It's better to have done because then you know what the player is going through and you understand the pressure, but then on the other hand I know a lot of people that were good players but not good coaches, and vice versa. ↗
It has always seemed slightly uncomfortable, the idea of politicised musicians. Very few of them are clever enough to do it; if they're good at the political side, the music side suffers, and vice versa. ↗
Having loved the Stones all the time I was growing up, I wasn't about to see them go and split up. It got very close to it in the 80s, when Mick thought that Keith hated him and vice versa. ↗
You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living. ↗