Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal Kindle Edition

Read a preview of this book in the Village Voice and decided to pick it up. Definitely a great read - lotsa funny stories, some drama, copious amounts of shit talking and sex stories. Well worth the price. Noticed three mistakes in this book. 1) pg. 289, Mike Clark says that Suicidal opened for Black Flag and Fuhrer at The Whiskey in 1987 but that's impossible because Flag's last show was 27 June 1986. Not doubting the story, probably the date is wrong. 2) pg. 414 it says that the "I'm The Man" EP from Anthrax came out in 1990, but it came out in 1987. 3) The story that Scott Ian tells about Public Enemy and Flava Flav and the tour bus with the groupies is repeated twice in this book almost verbatim copied paragraphs. Anyway, didn't come here to nitpick. This book is well written and I kinda liked how the authors divided up the era's into chapters. This book could have been 90000 pages long if the authors didn't cull the interviews - and they did a fantastic job choosing soundbytes that really told a story from multiple perspectives. The book is fair: they let Neil Turban trash Joey Belladonna, they let Paul Dianno trash Bruce Dickinson and it's refreshing to hear their perspectives even if I don't agree with their assessments. Best of all, they let the humor, the sadness and the raw energy of these bands seep through into the pages by letting the interviewees speak their minds uncensored.

At 600 plus pages there are several interesting stories and tidbits and some I hadnt even heard before. The problem with the book is in distribution of space. For example, there is more coverage of the crossover scene and norwegian death metal then the formidable years in the late 70s when Priest, Scorpions, UFO were creating some of the most influential heavy music EVER. In fact Michael Schenker, UFO and Ulrich Roth are NOT MENTIONED in the book other than a reference to a MSG show Lars was at. Thin Lizzy is pretty much absent. Early Rush, nada. But if you want to hear how many fights the Cro Mags got in or how many chicks the guys in Ratt were nailing, than this is the book for you. Very little about the substance of the music, the influence of early bands and how the music came to be and much more of the sensationalism of church burnings and the sex and drugs. Just once I would like to see a book like this done by someone who ACTUALLY lived it, not who knew someone who knew someone.

Having worked in the music bidness for almost 40 years and having actually worked with a number of folks profiled in this book, I found this afascinating read and consistent with my experiences. The overview given by the book tended to confirm a number of my opinions of these folksand the their music. This music has never been "fashionable" and yet the artists/players in this book are some of the most influential musicians in rock music. In some parts of the book, it tended to focus a bit too much on the things we all know, ie: that these guys got laid a lot, but given theexcessive nature of this lifestyle and music, I guess it was a needed "device" for the purposes of the book. If you have ever "banged your head" or given the Dio "horns", you should read this book, you will enjoy it...

This was a gift for my boyfriend who bleeds metal, he was so excited once he got it he started flipping through it. He realized that the 3rd section with the photographs was all upside down.. since this was a gift, I wanted it to be in full working order for him to enjoy, so I reached out to amazon. Amazon gladly replaced the book so boyfriend could at least start reading it. Today we received the second book and again some of the pages were upside down. I’m really bummed about this because there’s really nothing I can do, seems like the publisher gave amazon defective books and amazon didn’t see that they are defective. Sucks. Bookstores are closed thanks to covid. BF is cool about it but I am bummed.

Very well written history of heavy metal bands. If you get too serious about remembering which band a person started out in and which band they ended up in, it could drive you crazy. But I liked the order the author kept the book from beginning of heavy metal, to how styles changed over the years to present day. Some of the tricks the guys played on each other are hysterical. And just about all of them admit they got in a band for the chicks. As of right now I am 3/4 of the way through the book and still not bored. Pretty good read, better than I thought. Thank the guys on, "That Metal Show."

Pros: A wide range of metal artists are covered, from Van Halen to EYEHATEGOD. Fairly comprehensive and entertaining overall. Great stories from the tours and tribulations of metal bands worldwide.Cons: some bands only get a few paragraphs, others get page after page. Maybe limited by source material on the more obscure bands.Metal fans will dig it.

This is an extremely comprehensive oral history of Heavy Metal, from the numerous contenders for the origin of the term heavy metal to the present day splintering into many subgenres. For me the first few chapters were the most interesting, covering the rise of Black Sabbath and their contempories, followed by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. the focus then switches across to America as we witness the development of the power metal bands and the rise of Thrash. All the major players are quoted (archive interviews provide quotes from the all too many metal musicians who are no longer with us). Particularly eye opening is a fascinating insight into the notorious Norwegian Black Metal scene. The quotes chosen do a very good job of undercutting that scene's "malevolence" and it seems clear that the damage and death associated with this scene in the early nineties boils down to the squabbling of silly men who ought to have known better. The later chapters covering bands such as Pantera, Limp Bizkit and Slipknot were less interesting to me as I know little of their music (and the interviews didn't encourage me to investigate further). As any discerning metal fan will be well aware there are a number of people prominently associated with genre who are, to put it politely, idiots and unfortunately things can get a bit wearing reading of their repetitive juvenile exploits. Nonetheless this is an excellent book, a comprehensive achievement and any metal fan will find much to enjoy here

A collection of vignettes taken from interviews over the years, this book tells the history of heavy metal from its birth onwards.With excerpts from the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie Dio and Dimebag Darrell, you can hear the stories from those who were there and lived them.Put together in a style that flows beautifully, this book is an essential addition to the library of every discerning heavy metal fan.

Very funny and quite informative, however, it's also ASTOUNDINGLY RUDE!!! The metal community in this book get up to all sorts of scrapes and, to be very honest, some of these lads are proper scamps! Good fun, but not for the faint hearted.

What a book, had everything you’d want to know about metal, that’s the music variety. My step son was over the moon.

Gift for a friend. He thinks it’s great