The bus pulls into the dockway of a large, high ceiling auditorium, hidden from view of the lengthy line of fans waiting to enter. The bus
doors open. With a crash, the sound of spinning wheels echoes amongst the airy atmosphere. No one questioned them, like most, the crew
just stood back and watched, moving the equipment into its proper places. The security guard checked for laminates-everything was 0.K. If
he only knew that these two guys were part of the main attraction for the night, but they were now getting their kicks skating on the smooth sur-
face and rocketing off band equipment like it was a daily job. These two were the axemen of Metallica and this was their pre-show warm up.
Metallica! Quickly becoming a household word, they gain an immense popularity with their current Lp. "Master Of Puppets," rising rapidly
on the charts and as the opening act for wildman Ozzy Osbourne. Where did this all come from?
In early 1982, James Hetfield, and Lars Ulrich, based in Los Angeles, formed a band and recorded a track called "Hit the Lights" where
James did both guitar and bass tracks plus the vocals and Lars did all the drum tracks. A friend helped with all the leads. This song appeared
on "Metal Massacre #1 and the Metallicamania had begun. The music followed on two demos both entitled "Hit The Lights" and the third, a
live one called "Metal Up Your Ass." The first Metallica Lp released on Megaforce Records was "Kill 'Em All,"-a record that took the metal
world by sheer force. "Jump Into The Fire" and "Whiplash" both 12's followed suit until the second Lp was released. "Ride The Lightning"
was then picked up by Elektra and the ears of the world were feeling the total dominant power of Metallica. The third Lp, "Master Of Puppets."
is riding high with no major airplay or video coverage and is looking to be gold any day now. The band has had a few line-up changes, but
since the the first Lp the nucleus of Metallica has been James Hetfield (22), Kirk Hammet (23), Cliff Burton (24), and Lars Ulrich (22). Four
down-to-earth guys with a lot of fun on their minds and a 'hella' lot of energy. It's their sincere attitudes that have brought them and their
music to where it is today, a raging band of monumental fury and professional execution.
This interview was conducted with James and Kirk while watching episodes of "Hokuto No Ken,"-a crazy session it was for sure. Hella!
ON
Kirk and James fingering the master of boards pose.
Pushead: Who joined the band first, Kirk
or Cliff?
James: Cliff. We saw him play, think
Slagel put this gig together in LA it was
two in the morning Monday night at ther
Whiskey. I think 20 people showed up.
There was Trauma, Violation, and one other
band. We all went down, saw Cliff play and
said, 'Yeah, that's our guy!".
Did he have any idea who you guys
were?
J: No. So we kept coming up to S.F. to do
gigs every once in awhile. The scene was
way better up here, just the overall vibe.
People could get into what we were doing
as opposed to LA, where they were just
hanging out, posing with their drinks and
cigarettes. We kept bugging the shit out of
him when they came down to shoot a video
in LA and we went and bugged him there
too. Finally he said, "Yeah, cool.' Things
weren't going well in his band either. He
could see the direction they were going.
kind of more poppy type. And he said, "Yeah,
I'll join the band if you guys will move up
here. Well, hell yeah, we were into it, we
were sick of L.A.
Was Dave Mustaine still in the band at
that time?
J: Yeah.
When did you get rid of Dave and find
Kirk?
J: That was when we hooked up with
Johnny Z. Johnathan Zezula, Megaforce.
and crazed manager. He wired us $1,500
from Jersey and said, 'Get yourself out
here.' We said okay.
Why did he want you out there? To play
or record?
J: To record. We were going to get away
from home for a bit and see what the scene
was like out there. Now that I think of it-it
was really wild that we did that. All of a
sudden just move up to S.F, no place to
stay or nothing. Finally, we crashed at Mark
Whittaker's pad. It was cool.
Kirk: Mark ended up helping out on the
recordings of "Kill Them All" and "Ride The
Lightning." He was also our sound person.
J: Yeah, he came out to Jersey with us. We
just threw all our shit and everything into a
U-Haul and started driving....
Kirk wasn't in the band yet when you
went back east?
J: Uh-uh.
K: What happened was that on the way to
New York they had problems with Dave.
J: Mark Whittaker was also Exodus"
manager at that time. And he kept playing
live tapes of Kirk.
So Kirk, what made you go from Exodus
to Metallica?
K: At the time Exodus was having personnel
problems, we had this bass player who
wasn't really fitting into the direction we
were going. The band wasn't rehearsing
and we were at a real stale period. I was
getting kind of fed up. It's really funny,
because one day I was sitting on the can
and I got a phone call from Whittaker. He
called up and asked me if I'd be interested
in flying to New York to try out with the
band, because they were having problems
with Dave.
Did you know the band?
K: Yeah, I saw Metallica twice and then we
played with them at the Stone What was
that, the Night of the Banging Head or
something?
J The Ear Spankers or whatever it was.
(laughs) That was a great one.
K: Opportunity knocked, so I thought, what
else do I have to do but check this out?
So, Mark Fed-X'ed a tape out and I sat
down with the tape for a couple of days.
And then I started to get more calls from
Whittaker saying, 'Well, are you into it?'. I
said, 'Yeah, sure,' and then he said, "Well,
the band wants you to come out to New York
to audition with them.' So I thought about
it and I thought about it, for like two seconds,
and said, sure, I'll check it out.
Were there any hard feelings with the
rest of the guys in Exodus?
K: At first, but they understood. If any of
them would have been approached they
would have done the same thing.
J: There was a whole strange period right
there, all of a sudden a straight drive out
to New York in a U-Haul. There were five
of us and we had a mattress in the back
to switch off sleeping. Get in the back.
Slam. You're shut in. We'd never been out
of California and we got there to find out
we were having some real problems with
Dave's attitude. He couldn't really handle
being away from home or something. It was
just a bit funky and we knew it couldn't go
on like that so we started looking at the
other stuff. It wasn't like we really auditioned
Kirk. He came in, set up, played and he was
there. I don't know what we would have done
if we didn't like him. We didn't have the
money to send him back. We barely had
enough money to get Dave home. He flew
back on Greyhound. (laughs) 'When does
my plane leave? Here Dave, bus ticket,
one hour, see ya. Kirk flew in like an hour
after that. Dave almost missed his bus. That
would have been great.
K: It was real weird because I was in the
same situation of being out of California for
the first time and on top of that I barely
knew any of them. The only one I knew was
Mark. I took a big chance because there was
always the possibility that they might not
have liked me or something. I flew out there
with all kinds of equipment and stuff and I
even paid for it.
J: You were using Dave's stuff too. He
couldn't get it home on the bus.
K: Yeah, I was. I used a couple of his
cabinets.
You played with Venom?
J: Yeah, a huge thing. Venom gigs, da-da-da!
K: There were about a thousand people
there. It was one of the big underground
shows.
What was the response to what you were
doing, as compared to what Venom was
doing?
K: It was good, people really liked it. We
were still pretty much an underground act.
J: It was one of our first major gigs.
K: Johnny Z plugged us a lot, in a lot of
New York newspapers...
J: He owned a record store too, Johnny Z's
Rock and Roll Heaven, and he was selling
the demo and album.
A lot of people thought you were an East
Coast band because the demo was
available through there.
J: Pissed us oft
You had an address in S.F., people had
heard you were from L.A....It was like,
Where are they from?"
J. Yeah. And the fan club was in Oregon.
K: Billboard still thinks we're a Danish band.
When you went to New York you recorded
"Kill Them All which took everybody
by surprise.
K: We got a half a star in Sounds Magazine.
(laughs)
I bet if you sent it to them today they'd
give you four stars.
K: Yeah, we got five stars, for Master Of
Puppets."
J: We didn't even give a fuck at all,
K: We thought that whatever we did, there'd
be people who would approach it with a lot
of hesitation, because it was so different
back then.
Did you consider yourself a heavy metal
band at that time?
J: Yeah. None of us were really into the
punk stuff, except maybe the Ramones or
the Pistols. We were not real hardcore punk
fans.
K: That's the thing that a lot of people don't
know, when we first started we weren't
heavily into punk. It was very, very slight.
Motorhead and the Ramones.
Where did you get the idea to play the
riffs that much faster?
J: Motorhead.
But you were even faster than Motorhead.
J: We'd just keep practicing and the songs
would get faster and faster and the energy
kept building up and it sounded more back-
buster.
K: When we write something, from the time
we write it until the time it actually comes
out, it's a lot faster on the album. And then
from the time it's cut on vinyl to the time
we're actually playing live, it's even faster.
I think that's what happened in the begin-
ning. We wrote stuff thinking that we were
going to play it at a normal speed and just.
naturally sped it up.
J: It's always faster, hella shit's going on
live. Booze and freaks dinking around, just
the excitement.
K: The adrenalin flow.
So here you had this new form of metal,
which I guess now is called speed-metal,
or whatever.
K: I hate that word. I hate any sort of label
like that.
Labels are the only way people can
classify something. Some people hate
heavy metal because bands like Journey
are put into that category.
J: If someone has a shitty opinion of heavy
metal they're not going to be impartial any-
way... 'Metallica's heavy metal? Oh, I hate
them already, and they don't even know.
what we sound like.
How long did it take before "Kill 'Em All"
sales took off?
J: Until "Master Of Puppets" came out.
(laughs)
K: It sold pretty steadily. It wasn't selling in
65