Semisonic Drummer Takes Aim

It’s 1998, your band’s record is on the top spot of the Billboard chart and you are miserable. Such is the life of a rock star according to Jacob Slichter, drummer for the band Semisonic and casualty of the rock wars. His new book, So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star: How I Machine Gunned a Roomful of Record Executives and Other True Tales from a Drummer’s Life reveals what it’s really like to go from temping to rock stardom — or something like it — in five years. Lifting the veil on the backward nature of the music business, from the frustrations of dealing with corporate radio programmers to AmEx-toting A&R wonks who are dining out on the band, Slichter wears his newfound fame like a hair shirt yet draws his readers in with candour and self-effacing humour. Poison pen aside, this is a rock and roll love letter.