Slipknot, Dillinger Escape Plan, Slayer members talk injuries in new book

Metal and hardcore bands have notoriously been known for chaotic live shows that put the musicians in harm’s way, and a new book is exploring the injuries the big bands have suffered.

Author Jon Wiederhorn has a new book called Raising Hell: Backstage Tales From Metal Legends which drops tomorrow (January 7) and includes quotes from the likes of Slipknot‘s Corey TaylorSlayer guitarist Gary Holt and the Dillinger Escape Plan‘s Ben Weinman.

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The writer, who has also written Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal, is bringing to life some of the wildest stories of heavy metal musicians straight from their own mouths.

With the book coming out tomorrow, they’ve released a few excerpts from a few notable musicians involved. You can check out those below and read more here.

“I think I almost broke my neck or cracked my skull when I fell off the stage at Ozzfest ’99. We were doing a show in either Detroit or Indianapolis and I was singing on a monitor. I slipped and landed on top of my head and twisted my neck. I could move all my fingers and toes so I was like, “F*ck, okay, I’m fine” and I finished the show,” says Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor.

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“From day one, it has been absolute chaos. We were so normal in our daily lives since we weren’t doing the band full time. We had regular jobs, but then we’d play these weekend shows and they’d be so visceral and violent. We’d be playing in VFW Halls and places that didn’t even have stages so there’d be no division between the crowd and us and the mosh pits. We’d be throwing gear, beating ourselves up and breathing fire in these little places.

I’d limp into work all bruised up, with a black eye the next day and it looked like I was a member of Fight Club,” says the Dillinger Escape Plan mastermind Ben Weinman.

“In 2011, we were out in Europe with Death Angel, Kreator, and Heathen. I used to drink several shots to loosen up before a show. And I tripped over some cabling from the monitors and I went up completely horizontal in the air and landed flat on my back. [Death Angel vocalist] Mark Osegueda and [guitarist] Rob Cavestany were standing right there on the side of the stage. And everyone was going, “Oh my God. Wow.” I got up and I said, “Oh, I’m fine.”

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It’s crazy. I didn’t feel hurt at all. Three days later I got up in the morning and lit a cigarette and coughed and my rib, which I had apparently cracked before, actually broke one hundred percent. I crawled in the back of a bus at 7 a.m. I couldn’t even breathe. And there were people there still partying. My tour manager was shitfaced and he’d been Sharpied. He had dicks and boobs and buttholes drawn all over him. I told him I had to go to the hospital and from there I did seventeen shows in a row on morphine with a broken rib,” says Slayer and Exodus guitarist Gary Holt.

Are you excited to hear more about the onstage injuries of some of the biggest musicians in metal in Raising Hell? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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