BOOK REVIEW: DEATH PUNCH’D – Jeremy Spencer

Label: Dey Street Books

Release Date: September 2, 2014

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by: Todd “Toddstar” Jolicoeur

There are some rockers stories that are meant to be kept secret and left to the imagination.  There are others that air all of their dirty laundry and point fingers at current and former band members.  Some of these books seem like a money grab and others seem as if they are to be cathartic for the storyteller.  Jeremy Spencer, drummer and co-founder of Five Finger Death Punch, recently released a book and it falls into a couple of these categories and others not mentioned here.  Death Punch’d: Surviving Five Finger Death Punch’s Metal Mayhem is a little bit rock, a little bit roll, a lot metal, and a shitload of mayhem.  This book took me to the edge with the drummer for arguably the biggest metal band on the planet right now.  Spencer opens his head and heart and gives us a glimpse into the man he has become and what happened along the way from boyhood to manhood.

Jeremy lets everything hang out as he describes his youth and formative years.  A lot of the debauchery Jeremy endured was simply an expansion on the early rule breaking and line pushing he did as a young teenager through early adulthood – it was everything he had experienced and wanted to experience turned up to eleven.  Let’s be honest, as co-founder and a driving force behind 5FDP, you are expected to be crazy as fuck.  Well, Spencer delivered on EVERY level.  His road stories are over-the-top and unbelievable, but exactly what most fans of the band would expect from him and the band as a touring unit.  Jeremy writes about members past and present of the band, but never seems to cross the line into territory he cannot recover from.  Other artists write and seemingly burn every bridge available, but Spencer tows the line and accepts responsibility for what he needs to and lays the blame on others when he could justify it.

You can hardly argue with the skills the man possesses behind a drum kit.  As a person, he has made A LOT of judgment calls that fall way off the moral scale, but again, he copped to each and every one that he discussed.  Rebel? Yep, he was using drugs and alcohol at 13 and it only spiraled from there.  Failure?  He has been there too.  With almost nothing to his name besides drums and a dream, he struggled for over ten years waiting to make it.  Relationships?  We get almost too much information regarding his self-destructive on again-off again relationship with the lasted in and out of sobriety, pregnancy, infidelity, and more.  Sex?  The man has had plenty and shares more than some of us want to know at any given moment about the habits of a rock star on the road and in port-a-johns.  Rockstar?  Jeremy Spencer epitomizes the images the word conjures – but he takes credit and blame for his actions along the road often traveled.  Some of us can’t fess up to lesser offenses, let alone tell the world about out shortcomings and own up to the actions and figure out how to make things right with those who matter.

http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062308108/death-punchd

http://www.extrememetalloops.com

http://www.fivefingerdeathpunch.com

Category: Book Reviews