Noel, Sarah. Drummer Girl: How I Became Metal, a Memoir. Self Published, 2026.
Reason read: as a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review Program I like discovering people. Sarah Noel seems like an interesting one.
Confessional: it took me a little while to get into Drummer Girl. Sarah’s writing style conveys a hurried urgency – as if she is impatient to get out every little detail of her her story as quickly as possible…in a soap opera, teenaged rambling sort of way. She seems to be trying to portray the raw and honest account of a naive musician, struggling to find her place not only in the music industry but within a circle of so-called bandmates/friends. The latter takes dominance in the story. By the third time she was kicked out of the first band I would have said good riddance to the entire lot of them. It is hard to say what made her be the glutton for the verbal abuses they peppered her with every time they wanted to have a discussion. Their main beef was that she was not progressing as a drummer, but they had some choice words about her attitude as well. If you are metal aren’t you supposed to have an attitude?
As mentioned before, I felt the pace of the story moved quickly and without substance mostly because a fair amount was copied verbatim MySpace messages and texts. The vibe was Coming of Age California Style. First band. First car. First grown up job. Lots of gossip and raw deals. While the music didn’t last I was encouraged that Sarah remained open minded and kept trying.
Drummer Girl includes two sections of photographs and as an aside, if you search around YouTube you can find a video or two of Sarah’s bands.
As this is a book about music I would expect nothing less than an extensive list of songs and bands. I was not disappointed: Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy,” Black Sabbath’s “Snowblind,”, Korn, Radiohead’s “Karma Police,” No Doubt, Iggy Pop, Children of Bodon, “Strutter” by Kiss, Kurt Cobain, Beatles, 1812 Overture, Coldplay, Lamb of God, Arch Enemy, System of a Down, Django Reinhadt, and Nena’s “99 Luftballons.”
~*LunaSea*~ 