Published in 2023
12 hours and 48 minutes
At 22, Vicky Hamilton left her hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and arrived on the Sunset Strip as a wide-eyed blonde with an ear for rock & roll: “I was back home interviewing Tom Petty for Three Rivers Review,” says Hamilton, “And he told me I was a ‘real California girl,’ and that’s all it took.” It was 1981, and Hamilton arrived at the center of Hollywood; where the scene was erupting with spandex, sex, cocaine, Aqua Net hairspray and madcap visionaries, like Hamilton, who discovered Guns N’ Roses and became their first manager and surrogate mother. Her book includes new details about her turbulent relationship with Axl Rose and Poison’s Bret Michaels, her experience as an A&R rep for Geffen, and above all, Appetite for Dysfunction is the story of her rise and fall, and how she regained her life by becoming a Grammy Award winning executive that helped relaunch the career of June Carter Cash in 1999.
What is this book about?
Vicky Hamilton became the top female record company executive and personal band manager. Only to reach her aspirations while working with Guns N’ Roses, to then take on the most coveted A&R position to date at Geffen Records, under David Geffen himself. It was common knowledge that while David Geffen was relaxing at his Malibu beach house, Hamilton was busy scouring dark clubs for talent. Doing the kind of legwork many larger record labels had gotten away from.
Appetite For Dysfunction is the first time Vicky candidly speaks out about the life she lived on the front lines, deep in the heartless world of the music business. Hamilton brings to this book her unbiased observations and shrewd glimpses about who these rock stars and executives are at the core of their beings, and about herself, as well. She expresses her gratitude for her historic past and her accomplishments, as well as her own shortcomings along the way. She shares her victories, her mistakes, the horror stories, and her dark comedic approach to “making it” in the entertainment business. Even while getting her heart broken on many occasions, leading to some cataclysmic breakdowns, Vicky battles to hang on to her integrity. Painfully taking the highroad, as she loses her job at Capitol Records, while facing eviction and a phone that suddenly stopped ringing, Vicky holds her head high, humbly reinvents herself, and literally, goes on with the show.
Appetite For Dysfunction is a self-exploratory journey through Vicky’s life. A small-town girl who risks everything by dropping out of art school, leaving behind the safety of loved ones and small town values, and making her way to Hollywood. When Vicky arrived, she landed a job as a mere record store clerk, to then miraculously find herself deep in the trenches of an unscrupulous, male dominated, music entertainment business, and blossomed into Hollywood’s most controversial A&R woman and band manager.
