Books with category Behind The Music
Displaying 3 books

Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) in Song

2019

by Sara Bareilles

Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) in Song is a candid and down-to-earth collection of essays by the talented singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles. In this book, she explores her life through song, offering an evocative and raw look into her journey.

Sara Bareilles, known for her hit single Love Song and the chart-topping Brave, shares her songwriting process and the balance between creating art for herself and commercial music for her listeners. Her confessional writing style provides an entertaining and inspirational read, revealing the inside stories behind her most popular songs.

This book is a true reflection of Sara's soul-searching and songwriting adventures, filled with humor and marked by her authentic voice. Join Sara as she opens up about the struggles and joys of creating great work while staying true to herself.

It's So Easy: And Other Lies

2011

by Duff McKagan

A founding member of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver shares the story of his rise to the pinnacle of fame and fortune, his struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction, his personal crash and burn, and his phoenix-like transformation via a unique path to sobriety.

In 1984, at the age of twenty, Duff McKagan left his native Seattle—partly to pursue music but mainly to get away from a host of heroin overdoses then decimating his closest group of friends in the local punk scene. In L.A. only a few weeks and still living in his car, he answered a want ad for a bass player placed by someone who identified himself only as “Slash.” Soon after, the most dangerous band in the world was born. Guns N’ Roses went on to sell more than 100 million albums worldwide.

In It's So Easy, Duff recounts GN’R’s unlikely trajectory to a string of multiplatinum albums, sold-out stadium concerts, and global acclaim. But that kind of glory can take its toll, and it did—ultimately—on Duff, as well as on the band itself. As GN’R began to splinter, Duff felt that he himself was done, too.

But his near death as a direct result of alcoholism proved to be his watershed, the turning point that led to his unique path to sobriety and the unexpected choices he has made for himself since. In a voice that is as honest as it is indelibly his own, Duff—one of rock’s smartest and most articulate personalities—takes readers on his harrowing journey through the dark heart of one of the most notorious bands in rock-and-roll history and out the other side.

Neon Angel

Neon Angel is a riveting and intensely personal account of Cherie Currie's journey through the highs and lows of fame. At the tender age of fifteen, she became the groundbreaking lead singer of the '70s teenage all-girl rock band, The Runaways.

With her signature Bowie haircut and fishnet stockings, Cherie lit up the stage with provocative teen-rebellion songs like "Cherry Bomb," "Queens of Noise," and "Born to Be Bad." The Runaways, featuring Joan Jett and Lita Ford on guitar, Jackie Fox on bass, and Sandy West on drums, catapulted from playing small clubs to selling out major stadiums. They headlined shows with opening acts like the Ramones, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, and Blondie.

On the surface, this is a story of girl empowerment and fame, but it also reveals the darker side of the music industry. Cherie's narrative exposes the struggles with drugs, sexual abuse, and violence that she and her bandmates faced in a decadent, high-pressure music scene. These runaways had to grow up fast, experiencing things that no teenage girls should.

Neon Angel stunningly re-creates a bygone era of rock and roll, providing an inside look at growing up under the relentless glare of the public eye. It chronicles one tough woman's fight to reclaim her life, offering a shocking, funny, and touching re-creation of a bygone era of rock and roll.

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