Beyond the Beats

By: Jake Brown

Narrated by: Jake Brown, full cast

When Rolling Stone magazine publishes its list of the greatest drummers of all time, and a book's entire table of contents is included, you know you're onto something truly great. Beyond the Beats: Rock & Roll's Greatest Drummers Speak! hits with the loudest bang as the first definitive book of its kind. A book by drummers for drummers, featuring exclusive, chapter-length interviews with rock and metal's most popular players of the past 40 years, this rock & roll royalty includes Tommy Lee of Motley Crue, Lars Ulrich of Metallica, Joey Kramer of Aerosmith, Jimmy Chamberlin of the Smashing Pumpkins, Tico Torres of Bon Jovi, Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters, Stephen Perkins of Jane's Addiction, Doug "Cosmo" Clifford of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Steve Smith of Journey, Kenny Aronoff of John Mellencamp/John Fogerty, and Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses/Velvet Revolver.

For rock and metal drummers of any generation, this is their holy grail, featuring the stories behind literally hundreds of their favorite beats, from popular classic rock radio hits like "Walk This Way" by Aerosmith, "Down on the Corner" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and "Living on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi to "Hurts So Good" by John Mellencamp and "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, and for the heavier metal fans, everything from Metallica's greatest hits, from "Master of Puppets" to "One" and "Enter Sandman", Motley Crue's "Kickstart My Heart" or Guns N' Roses' "You Could Be Mine", or "Give It Away" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Three Days" by Jane's Addiction, "Times Like These" by the Foo Fighters or "Today", "Bullet with Butterfly Wings", or "I Am One" by Smashing Pumpkins and hundreds of other hits across every generation and sub-genre of rock & roll were created from behind the kit.

©2018 Jacob P. Brown (P)2018 Jacob P. Brown

Worst Narration I’ve Ever Heard

The book itself is a series of phone interviews with the narrator giving a basic intro into each drummer.
The narrator talks so fast that it’s hard to follow what he’s saying. At one point during Jimmy Chamberlin’s interview, the narrator must have forgotten to record his part, because it’s read in a robot voice.
Some of the phone interviews are such bad quality it’s impossible to understand what the interviewee is saying.

Hard to listen to

The narrator is speaking so quickly and rushed it's hard to get into the story. The audio from the guests is brutal. It sounds like a long distance call in 1970. Even crappy Skype calls sound much better than this. It sounds like the interviews were recorded through an 80s speaker phone onto a telco tape recorder. It's just awful.

The stories are good, but I only listened to the 2 or 3 drummers I really cared about because I couldn't handle the terrible production.

Painful to listen to

This is the WORST audiobook I have ever listened to. It is so painful to hear drumming greats talk about sonic elements and drum tones, with horribly recorded interviews and poorly recorded/rushed reading. Maybe this book is better as a hard copy, but as an audiobook… It is TERRIBLE.
Drummers sound like they are leaving messages on an early 80’s answering machine, and the narrator audio sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom and then played back at 3x speed.