Only Happy When it Rains." The band released four albums before entering an extended hiatus in 2003, after which Vig returned to producing for the likes of Green Day and Foo Fighters. In 2012, he also returned to the Garbage fold with the album Not Your Kind of People, which was an unqualified success. Vig soon resumed his seemingly unbroken string of success as both performer and producer for over two decades.