Joey Kramer – Hit Hard: A Story Of Hitting Rock Bottom At The Top

A clear-eyed biography of a man who was truly troubled, and is now willing to be honest about it as he works through it. As I’ve said several times on this site, it’s hard to feel sorry for someone who deliberately chooses to use substances to the point of not being in control of their own lives anymore. In Kramer’s case, in fact, he was lacking control in an entire life, right up from abusive parents, has got to be pretty tiring. But he seems, in this book, to be getting a handle on things. It’s a good read, too, about stardom and decline, and about Aerosmith as viewed from the inside. If I had one criticism about the book, I’d say that even though all the therapy the guy has been through seems to be helping, he’s been doing it too long and now speaks like a therapist. All the terms and ways of describing things, you can tell it’s from a textbook, in these sections. But the stuff that comes from the gut, that’s where this book sings.

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