Raising Hell: Backstage Tales from the Lives of Metal Legends

Crazy stories.very interesting

I enjoyed reading about the antics of many bands I enjoyed growing up and still to this date . Great for people who like to get raw insight into the people behind the music.

Llego en excelentes condiciones, aunque creo que deberían llegar con alguna protección especial (celofán o plástico) para mayor seguridad

This is my review of an uncorrected proof copy of the book "Raising Hell: Backstage Tales from the Lives of Metal Legends" by Jon Wiederhorn. I have to say that I came into this book completely cold; I am a HUGE music fan but metal music, in particular, is not one of my favorites. Sure, I like a few songs and artists mentioned in this book but for the most part, I would say I am a casual fan. So perhaps I am not the correct target audience for this book. Even so, I read it all the way through and even enjoyed some of it. Other parts of the book I didn't enjoy quite so much. The book itself is laid out by topic. Each chapter deals with a different subject (girls, injuries, fights, stage antics, etc.) and then each chapter is full of the allegedly true tales told by the metal "legends" themselves. Each anecdote is short, most are just a few paragraphs and the longest are a few pages in length so they are easy to read. Honestly, you could flip open this book and read just about anywhere and it won't hurt your enjoyment of the book (as long as you enjoy the subject matter). The author, Wiederhorn, mostly just collected these anecdotes, transcribed them, and put them in a rough order. He did add a few pages of an introduction explaining that these tales are mostly the leftovers from the first book that he collected as well as giving us, the readers, some information about his background and motivations for creating this book. That's really about the size of it and that may be why I didn't enjoy the book as much as I could have. Many of these anecdotes just seemed like they were leftovers from another book and some didn't seem to be worthy of inclusion. Perhaps Wiederhorn's other book has all the good bits in it. I haven't read it so I cannot say. As for the subject matter of the book itself, I didn't really like or dislike it. Personally when I read anecdotes I take them with a grain of salt because memory is a funny thing. Events get embellished and expanded and then retold and mythologized until the original little story becomes a grand tale of excess and debauchery the likes of which the world has never seen. (If you've read the book "Hammer of the Gods" about the notorious exploits of Led Zeppelin, this is a good example. A lot of the stories in that book cannot be corroborated and many cannot even be remembered by the band itself so it's hard to say how much is true and how much is fiction.) And I feel that this book follows that formula. There are a lot of crazy antics described in this book, quite a few funny moments, but there is also a lot of misogynistic behavior towards women, and a lot of binge drinking and drug use. Some of the shared tales are pretty serious in nature with the binge drinking and drug use in particular being no joke. One particular thing I should point out is that the people interviewed for this book like to curse - a LOT. If you happen to be offended by bad language (especially f-bombs) then you better steer clear of this book. I don't think there is one page of this book that doesn't happen to have an f-bomb on it and there are usually a LOT more than one. And while it doesn't bother me in the least, I understand if some people don't like to read that over and over. Just be aware there's a lot of that kind of language if you are offended by that. Overall I gave this 3 stars because that's about all I thought of the book. In the end there was just too much bad behavior toward women and too much drug and alcohol abuse for me to feel good about giving this book more stars. But if you like metal bands and aren't offended by coarse language and dubious claims about these bands' on-the-road antics, then you will likely enjoy this book far more than I did. Personally, I thought some of the quotes about some of the more "Spinal Tap" moments were great. Had the book's tone been a bit lighter like these humorous chapters, I would have probably given it a higher score. But 3 stars is about how much enjoyment I got out of this book. An average score for an average book.

"The metal genre has always been populated by colorful individuals who have thwarted convention and lived by their own rules. For many, vice has been virtue, and the opportunity to record albums and tour has been an invitation to push boundaries and open a Pandora ’s Box of wild experiences. Even before they joined bands, the urge for metalheads to rebel and a seemingly contradictory need to belong was ingrained in their DNA. Whether they were oddballs who didn’t fit in or angry kids from troubled backgrounds, metal gave them a sense of identity and became more than a form of music." This book was gifted to my fiance's best friend who is one of the hardest rockers I have ever met. He was so excited when he saw this book that he stole it and brought it home to read! He said the author's other book, "Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal," was such a great read as it gave him an even deeper in-depth look at his favorite artists, and this book was the same way!