We Sold Our Souls

I remember thrashing my head to metal when I was a teenager. I remember the moment when I let the music take me; I felt the guitar howl through my head and the drumbeat in my very bones. I am not sure I feel that much anymore. Maybe when I am alone in the car, I might crank Metallica or Tool. But it never entirely is the same as when you were 19, which is a tragedy.

Grady Hendrix's Hendrix's book, We Sold Our Souls is about a lot of things: love for music, love for horror, or the state of mental and emotional health in the US. But what sang for me in this book is losing that connection to music, the kind you have when you are 19. Losing that emotional part of you that vibrates from the energy of the music is one of the saddest things, and it is a kind of horror in of itself. Wrap all of those ideas up, loss, the love of music, passion, and the plight of the middle class into a pulsing metal package, and you have We Sold Our Souls.

Right from the start, you do not have to love thrash metal to appreciate any of the ideas in this book. You could substitute Klezmer music in for metal, and it will ring true for some people. It is not so much what type of music you like, but being able to connect with the music itself. Even though Hendrix speaks at length about Metal music, you can substitute anything you are passionate about.

In this case, the story revolves around the members of Dürt Würk, a semi-famous metal band from the 1990s. Specifically the incredibly badass and beat-down Kris. Kris is to Dürt Würk as Slash is to Guns N' Roses. She is the shredding lead guitarist that gets on stage and apologizes to no one. Kris is authentically herself, a metal-loving girl with bloody fingernails, sweat dripping down her face, and music that sings out from the dark parts of her. She is all that is metal.

“No one loves me! Boohoo! Guess what? We play fucking metal! I don't want to sing about your sad feelings! I want dragons.” - There are no butterflies inside her.

We Sold Our Souls starts with Kris early in life, as a teenager, confused, and all attitude. She wants to play the riff from Sabbath, and she bleeds herself through the first chords until it sounds right. And for one glorious shiny moment, Sabbath was in her basement. She is hooked. Next, we meet Kris at 47 years old. The end of a career, and her soul, living in her mother's house working at a Best Western. The first scene of this is hilarious and sad. A naked man with a pillowcase over his head comes into her office and pisses all over her desk. He then farts and leaves. Her brother, who is a policeman's first question is not “are you ok?” His first question was, “Jesus Kris, couldn't you clean this up?” It is sad, and it shows how much she has fallen from her former life as a guitarist.

You can tell that Kris's life is shit, but she can still fight. “I can pick a fight in an empty fucking elevator. “No one left to fight.” Fuck you”

The brilliant thing about this story, and what sets it apart from other rock-themed stories, is that instead of the story being around a young idealistic Kris at the beginning of her career. It is about Kris at 47 and broken. It is a much more exciting story because Kris is much more complicated. The story progresses as Kris's former bandmate, and ex-best friend Terry Hunt decided to headline a farewell tour for his band. The ex-best friend that betrayed her and the other Dürt Würk bandmates years ago. Kris decides that it is time to get the band back together. To say that she runs into resistance from all sides is putting it lightly. Her quest takes her on a reunion with the bandmates: guitarist Scottie Rocket, bassist Tuck, drummer Bill, and finally Terry. She is on a one-woman quest to figure out what the hell happened on the night it all fell apart with only her grit and ax of a guitar to help her. She battles egos, band managers, the supernatural, and crazed fans. It is an epic fight.

But this is marketed as a horror novel, you say? It is. We Sold Our Souls is a horror novel. Hendrix wrote one of the scariest chapters in a cave that I have ever read. I am claustrophobic, and I had to put the book down for a while before I had a panic attack. Kris deals with a lot of violence and gore. It is almost Viking death metal in its visuals. Also, much of the story has the subtext of the death of dreams. It is much scarier and more visceral than some creature or ghost yelling “BOO” at you. The loss of dreams is a hollowing out of oneself, and it is not something someone can easily come back from. People settle for recreations of things instead of working for the real deal. People even sell their souls for iPhones. It is sad, but the way Grady Hendrix writes it rings true.

“I can't believe that after a lifetime of playing metal, it turns out the world is a shitty country song.”

We Sold Our Souls is a gritty and real story, highly entertaining, and it tapped into that part of me I thought I lost long ago. The part that vibrates and roars when I hear Sabbath or Metallica. It is there still, and I love that Hendrix shined a light on it. We Sold Our Souls is also a story about who we choose as our family and how they can hurt us or help us grow, and it is, above it all, about the transcendent power of music because music cures all.

Technically, this was a horror book. I mean of course it was, it had dicey moments and something really dark going on in the background, but also, I felt it was more defined by its... weirdness? It had some supernatural elements, some things that happened never got explained and it's all open-ended.
Also, really fucking good.
I read about 2 pages of it once before and then I stopped, but now it hit differently and I had an absolute blast.

Kris is middle-aged woman working in a cheap hotel as a receptionist. She used to play guitar in the metal band Dürt Würk. They almost made it, until their singer, Terry, got them a fishy contract with a sleazy manager, which Kris refused to accept and it all ended in a disaster and the band falling apart.
Now Terry is back, a metal superstar while Kris is unhappy, lonely and unsuccessful, not even playing anymore. But she needs to find out what went wrong with their original band, because she can't quite remember and it all seems... wrong.

Now obviously this book is full of references of music, which I completely missed. Why? Because I don't know shit about music. I listen to it and I enjoy it and it's all good fun, but I'm also tone deaf and I don't know anything about theory.
You don't need to. The story still makes sense and the emotions are universal; regret and trying to make things right after events that can't be undone.

Extra points for middle-aged protagonists. We all know the books about people doing it for the first time, but what happens after that? This is a book about picking up the pieces and having one last stand against something fucked up going on.
And it is fucked. The first half of the book is about the current miseries of Kris and her old bandmates. At first it doesn't seem worse than people way over their glory days and feeling sad over not being free and wild.
By the end it becomes about some messed up conspiracy stuff. Things that make perfect sense. Feelings you have probably felt at least in some way about pop culture, about the things that are meant to give joy. Sure, I don't think it's all supernatural, but man, would it make sense. I feel for Kris seeing her passion tuning into something disgusting.
The book was just as much about media and the content we consume as about Kris' personal journey. Now I probably sound very I'm-14-and-this-is-deep, but fuck, commercial media can be such a joyless affair it almost feels like there must be someone behind it being that way.

Now I want to read more by this author. BRB, I need to pick up another one.

i decided i wanted to read more of grady hendrix's work. what made me come to that decision? i don't know myself. am i glad i decided to go on that journey? with this book, not really. it wasn't giving what i thought it was going to give. part of it reminded me of john dies at the end and that book bored me almost to death, but this one didn't do that. i still wasn't really interested in it and i don't know what happened in the end, but it ended?

Kris Pulaski loved to play guitar and her heavy metal band Durt Wurk put in the work, hit the road and played every backwoods dive, seedy bar and smoky venue with their big break surely just around the corner.

But that was 20 years ago. Now she works nights at a Best Western contending with urinating guests while her band mate Terry Hunt has gone off on his own to wealth and acclaim. A solo metal phenomenon rebranded as Koffin. He's back for one last set of shows and it spurs Kris to try and unravel why they all broke up in the first place.

Hendrix captures the in-fighting and brothers in arms duality of being in a band. He also drops a ton of lovely metal morsels throughout the book that had me reaching for classic Black Sabbath. (I love that an intrepid fan has already created a comprehensive playlist of every song referenced in the book on Spotify) A couple of grisy horror set pieces and man, what did UPS ever do to Grady Hendrix anyways? A fun diversion but a bit of a wash for me at the end.

That was, indeed, METAL. As much a love letter to a music genre; and a statement on making art, finding purpose, and the dangers of compromise for fame and profit, of seeking comfort over personal fulfillment; as it was a gory, creepy, violent road trip leading to one hell of a final performance. 
A good sprinkling of female rage in there, too, as a treat. 😉
This is, first and foremost, Kris's journey, horror elements are secondary but no less vivid, in that uncanny way Hendrix has for grossing me out while simultaneously toying with my emotions and stress level. 🫣
Did not expect conspiracy theories or UPS to feature so heavily. 😏
Love the Hendrix trademark inclusion of mixed media, this time radio show excerpts: news and music reviews. 
Holy Shit, do I wish the Troglodyte album was real! 
“Just fight. Don't ever stop.”🤘🏻
⚠️ Suicide