Christian science, tennis dreams, and catchy cover tunes. Metallica may be the kings of
thrash metal, but the band members have some surprising details buried in their pasts.
With his roaring vocals, rambunctious rhythm guitar, scowling expression,
and facial hair choices, it's difficult to imagine James Hetfield doing anything
but fronting the biggest heavy metal group out there. However,
as Hetfield told Metal Hammer in 2020, his early life had little to do with heavy metal heroics.
Hetfield grew up in Los Angeles as a self-professed quiet, average kid
with one notable difference. The musician's family was in the Christian Science Church,
and its practices had a strong effect on young James. Hetfield described to Metal
Hammer how the church's restrictions affected everyday life in his formative years, saying:
"Our parents didn't take us to the doctor. We were basically relying on the spiritual power
of the religion to heal us or to shield us from being sick or injured. And so at school I wasn't
allowed to sit through health class, to learn about the body, to learn about illnesses and
things like that. And, say, I'm trying out for the football team [and] you have to get a physical, to
get a doctor's note, I'd have to go and explain to the coach that, you know, our religion says this.
So I felt really like an outcast, and, you know, kids would laugh about it."
While Hetfield admits this wasn't always easy,
he thinks of these hardships as important formative experiences ... as well as good
practice for the whole "outcast" thing that aided him as a hard-rocking musician.
As the animated drummer of Metallica, Lars Ulrich's been in charge of arguably the most
physical gig in the band throughout its existence. However, in an interview with Metal Hammer,
he noted that he originally envisioned a very different future for himself.
Ulrich is originally from Denmark, and the reason he found himself in California is,
as some might say, not exactly metal. Young Lars was actually the son of tennis
pro Torben Ulrich. He was also a very good tennis player in his home country.
In fact, Ulrich’s family moved Stateside in order for him to be able to rise to the highest echelons
of the sport. However, Ulrich soon found that the classic phrase about a big fish in a small pond
very much applied to him – or more specifically, his tennis skills, telling Metal Hammer:
"In Denmark I was ranked high enough to be one of the best tennis players in the country,
but there's only five million people there. When we came to Newport Beach,
I wasn't good enough to get on the tennis team at Corona del Mar High School.
I wasn't one of the best 10 tennis players in the street that I lived on!"
Fortunately, Ulrich soon found another interest in heavy metal,
and got heavily into the genre's early-1980s greats, adding:
"I was like, 'I want to form a band and play drums,' and off it went."
Metallica was formed in 1981 after James Hetfield answered Lars Ulrich's newspaper ad.
The founding pair had some infamous disagreements early on and the "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster"
documentary in 2004 revealed that the pair wasn't averse to butting heads even two decades later.
However, they did develop a sort of brotherly chemistry very early on.
Even though they clashed on occasion, they very much had each other's backs
at the end of the day. Lars even told Howard Stern about how James used to
bail him out when the drummer's mouth got him into trouble back in their early days.
"I would f---ing just take off but then James would clean it up
for me and throw a few punches at some of these other guys.”
According to ABC News, a lot of the pair's conflict stemmed from their differences.
While they share a very deep creative connection, they are very different people
in virtually every way, and, on occasion, had very different visions about the band.
However, as of 2017, Ulrich noted that the pair have gotten to know and appreciate
each other's viewpoints to a point that they work as a tighter unit than ever.
"We try to sort of see each other's point of view much more. It's called growing up."
Apart from the bass position, Metallica's lineup
has been noticeably stable throughout the band's decades in the limelight. However,
there was plenty of early installment weirdness while the band was taking its baby steps.
The very first Metallica lineup in 1981 consisted of founding members
James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, as well as a guitar player named Lloyd Grant,
who helped record the band's first song, "Hit the Lights."
Grant, however, wasn't a permanent member. In 1982, Hetfield and Ulrich were joined by two
new members, bassist Ron McGovney and future Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine on lead guitar.
Over the spring of 1983, the band finally found its iconic early lineup.
According to McGovney's interview on the Talk Is Jericho podcast,
his clock started ticking the second he, Ulrich and Hetfield saw Cliff Burton play live, saying:
"I'm looking at [James and Lars], and they're looking at [Cliff], so I kind of knew right
at that point. Like, 'Yeah, this is the guy that they're gonna go after. I can feel it.'"
Mustaine was abruptly replaced with Kirk Hammett after Hetfield and Ulrich grew
tired of his aggressive and unpredictable partying ways.
Because James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich are the most visible members of Metallica
and its principal songwriters, it's easy to assume that James
Hetfield and Lars Ulrich are the musical be-all and end-all of the band. However,
the biggest musical prodigy of the band's first iconic lineup just might have been the
highly technical and musically far-reaching Cliff Burton, the bass player in Trauma.
Hetfield and Ulrich were so keen to recruit him that they actually moved the band to San
Francisco at Burton's behest. Hetfield told Metal Hammer that the bass player
stood head and shoulders above others when it came to sheer musical training, adding:
"Besides introducing us to more music theory, he was the most schooled of any of us,
he had gone to junior college to learn some things about music, and taught us quite a few things."
Hetfield described seeing him play, revealing to Metal Hammer:
"When Lars and I had seen him play with Trauma,
our jaws fell onto the floor, and we said, 'We've got to get this guy.'"
Sadly, Burton's skill and devotion to the bass came from a tragedy in his family.
After his brother died when he was 13, Burton reportedly made it his
mission to become the best bass player he could be in his honor.
Arduous training and multiple teachers made him a
versatile player with knowledge of and appreciation for a multitude of genres,
from jazz to classical music ... and, of course, heavy metal.
Kirk Hammett may seem like the most mellow guy in Metallica,
but as the guitarist told Playboy in 2001, his backstory is easily
the darkest of the long-term band members. He opened up to the publication, saying:
"I was abused as a child. My dad drank a lot. He beat the sh--- out of me and my mom quite a
bit. I got ahold of a guitar, and from the time I was 15, I rarely left my room. I remember having
to pull my dad off my mom when he attacked her one time, during my 16th birthday—he
turned on me and started slapping me around. Then my dad just left one day. My mom was struggling to
support me and my sister. I've definitely channeled a lot of anger into the music."
Music and horror movies became the go-to escapes to young Hammett early on,
and in a 2021 interview with the Backstaged:
The Devil in Metal podcast, he actually attributed his survival to his love of music.
Per Metal Hammer, he gravitated toward the roughest music around,
and soon established himself as one of the most pivotal figures in the thrash metal scene. After
all, he's both a long-serving member of Metallica and a co-founder of fellow thrash giant Exodus.
In 2018, a Finnish charity organization and food bank received the biggest surprise ever,
when the representatives of Metallica contacted them. Two weeks later the
heavy metal juggernaut had played two shows in the country's capital, Helsinki,
and members of the Hursti Trust found themselves posing for a group photo with the metal legends,
holding a massive check for the local equivalent to a little over $28,000.
As an isolated incident, this might not seem like a massive thing for a
multimillion-dollar operation that's rocking out the world's stadium venues one by one.
However, it's worth remembering that there are stories like this everywhere the band goes.
Wherever Metallica may roam the band seems to take care to deploy their All Within My Hands
foundation, which supports food banks, helps the homeless, and is involved in other worthy
enterprises. Their charitable activities have added up to the point that in 2019,
Forbes speculated that Metallica might even be the single most charitable band around.
The most terrifying low point in Metallica's history came on September 27,
1986. They were touring in Sweden when the tour bus slid on the icy road, and a nasty accident
ensued. While the rest of the passengers survived with comparatively minor injuries,
bassist Cliff Burton was less fortunate.
Hetfield described finding his friend under the bus in the aftermath of the incident:
"I went to pull him out, you know, wake him up or whatever. It's like, you know, he's not moving."
Scott Ian of Metallica's tourmates Anthrax — who met the pair after the
accident — confirms Hetfield's state of mind at the time in his memoir,
which makes clear that the frontman was in deep, destructive despair.
Kirk Hammett, meanwhile, has described his own initial reaction as sheer disbelief.
Metallica returned on the road fairly shortly after the incident,
which Hammett later came to believe was a mistake.
"We didn't give ourselves enough time to recover from the grief."
In 1986, Metallica announced Jason Newsted as their new bassist after the tragic death
of Cliff Burton, per Loudwire. Newsted came with stellar recommendations but replacing
Burton so soon after his passing was a massive hurdle ... which Newsted himself
was perfectly capable of clearing, but his senior bandmates evidently weren't.
The new guy was a natural target for the veterans' unresolved issues. However,
while the fact that Newsted's first Metallica album, "... And Justice For All," has virtually
no audible bass makes it easy to believe that the record was yet another low blow to the bassist,
other band members have stated that the record's mix is unconnected to the other issues.
Newsted stayed with Metallica for 14 years, and ultimately left in search of more
creative endeavors in 2001. Though the others eventually came to understand the decision,
Ulrich said in an interview with Apple Music that they initially took it as an insult, saying:
"Jason is the only member of Metallica who has ever left willingly. And that
in itself is a statistic. And the resentment from James and I was just
so ... You can't do that. You can only leave if we want you to leave. And then
we weren't equipped at the time to do a deep dive into why he was leaving."
Whenever Metallica albums are ranked, there's a pretty good chance that their early albums end
up ruling the roost. The band's 1983 debut album "Kill 'Em All" took the
building blocks of the nascent thrash metal genre and took things to a different level.
The following year's "Ride the Lightning" refined the
band's own sound and fully incorporated the talents of Kirk Hammett and Cliff Burton,
and 1986's "Master of Puppets" somehow managed to further improve on that.
With that string of amazing records, Metallica managed to sell millions of albums and became
a major name with no music videos or hit singles. In a 2016 interview with The Guardian,
drummer Lars Ulrich reflected on the band's early attitude at making records, saying:
"We had so much energy and belief. It's interesting how instinctive things used to be,
how impulsive. I don't remember laboring over ideas or ways to do things. We just did it.
When you're 21, you just do sh---. When you're 51, everything is an ordeal."
Metallica's darkest hour also marked a new phase for the band. After the death of
Cliff Burton and the arrival of Jason Newsted, Metallica continued exploring new directions,
which involved embracing the age of the music video with "One," a staggering single from their
1988 album, "...And Justice For All." The song was accompanied by the band's very first video,
a dark offering that features clips from the movie "Johnny Got His Gun."
The bassist-free mix of "... And Justice For All" may be odd, but the sheer strength of the
album's songs can't be denied. Even the few that may have attempted to resist Metallica's rise to
the upper echelons of stardom had little to say after the band dropped their following album,
1991's, "Metallica" — a.k.a. the massively successful "Black Album."
A haircut can be news in the world of entertainment, but Metallica certainly
got more than they bargained for when all four members of the band sported much shorter
locks than people were used to during their "Load" album cycle. Lars Ulrich described
the backlash at the time, though he did note that he understands the root cause, adding:
"I was surprised at how much reaction it got. But I suppose I should have seen it coming.
Metallica to a lot of people is metal, and there is a code, a lifestyle,
an us-versus-them attitude that you have to observe to keep in everyone's good graces."
In a 2017 interview with WJRR, Ulrich laughed at the way people believed that the haircuts
were a carefully coordinated way to change their image. Jason Newsted actually opted for a bald
hairstyle all the way back in 1993, and each of the other band members eventually ended up
going for a shorter hair for reasons of their own. Newsted has theorized that the others got
the barber bug when they saw him repeatedly waltz through customs while they kept getting stopped..
After the departure of the long-suffering Jason Newsted, things on the bass side of Metallica have
been fairly stable, courtesy of his replacement, Robert Trujillo. Trujillo joined Metallica during
one of their lows — the era depicted in the "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" documentary.
Fortunately, the talented bass player was a veteran of navigating difficult circumstances.
After all, he'd played with some of the most notorious figures in the industry, including
a certain Ozzy Osbourne. Trujillo described his approach to The Chicago Tribune, saying:
"Musicians are interesting characters, man. It's always important to learn from
your life experiences and take that with you into your job situation.
You kind of see what people like and what makes them feel good, and how you balance a personality,
and you can bring a better vibe to the atmosphere. I call it a gift — I think it is."
Seeing as Trujillo joined the band in 2003 and is still with them,
it's easy to see that his bridge-building philosophy and outrageous bass guitar
skills continue to be a valuable addition to Metallica's chemistry.
"London you know my friend Rob by now."
So valuable, in fact, that when the band offered the gig to him,
they further sweetened the deal with a cool $1 million.
In September 2019, Metallica released a statement on their official website,
declaring the postponement of a planned tour, saying:
"As most of you probably know,
our brother James has been struggling with addiction on and off for many years. He has now,
unfortunately, had to re-enter a treatment program to work on his recovery again."
Metallica's relationship with alcohol and narcotics has been somewhat notorious,
and Hetfield's addiction issues, in particular,
have been fairly public knowledge since the 2004 documentary "Metallica:
Some Kind of Monster" revealed his rehab stint during the making of the "St. Anger" album.
While the frontman's issues in 2019 surprised the rest of the band, they were supportive of
their bandmate's situation. In 2020, Ulrich told NME that the band was "in a very healthy place."
Though Metallica certainly isn't short of its own songs,
the band is somewhat notorious for its copious use of cover songs. In fact,
they were skirting dangerously close to being a cover band when they started,
considering that their first, 9-song concert featured a grand total of two original tunes.
If you're just a casual Metallica listener,
you might have bumped into one or two of their more radio-friendly covers — say,
their take on Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" — but the true scope of their love for a
good cover song can be seen on their 1998 cover compilation album "Garage Inc.," which features
no less than 27 recorded cover songs from bands that range from Queen to Motörhead.
Metallica shows no sign of stopping their cover antics, either. The band started a fun
new feature in their 2018-19 WorldWired concert tour, in which Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo
performed a brief duo cover of a popular local song in each of the destinations.
The duo went all in, too, cheekily choosing songs from bands like Oasis and ABBA.
If you were a music fan at the turn of the millennium,
you might remember the file-sharing service Napster, and the massive ridicule Metallica
faced for fighting it. Napster was commonly used for spreading music files, and Metallica became
involved after an unreleased single spread online and the breadcrumbs led to the site.
In 2000, Metallica sued Napster, and while the suit itself was settled in 2001,
the band became the face of a groundbreaking battle for artists' rights. Unfortunately,
a combination of Metallica's own unsavory tactics — like forcing the freeze of over 335,000 Napster
accounts — and active ridicule from pro-file sharing artists painted them as greedy villains,
despite their attempts to explain themselves. Lars Ulrich told Billboard in 2001,
"The problem we had with Napster was that they never asked us or
other artists if we wanted to participate in their business."
It's also worth mentioning that the band predicted the difficulties music
streaming posed for smaller artists, and actively voiced support for them.
"Most artists are barely earning a decent wage and
need every source of revenue available to scrape by."