Between a Heart and a Rock Place: A Memoir
Pat Benatar
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 0061953776
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
For more than thirty years, Pat Benatar has been one of the most iconic women in rock music, with songs like "Heartbreaker," "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," and "Love Is a Battlefield" becoming anthems for multiple generations of fans. Now, in this intimate and uncompromising memoir, one of the bestselling female rock artists of all time shares the story of her extraordinary career, telling the truth about her life, her struggles, and how she won things—her way.
From her early days in the New York club scene of the 1970s to headlining sold-out arena tours, Benatar offers a fascinating account of a life spent behind the microphone. As the first female artist ever to be played on MTV, she speaks candidly about the realities of breaking into the boys' club of rock and roll at a time when people everywhere still believed a woman's only place in popular music was as a girlfriend, a groupie, or a sex symbol. And though her fiery edge and aggressive swagger produced instant success, they also led to fights over her image that would linger for years to come.
Going backstage and into the studio, Benatar sets the record straight about how her music evolved, illustrating the visionary role that her guitarist, producer, and eventual husband, Neil "Spyder" Giraldo, played in combining her classically trained voice with razor-sharp guitar to create her unique hard-rock sound. Together they formed a musical and spiritual bond that would last a lifetime, helping her stay true to herself while avoiding the pitfalls and excesses of rock stardom.
Written with the attitude and defiance that embodies Pat Benatar's music, Between a Heart and a Rock Place is a rock-and-roll story unlike any other, a remarkable tale of playing by your own rules, even if that means breaking a few of theirs.
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got a girlfriend. Don’t talk to me.” Over the next week, he kept it up, mentioning Montana every so often, like we were going to head off into the wild and start a new life together. I became very blunt. Every time he mentioned Montana I’d say, “Figure out your own situation. Then we’ll talk about Montana.” I was trying to protect myself. His relationship with Linda seemed intact, and I wasn’t going to play the fool. I couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like with him out on the road. It
were able to write anything for Crimes of Passion. In addition to the group effort that produced “Hell Is for Children,” Spyder wrote “Little Paradise,” and the two of us wrote “Never Wanna Leave You” and collaborated on “Out-A-Touch” with our drummer Myron Grombacher, who had come with us from the first tour. He was Spyder’s closest friend; they were like brothers. Myron was the perfect complement to Spyder’s guitar style, bringing the forceful drum sound that Spyder wanted for the band.
trying to create that once-in-a-lifetime moment. But when he was getting ready to work on “Battlefield,” he started fooling around with a brand-new drum machine and hearing Bo Diddley in his head. Somehow between the drum machine and Bo Diddley, he came up with an idea for the song. As he described the sound to me, I wasn’t sure I understood, but I was intrigued. I was the only one in the band who’d heard the song in any of its incarnations and the only one who knew it was meant to be a very slow
sign that Spyder was. We had some fun. We were happy to be back playing the kind of music that had been our signature sound. Seeing all those amps again and hearing that wailing guitar just made me smile. I had tucked my love for all of this away in a safe place and it had survived. In spite of everything, I still loved my job. By the time we recorded Gravity’s Rainbow, Spyder and I had given up trying to have another child. We’d been trying for almost nine years—ever since Haley had been born.
and eventually Spyder and I agreed that we should stop talking about living in Hana and actually do it. And after all that happened, we decided that it would be the right time to just do it. We ended up staying for four glorious years. Perhaps it was partly because we were looking for a way to channel our sadness over Andy’s death into our music, but in the year following his death, Spyder started wanting to get in the studio again. We hadn’t made a studio album since 1997’s Innamorata. So he
