Well here we go with what could be the biggest metal band ever to tread the stages of the world, Metallica. Formed in 1981 by a young Lars Ulrich (Drums) and James Hetfeild (guitars and vocals) in San Francisco USA. The band like many others went through a variety of lineup changes in the early days with Hetfield and Ulrich enlisting the bassist Ron McGoveny and guitar player Lloyd Grant.
The band had been in existence around 5 months before Lars Ulrich managed to grease his way onto a Metal Blade records compilation CD called “Metal Massacre” for which James and Lars recorded the song “Hit the Lights”. The compilation got around well in the American Metal scene and really set the band up to pull great crowds once they started playing live. It wasn’t long before the band started landing decent profile support slots the first of which being an opening slot for British heavy metal band Saxon.
Next up was the recording of the bands first demo tape, “Power Metal”. The recording was rough but got the point across and was a revolutionary take on Heavy Metal, basically setting the band up as the first real thrash band.
The band then recruited a revolutionary guitar player, Dave Mustaine. His advanced guitar playing chops really set the band apart from others in the scene at the time. Mustaine was in essence a virtuoso and provided a major step up for a band that was realistically still pretty rudimentary at the time. With their new found focus they started gigging with Ulrich on Drums, Mustaine on lead guitar Hetfield on Guitar and Vocals and Ron McGovney on Bass. In late 1982 Ulrich and Hetfield went out to the Whiskey to watch another local band Trauma, who featured the unique and rather creative bass player Cliff Burton. Whom the band had to have on bass. The rest of course is history as the real starting lineup for what would eventually become the biggest metal band in the world was cemented in.
Next up the band recorded the infamous “No Life ’til Leather” demo in 1982. By this point the band was sounding pretty similar to what you’d hear on their first album “Kill em all”. The demo was farmed around in hopes of getting a record deal but nothing eventuated. Friend of the band Johnny Z (Zazula) took out a loan to fund the album and release it on his label, Megaforce Records.
Two weeks before the recording of the first album the band had to fire lead guitarist Dave Mustaine for a series of Drug / Alcohol related stuff ups. Kirk Hammett (from the band Exodus) was brough in to replace him and was given 2 weeks to learn the guitar solos for the recording of the album. I feel that Hammett did a pretty good job considering but he wasn’t able to (or perhaps unwilling to) emulate Dave Mustaines solos exactly. This has been the subject of much debate over the following decades.
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For a more complete review of Metallica’s debut album, Kill Em All be sure to read our review here |
It wasn’t long after their debut album “Kill em all” that some higher profile supports including Venom, and their own gigs starting to fill the larger clubs in LA / San Francisco that started Metallica on their way to becoming the biggest heavy metal band ever. The rest as you dear readers would know is scribed forever in heavy metal history.
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