A witty and self-deprecating memoir about headbanging your way through growing up.

Seb Hunter was a Heavy Metal fan and he's not proud. This is the story of his misguided 15-year Heavy Metal mission: from the first guitar (his dad's), to the first gig (conquering Winchester with his riffs), on through groupies and girlfriends and too many drugs to a faltering career in London, where outrageous egos, artistic differences and the dreaded arrival of Grunge (and a much needed haircut) kill the Heavy Metal dream.

Along the way Seb imparts the important distinctions between Thrash Metal and Glam and casts his connoisseur's eye over the Metal guitar. You'll learn when to play a drum solo, the correct way to wear Spandex and exactly what to do when you're in the middle of a field at the Donington Festival and you desperately need a piss.

Affectionate, irreverent, and very funny, Hell Bent For Leather is a moving story about growing up, of playing air guitar in your bedroom, of living with parental disapproval and of struggling with the laughter of your friends. It is a memoir about the glorious adolescent obsessions everybody has but no-one will admit to.

Featuring music from: AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Kiss, W.A.S.P., Aerosmith The Scorpians and Guns 'n' Roses.

About the Author

Seb Hunter was born in 1971 and went to a variety of schools in England before throwing it all away to become a rock 'n' roll star, at which he eventually failed. Since then he has worked in the book trade and currently lives in London.

Reviews

'It's simple to milk laughs from metal, but surely much harder to use the genre to write a book that's simultaneously hilarious, strangely moving and which identifies the very essence of why music is so important to life. So raise a devil's horn salute to Seb Hunter, whose self-depreciating memoir of an adolescence dominated by Kiss and Iron Maiden rivals Giles Smith's Lost In Music as a perceptive and witty study of musical obsession. Anyone who has ever been in a rubbish band will wince with recognition at Hunter's doomed bid to become a rock icon, but metal's loss is writing's gain. Magic.' Q Magazine

'Hunter's memoir manages to be both funny and genuinely touching as he relives the developments that shook the metal world to its stack-heeled foundations.' Guardian

Book Information
ISBN 9780007161768
Author Seb Hunter
Format Paperback
Page Count 336
Imprint HarperPerennial
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Weight(grams) 239g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 22mm