Raising Hell

Backstage Tales from the Lives of Metal Legends

By: Jon Wiederhorn, Gary Holt - foreword

Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray

Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the author of Louder Than Hell comes an oral history of the badass heavy metal lifestyle - featuring metalhead musicians from Black Sabbath and Judas Priest to Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot to Disturbed, Megadeth, Throwdown, and more.

In his song "You Can't Stop Rock and Roll" Ozzy Osbourne sings, "Rock and roll is my religion and my law". And that's why Raising Hell is a must-have for anyone who wants to hear about the iconoclastic culture of headbangers and the wild lives they lead. The book contains the crazy, funny, and sometimes horrifying anecdotes musicians have told about a lifestyle both invigorating and at times self-destructive.  

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. 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.  

Contains mature themes.

©2020 Jon Wiederhorn (P)2020 Tantor

buyers remorse

My fault for not researching before purchasing. Not for mature/ intelligent reader.If you like hearing words like F÷:<;,PISS, SHIT,DUDE every 7th word...then this book is for you

Great stories everyone wants to hear.

I usually have to purchase and read every musicians biographies just to get some good stories but with this book all of them are condensed so you get stories from all types of musicians but all types of things about what it's like to be a famous musician and have fun on the road

Very predictable

I should have known better... narrated well, stories are choppy, and very very repetitive. Very predictable, was hoping it would be different.

Amazing Execution. Master Narrator.

This book is one I hesitated to buy, but I am so glad I did. I listen to audiobooks as I fall asleep, and so often with this I find myself laughing out loud laying there in bed! The narrator does such a good job telling these stories, he surely raises this book to another level. Also this is not a bunch of rehashed crap you have already heard. Almost all of it is stuff you would not have heard, even as a fan of these bands. If you are on the fence about this, get it, you will enjoy it.

I bailed pretty early. Bad narrator.

I'm a lifelong metalhead and would absolutely love reading these stories, so I figured I'd listen to this book while doing my evil chores around Halloween. The choice of narrator was immediately jarring, but I've stuck it out with others before and came around to enjoy it. Not the case this time. While having excellent diction and a decent voice for... a baseball or golf legend's memoirs... it's just not right for these wild stories and anecdotes. I approximate it to having Dar from Beastmaster recount stories of drug and bodily abuse, which I think I'd actually prefer to this. They hired a Rush fan, I guess. Too corny to continue.

Narrator is odd

Good stories, but the narration sounds like the same guy using different accents. It’s really unusual

Good read!

Many funny stories about the antics of musicians on the road and off the road.

Don't bother

a particularly irritating narrator didn't help this collection or mediocre stories. some of which include "once we set off the alarm at a empty high school... but the police let us off" by some band somewhere. The only relief is that the format didn't continue like the preface did which was incredibly long winded and over explanatory of what is a very simple concept. Overall this is very dull, and would recommend the biographies of actual hellraisers than this sadly, it isn't good.

Better than i thought.

If you like to hear about the crazy goings on backstage etc then you'll enjoy this.