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Steve Vai gets a buzz

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Think you know a lot about music trivia? So did we, until we started researching our New Year trivia blowout where you'll find more useless (and some useful!) musical facts than you thought ever existed.

MusicRadar's 101 facts… comes in four parts. Today is part 2, facts 26-50, where you'll learn about Elvis's startling weight gain, the hobby that keeps Steve Vai buzzing, why Jay-Z doesn't need a pen any more. And other 'stuff'. How weird are rock stars?

101 facts you never knew about music: part 2

26. Meat Loaf supports English football team Hartlepool United.

27. Neptunes producer Pharrell Williams is huge fan of the science fiction series Star Trek. Hence his consistent use of the Vulcan salute to signify his label name, Star Trak.

28. Elvis Presley weighed 170lbs following his discharge from the US Army in 1960. When he died, in 1977, he weighed 260lbs.

29. Andy White, the drummer who played on the definitive version of The Beatles' Love Me Do, never earned more than his original session fee of £7 from the track.

Steve Vai: his favourite key is Bee

30. Steve Vai is an expert beekeeper and occasionally lectures schoolchildren on the joys of apiary.

31. Since their inception, Guns N' Roses have had 21 full-time band members… and counting. Could you pick them all out in a police line-up?

32. In his youth, Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis's babysitters included Cher and Sonny Bono.

Delia Smith's early work: you can't always cook what you want?

33. Acclaimed UK cook and author Delia Smith baked the cake on the cover of The Rolling Stones' 1969 masterpiece Let It Bleed.

34. Flowers In The Rain by The Move was the first record ever played on BBC Radio 1 in the UK.

AC/DC's Malcolm Young says: "let there be plug-ins!"

35. Malcolm Young uses IK Multimedia AmpliTube software on AC/DC's Black Ice tracks Big Jack and Anything Goes.

36. The built-in MIDI ports on the Atari ST were only included because they were suggested by Atari boss Jack Tramiel's son when the computer was being designed.