METALLICA is a mega-band of heavy metal from 80s and 90s, whose name
became a face of heavy metal for many fans and musicians. There are
only few bands in the history of rock that reached such height as
Metallica, and I doubt that today someone else has such fame and
popularity as them. In short fifteen years this band turned from a
bunch of basement amateurs into a national sensation. Most importantly
Metallica never compromised their music for anyone in show business.
Their music always was their self-expression, their faith. In this
story, I will try to tell how Metallica began.
Metallica’s beginning as many other things in this world owes to
someone being at the right place in the right time. I’m talking about
one of the founders of future legend – its drummer, Lars Ulrich, who was
born in faraway Denmark. This fact is interesting, because only two
famous performers of heavy metal were ever born in Denmark: King Diamond
and Ulrich himself. Lars was born in a suburb of Copenhagen on December
26, 1963 in family of famous at that time tennis player, Torben Ulrich.
Due to this, problem of Lars’s profession was solved at early age. At
the beginning little Lars constantly traveled all around the world with
his dad to different championships and tournaments, and later took up
tennis himself. By the time Lars was ten, he was in the top ten of
Danish junior league, and would only keep advancing. Both Lars and his
father were thinking that his future was set as a tennis star. However,
that soon changed. In February of 1973 young Lars accidentally wound up
at a concert of Deep Purple. He was taken there by his father’s friend –
old hippie and fan of hard rock. Lars himself had little interest in
that kind of music. What he saw, however, turned his world upside down.
A week later, Lars brought home his first vinyl disc – album Deep
Purple ‘71’ ‘Fireball’. Lars also got into Sweet, Uriah Heep, Slade,
Thin Lizzy, and Black Sabbath – all the British rock-elite. Black
Sabbath’s concert in 75 inspired other people too, so Copenhagen at the
time had plenty of teenagers jumping with some heavy music and trying
make guitarists of themselves. Lars, on the other hand, chose a very
different instrument for himself – the drums. More and more often you
could see him spending time with two sticks and a bunch of boxes instead
of his tennis racket. Lars finally got real drums for his 13th birthday
after bugging his grandmother for several months. One time going around
his favorite of music stores, Lars found out “New Wave of British Heavy
Metal” or “NWOBHM” that changed his life again. In fall of 79 Lars
finally met a real, live rocker – drummer of Motorhead, Phil Taylor.
Lars’s parents at the same time were trying to find a way to deal with
their son’s growing music obsession. They decided on moving to America,
where they were sure, it would be easier for Lars to concentrate on
sport and continue his promising career in that field, because of all
the different tennis tournaments going on in there. So in the middle of
1980 the whole family moved across the ocean to California. Their new
home became a place called New-Port Beach, several miles to the south of
Los-Angeles. Lars’s parents sold his drums in Denmark before the move
and made him start on tennis again. That didn’t work, however. Two
months after the move, Lars got himself his own drums, and this time
there was nothing his parents could do to keep him away from them. Lars
had a problem with America, though: nobody even heard about the music he
was so crazy about. There was nothing heavier than Van Halen on the west
coast at that time. It is easy to understand how lonely Lars was in his
passions. Everyone considered him completely crazy and hopelessly
focused on his drums and foreign heavy metal. In the beginning of 1981,
however, Lars got lucky – he finally met a common thinker, a guy named
Jeff Warner, who played the guitar and also liked British rock. Right
after they met, both agreed to devote all their free time to heavy
metal. In the end of February they met Lloyd Grant, a skilled black
guitarist, who was ten years older than Lars and Jeff. Even though it
didn’t cause any trouble, after several weeks of training together, the
three broke up. Lars and Lloyd had some purely communication problems,
and Jeff, disappointed by what happened, left too.
Now back to 63, when on August 3, James Allan Hetfield was born in
Los-Angeles’s suburb, Norwalk. Unlike Lars, James Hetfield started
taking on music at very early age – his father Virgil made him take
fortepiano lessons. All those lessons made Beethoven, Mozart, and all
other classics, Hetfield’s “enemies”. With that set of mind, James
didn’t really try with the piano and interest himself with theory part;
he just banged the keys to make some noise. Interestingly enough,
James’s older brother considered him to be skilled enough and accepted
him into his own band The Bitter End, where he himself played the drums.
Gradually James got into heavy metal as much as Lars did.
Story of the third member of future band Metallica, story of Ron
McGownie, can be summed up in only one saying: “Tell me who your friends
are, and I’ll tell you who you are.” Ron was growing a perfect boy,
until he met with Hetfield. Ron didn’t share James’s music passions,
but in time James infected him with them, and Ron decided to start
playing the guitar, too.
James started two bands one after another: Obsession, and Syrinx, but
neither lasted that long. In 1980 James’s mother died and he moved to
Brie with his brother. There he met with guy named Hue Tanner and formed
a band called Phantom Lord. The band wasn’t really one, it was James
and Hue sitting and playing together. They didn’t have a bass player,
so James offered Ron that place. Ron wasn’t a bass player, he didn’t
even have a bass guitar, but James didn’t care, he decided to teach Ron
and he did. Phantom Lord, however, wasn’t doing all that good: Hue
Tanner, as good as he was as a guitarist, finally decided to go into
music management. Couple of days after Hue left, James brought a
drummer named Jim Mulligan, who was his former classmate, and a new
guitarist, Troy James – Hetfield still wanted to be only a vocalist.
After all these changes a new band was formed – Leather Charm. This
band, however, played a very different kind of music from what Hetfield
played before: Leather Charm played the real glam-rock. For the first
time they wrote three of their own songs: “Hit The Lights’, “Handsome
Ransom” and “Let’s Go Rock’n’Roll”. First one was included in Metallica
debut album and the other two later made one song – “No Remorse”.
Leather Charm itself, didn’t last long either: they didn’t play any
concerts and Mulligan wanted to played more progressive music.
Nevertheless, Leather Charm because an ugly prototype of future
Metallica.
But without Lars Ulrich, METALLICA wasn’t destined to be. This way we
come to a moment when James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich finally meet each
other. When Leather Charm broke up, James placed an ad in California
newspaper “The Recycler” – something like looking for musicians in a
band. But here’s the tricky part: such ads were so rare that in section
“Heavy-metal” of “The Recycler” there were only two names: James
Hetfield and… Lars Ulrich! So it was impossible for them not to call
each other. It’s also very interesting, it turned out that James and
Lars already met and even played together. When it was only James and
Hue, Hue brought Lars to one of their rehearsals, and they all played a
little together. That time, however, both James and Ron (it happened in
his house, but he didn’t play yet) thought Lars was the worst drummer on
earth. Lars couldn’t hold the rhythm, and was awful compared to
Mulligan. Fate, however, had other opinion, so this time was different.
After meeting with James, Lars dragged James to his house where he
played his vinyl discs to James the whole day constantly adding some
needed and unneeded comments, and also stories about various European
concerts and parties with Diamond Head and Motorhead. Hetfield
instantly fell in love with all those British bands, but he was too
shocked by information overload, moreover as he never even NWOBHM
before. “At that time I was listening to Black Sabbath, Judas Priest –
bands also British, but I never had any idea about any underground!”
His impression of Lars, however, was much different from impression he
got from Lars’ music collection. It’s even rumored that James said to
Lars that he stinks and suggested using soap. On the other hand, James
was downright impressed by how rich Lars’s family was and all the
excellent music equipment Lars had. At the same time Lars was pulled in
by James’s experience in collective work and all his ideas and
suggestions for rehearsals, renting their own place to play, and all the
other stuff necessary for a band to exist. “Of course, I wanted all
this”, Lars says, “but James just stumbled me with all his ideas. To say
the truth, I just wanted someone to play my favorite songs with, instead
of simply sitting alone and mindlessly pounding the drums.”
Nevertheless, the same evening, thanks to James Hetfield’s determination
the legendary METALLICA was conceived. Of course it took them much more
than one time to get something done. When it came to first rehearsals,
Hetfield called Lars an incapable Dutch midget, and left banging the
door. To tell the truth though, Lars wasn’t really wasn’t that good at
the time, and had to play the cheapest “Woolworsth” set of drums that
cost him seven bucks. Over a period of time, however, Lars and James got
over their animosity and became good friends.
Their not so big start came with help of one of Lars’s friends working
in publishing of “New Heavy Metal Review”, Brian Slegel. At that time,
in 1981, there were more and more heavy metal bands appearing in
Los-Angeles, and Brian decided to put best of them on one disc. To put
this idea to life Slegel created his own company – “Metal Blade”, and
started calling all his familiar local bands for this compilation, which
was going to be called “Metal Massacre”. Brian already got a yes for a
song for Bitch, Steeler and Ratt, when he got a call from Lars Ulrich
who asked if Slegel could include a song from Lars’s band if he was able
to put one together. Brian said that he would be happy to do it, by
that giving a start to METALLICA! Slegel may overestimate his
contribution into creation of this mega band, but METALLICA really got
their first song out with “Metal Massacre”. After talking on the phone
with Slegel, Ulrich hurriedly found James Hetfield, and told him that
they had a chance to be featured on a vinyl if they came up with a whole
band real fast. Hetfield agreed, as he figured there was nothing to
lose. This way a distant likelihood of a band was quickly compiled.
After that, they still had a task of writing the song itself. This,
however, took them even less time than compiling a band. Their “Hit The
Lights” was piece of James’s old Leather Charm song, with Lars adding
something of his own to it. Due to fact that their likelihood of the
band had an awful shortage of players, Lars and James had to record
drums, bass, guitar and vocal on a primitive four-track “TEAC” all by
themselves. After that they got a soloist named Lloyd Grant who was
already mentioned in the story through the same “Recycler”. Even though
the quality of their final recording had a vast room for improvement,
Brian Slegel was happy with “Hit The Lights” and even declared it the
best song he got for his compilation. Such turn of events made
musicians themselves much more than happy, and James even changed his
opinion about Lars’s skills and decided the continue their joint
playing. Moreover, Lars finally got a new set of drums and they sounded
nothing like the old set did.
Now the story finally comes to the name “METALLICA”. After recording
“Hit The Lights”, Lars and James needed a name under which to present
themselves to the world. Back in those days, long and inflated names
like today, were not in fashion, so it was quite a task picking a good
name. James and Lars have gone over a whole bunch of different names
like Grinder, Blitzer, Red Vette, Helldriver, and even Thunderf**k.
They both really liked the name Thunderf**k and even came up with a logo
for it, but censorship is censorship and they didn’t want to take their
chances with this name, so they had to keep on thinking. They finally
got help with this from another Lars’s friend Ron Quintann. Ron often
visited Lars, and one fall evening of 1981, he came to Ulrich glowing
from happiness and told Lars, that his lifelong dream – creating his own
heavy-metal newspaper – is about to turn to reality, and that all he
needed was a name for his paper! It turned out that Ron already had two
choices, and he couldn’t decide to pick either “Metallica” or “Metal
Mania”. Trying to hide his excitement, Lars blurted out that “Metal
Mania” was way better. This famous theft happened on October 27, 1981,
giving the world METALLICA. Almost the next day, James created a logo
for the name: the one with arrows, which you can see on any Metallica
merchandise today. Passing the name and the logo to Brian Slegel, Lars
and James started on the actual problems: getting a bassist and a second
guitarist. Bassist was found very fast – this empty place was given to
good old Ron McGownie. Even though neither Lars not James ever took Ron
as a real musician, they had to compile the band the sooner the better –
that was the main condition for participating in the project of Brian
Slegel. Finding the second guitarist took a while longer. The fact
that Lloyd Grant is not going to stay in Metallica longer than it took
to record “Hit The Lights” was apparent to everyone: Lars and James
didn’t consider him fit for the rhythm guitar. After trying out a
couple dozens different guitarists, they had to turn to their old tested
method – the newspaper ad. It worked this time too, getting Metallica –
Dave Mustane. For Dave playing the guitar was the only escape in his
awful childhood, so he was good enough for Metallica, and after one
rehearsal Dave did with them, he became their member. First thing, Dave
called their “Hit The Lights” and the band rerecorded all the solos in
it. In fact the new version did turn out much better.
At this time, the kind of music METALLICA played, not only nobody else
in America played, but nobody even heard it! It was really something
new, and unheard of before. This can be explained be the absence of
Metallica concerts, which in turn can be explained by Metallica not
being fully compiled (James Hetfield, was still torn between vocals and
guitar, and refused to do both).
Finally, the historic even – first, the very first concert of Metallica
– happened in the club called “Radio City” in Anaheim, on March 14,
1982. For Metallica it was a completely new feeling new atmosphere –
the world of live music, unity of performers and listeners, where the
boundaries between the two disappear. However, in those years only a
few people took interest in Metallica’s music, and the masses were crazy
about the Glam-rock. Despite all that, guys’ popularity somehow kept
growing and even Europe heard of Metallica!
After some touring, Metallica set (which consisted of only “Hit The
Lights” at the time) finally had three more songs added to it: “The
Mechanix”, “Jump In The Fire”, and Hetfield’s “Motorbreath”. In April
of 82 these three plus “Hit The Lights” were recorded on tape in
McGownie’s garage. Later this tape became a basis for all the business
deals. Lars Ulrich and a guy named Patrick Scott, started on
distribution of these tapes, by passing out free copies with card that
said Metallica and their phone number to almost anyone they saw.
At the same time, the band was continuously searching for a rhythm
guitarist. They found an extremely weird guy named Brad Parker, but
after one concert with him, they had to kick Brad out, and James
Hetfield finally realized that he would have to carry the burden, of
playing the rhythm guitar.
In 1982 the “Metal Massacre” finally came out. Even though its cover
had countless typos and the band’s name was spelled “Mettallica”, it
became their first official disc, and planted the seeds where
Metallica’s later fame would be partly rooted.
Things really to started to pick up the pace for Metallica when of
their concert recordings wound up in the hands of Kenny Kane, owner and
manager of independent company “High Velocity”. Having found
Metallica’s work very innovative, Kane contacted the band and offered
Metallica to release a whole EP, promising to cover all the recording
costs. Sure enough, the band agreed, but later it turned out that the
concert tape Kane heard had only the cover songs, not the Metallica
originals, so Kane refused to put out the Metallica vinyl. However, the
band still got their paid studio where they recorded “No Life ‘Till
Leather” – their new demo tape, which was spread the same way as the
first one.
On September 18 in San Francisco, Metallica appeared at the
presentation of “Metal Massacre” organized by Brian Slegel himself. The
band wound up there pure accidentally after Cirith Ungol (one of
Slegel’s picks) couldn’t make it. The interesting thing was that all
the fans that came to that concert had “No Life ‘Till Leather” and
jointly sang the words of almost all the Metallica songs. This was the
first time Metallica met with its real fans.
Metallica continued playing in San Francisco, gaining more and
popularity until November 28, when the band finally headlined their own
show! That show was also where and when Metallica met Kirk Hammett, who
then played in Exodus – a band who was warming the crowd up at the show.
At the same time, there were and more problems with Ron McGownie in the
middle of Metallica itself. Ron was getting more and more distant from
other band members, even during their friendly parties. As things were
getting worse, Brian Slegel invited Lars and James to visit concert of
the band called Trauma. There, both were completely captivated by
Trauma’s bassist – Cliff Burton. Cliff didn’t have any desire to leave
Trauma, but after the concert and months after that Lars and James were
literally stalking Burton, trying to get him into Metallica. Ron
McGownie accidentally found out about all this, and in December he
officially left Metallica. Several weeks after that whole Metallica
moved to San Francisco, and Cliff Burton finally agreed to play with
them.
When 1983 started, growing financial problems stopped Metallica’s
growth, until they a very influential west coast guy named Johnny Z.
Johnny Z. managed his own store called “Rock-n-roll Heaven” where you
could find anything connected with heavy metal. Same Johnny Z. also
organized rock concerts in New York and New Jersey from time to time.
Johnny convinced Metallica to go New York where he housed all four guys
for three months!
Gradually Dave Mustane and his heavy drinking started to distance him
from the band as Ron got distanced before that. Moreover, other members
of Metallica got an Exodus tape and just as they did with Cliff, they
got determined that they have got to have Kirk Hammett instead of Dave.
In April of 83 they shamelessly booted Dave, and instantly Kirk Hammett
became the newest member of the band. Still Metallica kept playing at
the same clubs introducing their new member to the public. The fun ended
when Johnny Z. kicked them all out of his house for drinking two bottles
of champagne that were his family’s treasure. For several weeks
Metallica had to live in the abandoned warehouse.
In the beginning of May, however, the band got news from Johnny that
even though he kicked them out of this house, he kept his word, and
rented a recording studio “Music America” for two weeks. May 10, 1983
Metallica first came into that studio. Their material was ready and
dozens if not even hundreds of times rehearsed. Finally, Metallica got
its wish and they could release their own disc!!!
Censorship didn’t allow the original name of the disc – “Metal Up Your
A**”, with a logo of a hand with a sword coming out of a toilet.
Metallica had to settle on “Kill ‘Em All” that basically expressed their
feelings toward the censors.
This album sold thousands of copies and made finally made Metallica a
success, but that’s already another story…
P.S. You can find out more about Metallica on my website:
http://xoma.newmail.ru
Bibliography
Dougnton, K. J. Metallica unbound: the unofficial biography. New York:
Warren Books, 1993
Putterford, Mark Metallica live! London: Omnibus press, 1994
Rees, Daffyd and Luke Crampton Encyclopedia of rock stars New York: DK,
1996
Crocker, Chris Metallica: the frayed ends of metal New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1993
Website: HYPERLINK “http://www.metallica.2000.ru”
http://www.metallica.2000.ru
Metallica in person. Port Chester, NY: Cherry Lane Music, 1990
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