Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota

  “THE GREAT GATSBY OF HEAVY-METAL LITERATURE.”

  —ROLLING STONE

  Empirically proving that—no matter where you are—the kids wanna rock, this is Chuck Klosterman’s classic memoir of growing up as a shameless metalhead in Wyndmere, North Dakota (population: 498). With a voice like Ace Frehley’s guitar, Klosterman hacks his way through hair-band history, beginning with that fateful day in 1983 when his older brother brought home Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil. The fifth-grade Chuck wasn’t quite ready to rock—his hair was too short and his farm was too quiet—but he still found a way to bang his nappy little head. Before the journey was over, he would slow-dance to Poison, sleep innocently beneath satanic pentagrams, lust for Lita Ford, and get ridiculously intellectual about Guns N’ Roses. C’mon and feel his noize.

  “You NEED to read this book. This man is a great writer, and the book is not just about hair metal bands but about how music feels, how media-saturated culture feels, and how it’s all in the details.”

  —David Byrne

  CHUCK KLOSTERMAN is a senior writer at Spin magazine and a columnist for Esquire. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, The Believer, and GQ. He is the author of Killing Yourself to Live and Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. He resides in New York City.

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  Cover illustration by Modi Li

  Author photograph by Karen Schiely

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  Acclaim for

  CHUCK KLOSTERMAN

  and

  FARGO ROCK CITY

  “The best music book ever to cause me to spend not one red cent shopping for new CDs, an unusual bargain. But whether or not you take the bait and undertake a massive reconsideration of Ratt, Poison, Def Leppard and their ilk, you’ll glimpse your lonely hearted and dreamy teenage self in Klosterman’s confessions.”

  —Jonathan Lethem, Crawdaddy

  “It’s easily the most implausible (and the most comically agile) piece of wildcat criticism I’ve come across in years. … Klosterman’s book is terrific for a lot of reasons—it’s an act of cultural bravery, a convincing argument for why this cranked-up music was important to a generation of kids, and a delicious attack on the pretensions of baby-boomer rock critics, who hated this stuff. What makes Fargo Rock City sing, however, is Klosterman’s good-natured enthusiasm. … Thanks to Fargo Rock City and another book, Bebe Buell’s Rebel Heart, this has been the best year in recent memory for fresh and heartfelt American rock writing.”

  —Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review

  “This is what Lester Bangs would have written had he been a farmboy raised on a diet of Skid Row and KISS. Unfailingly smart and demonically opinionated. …”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Klosterman starts up with a bang, shifts gears often, and rarely idles. [Fargo Rock City] will strike a power chord. …”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “It takes balls to publicly defend hair metal bands and brains to explain why these cheese masters have had such lasting importance in people’s lives. Combining memoir, cultural criticism and historical analysis with heart from America’s heartland, Klosterman makes his case. Writing with humor and relentless fanboy zeal, Klosterman’s exegesis on Mötley Crüe alone places him among rock’s greatest scribes. Break out the babes, the Buds, the butts and the mousse, ‘cause—after Fargo Rock City—Cinderella, Poison and Bon Jovi will never sound the same.”

  —Dr. Donna Gaines, author of Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia’s Dead End Kids

  “Klosterman may be the first totally postmodern rock critic.”

  —The Hartford Courant (CT)

  “This is the best music journalism book of the year.”

  —The Independent Weekly (Durham, NC)

  “If Greil Marcus had grown up in some repressed, oppressive, cold and remote farm town up on the Canadian border, subsisted on tallboys and fried food, read Mad magazine instead of Heidegger, and kept Whitesnake’s debut album in heavy rotation on the boombox, then he very likely would have written a book like Chuck Klosterman’s Fargo Rock City. … [M]akes for smart, fun reading. It may even prompt you to spin “Rock You Like a Hurricane” or “Cat Scratch Fever” again—God help us all.”

  —Phoenix New Times

  “Klosterman’s hilarious heavy metal odyssey will flick the Bic of every headbanger who’s ever found salvation in a great Mötley Crüe riff. His sly, swaggering prose struts across the page like Axl Rose in his prime.”

  —Marc Weingarten, author of Station to Station: The Secret History of Rock and Roll on Television

  “I spend about half my time thinking and writing about music and this is the best damn book I’ve read in several years. Nothing written about metal comes close. It deserves a place alongside Dave Marsh’s The Heart of Rock and Soul, Greil Marcus’ Mystery Train, Peter Guralnick’s Sweet Soul Music, and Gary Giddins’ Visions of Jazz at the very top of the list of the best books ever written about American music.”

  —Craig Werner, author of A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America

  “Though often analytical, Fargo Rock City is so much fun that it feels more like a tribute than an intellectual exercise. In reality, it’s both … perhaps the best book written on the topic.”

  —Billboard

  “Either one of the saddest or greatest music books ever written.”****

  —Q Magazine (UK)

  “Chuck Klosterman has written a loving and thoroughly unrepentant apology for the hair bands of the 1980s … good for insight, and plenty of fun to read.”

  —No Depression

  “As goofy as its subject, Fargo Rock City is part memoir, part barstool rant, and it is ridiculously engaging.”

  —Eric Weisbard, The New York Times Book Review

  ALSO BY CHUCK KLOSTERMAN

  Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs:

  A Low Culture Manifesto

  Killing Yourself to Live:

  85% of a True Story

  Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious

  People and Dangerous Ideas

  Downtown Owl:

  A Novel

  SCRIBNER

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Klosterman

  Epilogue copyright © 2002 by Chuck Klosterman

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  First Scribner trade paperback edition 2003

  SCRIBNER and design are trademarks of Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work.

  DESIGNED BY ERICH HÖBBING

  Set in Electra

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Klosterman, Chuck

  Fargo rock city: a heavy metal odyssey in rural Nörth Daköta/Chuck Klosterman

  p. cm.

  1. Heavy metal (Music)—Social aspects—United States. 2. North Dakota—Social life and customs—20th century. 3. Klosterman, Chuck. I. Title.

  ML3918.R63 K56 2001

  781.66—dc21 00–51575

  ISBN 0-7432-0227-9

  ISBN: 978-0-7434-0656-7 (print)

  ISBN 978-1-4165-8952-5 (eBo
ok)

  ISBN 0-7434-0656-7 (Pbk)

  “Glam Rock Revival” by Chuck Klosterman, reprinted with permission of the Akron Beacon Journal, November 13, 1998

  Dedicated to my parents (who I hope never actually read this book), and in memory of Thad Holen (who I wish could have had the chance).

  Thank you for purchasing this Scribner eBook.

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  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1: October 26, 1983

  Chapter 2: March 24, 1984

  Chapter 3: December 31, 1984

  Chapter 4: June 6, 1985

  Chapter 5: December 12, 1985

  Chapter 6: Summer, 1986

  Chapter 7: September 13, 1986

  Chapter 8: February 1, 1987

  Chapter 9: April 18, 1987

  Chapter 10: October 10, 1987

  Chapter 11: April 23, 1988

  Chapter 12: June 18, 1988

  Chapter 13: July 20, 1988

  Chapter 14: October 15, 1988

  Chapter 15: February 18, 1989

  Chapter 16: September 23, 1989

  Chapter 17: September 10, 1990

  Chapter 18: June 27, 1992

  Chapter 19: November 15, 1992

  Chapter 20: January 27, 1997

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  When given the opportunity to make “acknowledgments” for the creation of a book, it’s tempting to list every person you’ve ever met in your entire life. That was my original intention when I started writing this page, but I suppose that’s kind of ridiculous and sort of risky, so I’m not even going to try. Instead, I’m only mentioning a select few.

  The first person I need to thank is my agent, Todd Keithley, who believed in this project with the intensity of a wolverine on crack. I also must mention Matthew Kalash and his associate Sid Jenkins, who innocently introduced me to Todd and changed the course of my career. I’m just as thankful for the brilliant work of my editor at Scribner, Brant Rumble, who understood this book immediately and actually seemed to like it, even though it never mentions Liam Gallagher or Greg Maddux.

  I would also like to thank the multitudes of people who read this manuscript at its various stages, particularly David Giffels and Michael Weinreb (who both provided the necessary competition) and Ross Raihala (who helped shape the way I think about popular music). I am forever indebted to Mark J. Price, who’s got to be the only copy editor in the universe who knows AP style and the original lineup for Stryper. Bob Ethington provided some bonus editing down the stretch. And though I can’t mention them all by name, I want to acknowledge my entire family, the UND Posse, my colleagues from the Dakota Student (especially my superfoxy lawyer, Amy Everhart), my past and current coworkers at The Forum newspaper and the Akron Beacon Journal, and everyone else who ever wasted time with me. If we’ve had more than two conversations, you’re probably in this book. I would also like to apologize to any girl I’ve ever dated, partially for using you in this story but mostly for anything else I might have done along the way.

  Finally, I would like to personally thank everyone who buys this book, and even those of you who just look at it in a bookstore and decide it isn’t worth the money. As a writer, there is nothing more flattering than having someone invest their thoughts into something you wrote. And if you hate this book, feel free to call me at home. My phone number is (330) 867-1883.A The only thing I ask is that you promise not to talk about heavy metal (except for maybe KISS).

  Fargo Rock City

  You know, I’ve never had long hair.

  I don’t think there has ever been a day when the back of my neck wasn’t visible. In fact, I think I’ve had pretty much the same Richie Cunningham haircut for the past twenty-seven years (excluding a three-year stretch from 1985 to 1988, when I parted my hair down the middle and feathered it back). It seems like I spent half my life arguing with my parents over this issue, and it was a debate I obviously lost every single time. As a ninth-grader, I once became so enraged about the length of my hair that I actually spit on our kitchen floor. Remarkably, that clever gesture did not seem to influence my mother’s aesthetics.

  What my mom failed to understand was that I didn’t even want long hair—I needed long hair. And my desire for protracted, flowing locks had virtually nothing to do with fashion, nor was it a form of protest against the constructions of mainstream society. My motivation was far more philosophical.

  I wanted to rock.

  To me, rocking was everything. As a skinny white kid on a family farm in North Dakota, it seemed to be the answer to all the problems I thought I had. I couldn’t sing and I played no instruments, but I knew I had the potential to rock. All night long I slapped Mötley Crüe and Ratt cassettes into my boom box (which we called a “ghetto blaster,” which I suppose would now be considered racist) and rocked out in my bedroom while I read Hit Parader and played one-on-none Nerf hoop basketball. Clearly, I was always ready to rock—but I needed the hair. I didn’t care if it was blond and severe like Vince Neil’s or black and explosive like Nikki Sixx’s—I just needed more of it. It would have been my singular conduit to greatness, and it was the only part of my life that had a hope of mirroring the world of the Crüe: They lived in L.A., they banged porn stars, they drank Jack Daniel’s for breakfast, and they could spit on their kitchen floor with no repercussions whatsoever. They were like gods on Mount Olympus, and it’s all because they understood the awe-inspiring majesty of rock. Compared to Nikki and Vince, Zeus was a total poseur.

  Sadly, the Crüe proved to be ephemeral, coke-addled deities. Rock critics spent an entire decade waiting for heavy metal to crash like a lead zeppelin, and—seemingly seconds after Kurt Cobain wore a dress on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball—they all got their shovels and began pouring dirt on the graves of Faster Pussycat, Winger, Tesla, Kix, and every other band that experimented with spandex, hairspray, and flash pots. Metal had always been a little stupid; now it wasn’t even cool. This was the end. Yngwie Malmsteen, we hardly knew ye.

  I became a cultural exile; I wandered the 1990s in search of pyrotechnic riffs and lukewarm Budweiser. It didn’t matter how much I pretended to like Sub Pop or hip-hop—I was an indisputable fossil from a musical bronze age, and everybody knew it. My street cred was always in question. Like a mutant species of metal morlocks, my fellow headbangers and I went into hiding, praying that the cute alternachick who worked at the local coffeehouse would not suss out our love for Krokus.

  But that era of darkness is going to end.

  It is time for all of us to embrace our heavy metal past. It is time to admit that we used to rock like hurricanes. It is time to run for the hills and go round and round. It is time for us to Shout at the Devil. We’ve got the right to choose it, there ain’t no way we’ll lose it, and we’re not gonna take it anymore.

  Quite simply, that’s why I wrote this book: to recognize that all that poofy, sexist, shallow glam rock was important (at least to the kids who loved it). I’m not necessarily claiming that the metal genre was intellectually underrated, but I feel compelled to insist it’s been unjustifiably ignored.

  In 1998, I was in a Borders bookstore, browsing through the music section. Chain bookstores always amaze me, because it seems like someone has written a book about absolutely everything. I think that’s why bookstores have become the hot place for single adults to hook up—bookstores have a built-in pickup line that always fits the situation. You simply walk up to any desirable person in the place, look at whatever section they’re in, and you say (with a certain sense of endearing bewilderment), “Isn’t it insane how many books there are about ______?” Fill in the blank with whatever subject at which the individual happens to be looking, and you will always seem perceptiv
e. Of course there’s going to be a ridiculous number of books on draft horses (or David Berkowitz, or the pipe organ renaissance, or theories about the mating habits of the Sasquatch, or whatever), and you will both enjoy a chuckle over the concept of literary overkill. The best part of this scheme is that it actually seems spontaneous. Bookstores have always been a great place for liars and sexual predators.

  ANYWAY, I was shocked to realize this phenomenon does not apply to heavy metal. There are plenty of books about every other pop subculture—grunge, disco, techno, rap, punk, alt country—but virtually nothing about 1980s hard rock. All you find are a few rock encyclopedias, a handful of “serious” metal examinations, and maybe something by Chuck Eddy.

  At first blush, that shouldn’t seem altogether surprising. I mean, nobody literate cares about metal, right? But then something else occurred to me: I like metal, and I’m at least semiliterate. In fact, a lot of the most intelligent people I knew at college grew up on metal, just like me. And we were obviously not alone.

  Let’s say you walked into the average American record store on a typical summer day in 1987 (and for sake of argument, let’s say it was June 20). What was selling? Well, U2’s The Joshua Tree was No. 1 on the charts—but Whitesnake was No. 2. Mötley Crüe’s Girls Girls Girls was No. 3. Bon Jovi’s commercial monster Slippery When Wet was still No. 4 (in fact, three Bon Jovi records were in the Top 200). Poison was No. 5. Ozzy Osbourne’s live Tribute to Randy Rhoads was No. 6. Cinderella’s Night Songs was a year old, but it was hanging on at No. 27. Ace Frehley was showing his windshield-scarred face at No. 43. Tesla’s Mechanical Resonance was outperforming R.E.M.’s Dead Letter Office by eleven spots (and—perhaps even more telling—Dead Letter Office featured a cover of Aerosmith’s “Toys in the Attic”). Christ, even Stryper’s To Hell with the Devil was at No. 74.

  There were between twenty and twenty-five metals bands on the Billboard Top 200 album chart that week (depending on your definition of “heavy metal”), and—in reality—there almost certainly should have been more. Remember, this was before Soundscan, and metal acts were faced with the same problem that plagued rappers and country artists: They were often ignored by the record store owners who reported the sales, usually by pure estimation. This was clearly illustrated in the summer of 1991, when Soundscan was finally introduced and Skid Row’s Slave to the Grind immediately debuted at No. 1. The Skid’s eponymous first record sold three times as many units as its follow-up, but Billboard had never placed Skid Row higher than No. 7 and forced it to crawl up the chart, one position per week. It almost certainly flew off shelves far faster (and far more often).