Books
66 AMERICANWAY
DECEMBER 15 2008
Whichmusicians are the baddest of the badboys?
Several newbiographies give us a clue. By JennaSchnuer
It’saHardRockLife
THERE’S NO DOUBT THAT MUSIC FANS
enjoy telling tales of their
favorite rock gods’ outrageous behavior as much as they love listening
to those artists’ tunes. But flip open to almost any page of
Lost Genius
,
a biography by Kevin Bazzana (recently released in paperback) about
He Is … I Say: How I Learned
toStopWorryingandLove
Neil Diamond
(DaCapo, $25)
DavidWild
AndyTaylor
KevinBazzana
StephenDavis
Neil Diamond
Himself, amember of DuranDuran
ErvinNyiregyházi
GunsN’ Roses
Pop
’80s rock
Classical piano
Hard rock
One smashedguitar
Three smashedguitars
Five smashedguitars
Off. The. Charts.
Even peoplewho claim they
don’t digDiamond can’t helpbut
sing alongwhen “Sweet Caroline”
comes on the radio. Grumbling
about his tunes is about as far
as the trash talkinggoes.
Though it took some time for
diehards to get over Taylor’s exit
fromDuranDuran in 1986 (and then
his re-exit during the band’s 2006
reunion tour), once theywatched
TheReflex
video, all was forgiven.
There isn’t one, really.Most
music fans (classical or otherwise)
probably hadn’t heard of
Nyiregyházi, who lived from
1903 to 1987, until now.
They rocked hard. They lived
hard. They courted controversy
like nobody’s business. And if you
loved them, you loved all of it.
Nomatter how far you dig into
He Is … I Say
, Diamondglitters.
“In all the times that I have
ever spokenwithNeil Diamond
over the years,”Wildwrites, “I
have never heard him say a bad
word about either of the two
women hemarried [and later
divorced] or, really, anyone else,
for thatmatter. Other than self-
deprecation ... Diamond tends
to keep things very positive.”
A typical rock starwith a typical
rock-star story, Taylor admits to
partaking of quite a gooddeal of
illegal substances. “It’s not
something that I amproud of, but
nor am I going to pretend that
it didn’t happen,” hewrites. And,
yes, therewas awhole bunch of,
shall we say,
amore
with adoring
female fans aswell. Come on,
you didn’t thinkSimon LeBon
got
all
the love, did you?
We knowwhat you’re thinking:
A
classical pianist?
Butwhen it comes
to failedmarriages, Nyiregyházi
beats prettymuch anymusician
you can think of. He said “I do” 10
times. “Sex became a consuming
passion in his life… a quotidian
need like food or drink,” Bazzana
describes. Add some heavy drinking
inwith that endless carnal
appetite and it’s amazing that he
had time to tickle the ivories at all.
Davis’s description of the band’s
antics during the summer of 1986
may be themost PGway to sum
up themusicians’ thorough
devotion to the rock-and-roll life:
“Gunswas on a band-wide bender,
staggering through a noisy and
drug-addledpublic binge. …None
of the key recordproducers of
the daywas anxious to spend the
next year in an airless studio
babysittingfive degenerates.”
WildBoy:My Life inDuranDuran
(GrandCentral Publishing, $27)
Lost Genius: TheCurious and
Tragic Story of anExtraordinary
Musical Prodigy
(DaCapo, $18)
WatchYouBleed: TheSaga of
GunsN’ Roses
(GothamBooks, $28)
twentieth-century piano prodigy Ervin Nyiregyházi, and you’ll find that
rockers didn’t invent the bad-boy thing.We take a look at
Lost Genius
as
well as three other recent memoirs and biographies to see which musi-
cians have really earned their reputations.
BOOK
AUTHOR
SUBJECT
GENRE
PUBLICPERCEPTION
WORSTBEHAVIOR
BAD-BOYRATING
