So if you're about to sign a record contract, take a cue from these seven artists. All have played before thousands-strong audiences, and all have followed up their fame with successful (if totally random-ass) careers.

Rock stardom is fickle. One day you're riding the Billboard charts and a nonstop flotilla of groupies, the next you're filling in for the animatronic dog guitarist at your neighborhood Chuck E. Cheese's and asking out one of the nine Estonian spambots who follow you on Twitter.

7 Vanilla Ice Is Getting Rich Renovating Houses

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Vanilla Ice has made a career for himself not sampling "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, becoming an honorary member of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and starring in Cool as Ice, a movie widely regarded by many to star Vanilla Ice.



It was the brave story of one colorblind man's quest to buy a respectable pair of pants.

Every leap year or so, Vanilla Ice pops up again with yet another comeback -- he tried out rap-rock when rap-rock was something adults listened to and has rebranded himself as a Juggalo -- but honestly, the guy hasn't had either an album or a single chart since 1991. How's the man born Robert Van Winkle been paying the bills?

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After the Spotlight

Ice has been "flipping" houses. Meaning he buys undervalued real estate, goes in with a crew that restores the houses, then sells them for twice the price. And he's good at it. He's even written a book on the subject. Here's a whole interview he did about it in the New York Times. When a mansion foreclosed in Palm Beach, Ice swept in and bought it for $400,000. Then he renovated it -- and again, we're talking about Vanilla Ice renovating a house here -- and sold that shit for $875,000. Ice snapped up another foreclosure for $500,000, and after he got done with it, it drew offers of $2.3 million. Did we mention he's been doing this for 15 years?

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"Drop that zero house, and get with a hero house!" -Probably not what he says

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How in the fuck did Vanilla Ice get into this business? His own idiocy -- back in the day, he dumped a bunch of his "Ice, Ice Baby" money into a buttload of houses that he barely lived in. As time passed and common sense prevailed (and the Vanilla Ice bandwagon flew off the cliff and exploded), he started dumping the properties. Only he found that by fixing them up first, he could make half a million dollars a shot. He took a bunch of courses in real estate and parlayed the "LOL VANILLA ICE IS HANGING DRYWALL IN MY HOUSE!!!" factor into free promotion.

He even has a reality show on the DIY Network, a channel for home repair and design enthusiasts. Oh, he still looks, dresses, and talks exactly like Vanilla Ice, by the way.