I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: Hmmm….

There’s so much to choose from to go with this book.  And yet, despite how much I loved metal in high school, I really didn’t like hair metal at all.  In fact, when looking at the bands listed at the end of this book, there were very few that I own or intentionally listened to.

The bands that I liked in this book were: Ratt and Whitesnake.  I also liked Motley Crue’s first two records, but I gave up on them once their makeup went from Kiss to CoverGirl.  Nevertheless, I’m not going to review any of that music here, I’m just going to let you soak in the beauty of this book.

[READ: February 8, 2009] American Hair Metal

My brother-in-law received this book for Christmas. And he proudly showed it to me when we were visiting this weekend. I was immediately hooked, and rather than just flipping through the photos as I thought I might, I actually read the thing cover to cover.

So this book is a loving (or so it says) look at American hair metal of the 1980s and 1990s. The book is basically comprised of three things: outrageous photos, hilarious quotes and occasional comments from Blush.

Blush states in the intro that he called a few of these guys to interview them for the book. But he found that they were either too embarrassed about their past or just kind of awkward about admitting what they did. So, he went back to the source.  Most of the quotes that pepper the book appeared in magazines during the hair metal heyday, and they are often unintentionally hilarious.

As I noted, I did not actually enjoy these bands back then. In fact, I was the kind of metal fan who hated bands like this. And once these posers starting getting all of the heavy metal airplay, my musical tastes got darker and uglier (Metallica being just the tip of the iceberg).  Nevertheless, these bands were unavoidable, and I certainly saw my share of videos from these guys (and gals…hello Vixen!)

The book is broken into chapters although there’s really not a lot to distinguish one chapter from another.  It’s mostly tales of debauchery, sex, drugs, and pictures…glorious pictures!  In fact, there’s not all that much to the book.  But man was it fun to read.

Reading quotes from the BulletBoys about how they were going to be around forever (I only vaguely recall ever hearing of them), or the Nikki Sixx passages about how he did a ton of drugs or never did drugs (depending on who was interviewing him).  I was also shocked to learn that Cinderella was apparently completely clean and sober during their tenure.  (Is that even possible?)  But most of the quotes are about how these guys have just come out to get laid, and how the makeup and hair spray were ways for the groupies to see just how hot they were.  There’s a photo of Sebastian Bach (from Skid Row and eventually from Gilmore Girls!) without makeup and damn if he isn’t the prettiest young thing!  He is so feminine as to be almost scary.

Oh, I also enjoyed that Stryper, the Christian metal band, was quoted as saying that Jesus never said sex [presumably wild groupie sex] was bad.  (Oh, and were they ever pretty too!)

One quibble: there is a hilarious picture of the guitarist for Manowar in the book. In the photo he’s wearing chaps, what appears to be a speedo and nothing else. However, he is NOT a pretty guy.   He’s hairy and didn’t use any kind of hair product. In fact Manowar’s motto was “death to false metal.”  So, it’s safe to suggest that Manowar shouldn’t be in the book, and I’m sure they would object if they knew they were. However, the picture is still hilarious.

The back of the book gives brief biographies of most of the bands featured (and there are some bands that I’ve never heard of, even though I thought I knew all the metal bands back then).  Some of the obvious contenders are: Poison, Bon Jovi, Warrant, Cinderella, White Lion, Great White, Whitesnake etc.  Some of the bands that I sort of heard of, but never heard were: Britny Fox, Roxx Gang, Enuf Z’nuf, the Bulletboys etc.

Like the music, this book is disposable fluff.  Totally enjoyable .

There’s some fantastic excerpts available here.