Thursday, September 4, 2014

Love, Death, and a Petrie Dish of DNA

Death Punch’d – Surviving Five Finger Death Punch’s Metal Mayhem – Jeremy Spencer (Dey Street/William Morrow)

They say that confession is good for the soul. So full disclosure up front; My first “professional” job was working for a concert promotion company, later I worked as a disc jockey and a music reviewer for a major newspaper, which afforded me access to tons of music, concerts and interviews. I am a huge music fan and I thought I was pretty hip.

When I tore open the package containing Death Punch’d – Surviving Five Finger Death Punch’s Metal Mayhem, by Death Punch drummer Jeremy Spencer, while I had a vague recollection of the band’s name, I had to admit I had never heard anything by the band. Damn…I’m getting old. They natural starting place was the web and after a few keystrokes I was letting the Death Punch cover of Bad Company rip at full volume.

Satisfied by the stream, I delved into Spencer tale which weaves his life as a Midwestern youth and his career as a hard rock drummer. While love rock bios, I found myself gravitating to his experiences dealing with the band, life on the road and new found fame. Based on his description of events in the and the fact that her often calls himself worse things, I don’t feel bad saying that Spencer was more often than not, a prize winning a-hole.

Spencer hits loads of familiar notes with his tales of excess detailing plenty of drinkin’, dopin’, and a veritable Petrie dish of shared DNA and assorted fluids. I am always amazed at the level of clarity, a 20/20 hindsight, that celebrities manage to bring to their descriptions of their descent into addiction and the devastation it inevitably leads to. Spencer does let you down on that front describing in sometimes gag reflex inducing detail his endless pursuit of a buzz.
The one thing that separates Spencer from the rest of the rock bio pack is that he seems to be in on the joke; he injects a twisted sense of humor into the storyline and isn’t afraid to make himself the butt of the joke.

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