Swimming with the Blowfish: Hootie, Healing, and One Hell of a Ride

Summary

The ultimate front-row seat to Hootie & the Blowfish and Jim “Soni” Sonefeld’s breathtaking path from addiction to recovery.

For a time, there was no bigger band in the world than Hootie & the Blowfish—rock & roll’s unexpected foil to the grunge music that dominated the early ’90s airwaves. Jim Sonefeld, drummer and one of the group’s principal songwriters, reveals their humble beginnings, meteoric rise, Grammy Award–winning musicianship, sudden fall, and ultimate rebirth—and opens his heart to readers about addiction, recovery, and faith.

Hootie’s debut album Cracked Rear View was one of the bestselling in the history of rock music. It saturated radio airwaves, television, and culture, and placed the quartet at the center of the American music conversation—for better and for worse. Though Jim enjoyed the perks that came with fame—the parties, the relationships, the money, the drugs and alcohol—eventually it all became a camouflage that hid a deeper spiritual malady. As his life careened toward disaster, he sought relief in twelve-step recovery, eventually devoting himself to a loving but by no means uncomplicated home life.

Swimming with the Blowfish is an unpretentious, emotional story of one man’s spiritual path to a more fruitful life. Jim’s journey is staggering and redeeming, and ultimately as comforting as your favorite flannel shirt.