Metallica all started with Lars Ulrich. He was hoping
to start up a band of his own but did not have much luck finding other members. So he put
an ad in a magazine in 1980 and James Hetfield was the one that answered it. They
recorded there first song on a cheap recorder with James singing. But eventually James'
housemate and friend Ron McGoveny played bass and Dave Mustaine took lead guitar.
They recorded there first demo called 'No Life till Leather' which got them their first
gigs in L.A and San Francisco. There they meet a up-and-coming band called Trauma. Their
bassist was the one that caught their attention, Cliff Burton. He eventually joined the
band.
Then 'No Life 'till Leather' hit big in
New York and they were asked to come out and play a few shows and record an album. They
went out there in a stolen U-Haul only to announce to their manager that their guitarist
had to go. Roadie Mark Whitakker suggested a guitar player he knew back in SF and on April
1, 1983, Kirk Hammet
joined the band and later that year they released their first album, 'Kill 'Em All'.
Metallica toured behind 'Kill 'Em All'
and in 1984 released there second album 'Ride the Lightning'. This album was more mature and
was a lot better lyric wise because they put more effort into it. The fourth track on the
album, 'Fade To Black', is in every way a remarkable song. The ballad-like song was inspired by the theft of their equipment. After 'Ride the Lightning', the
band signed with major management agency Q Prime and soon after is signed to major record
label Elektra.
In 1986 they release their third album 'Master of Puppets' and
toured with Ozzy Osbourne. Touring with Ozzy helped them get noticed all around the world.
But tragedy struck: James broke his arm during skateboarding and was unable to play
guitar. After the Ozzy tour was done they went over to Europe and played there. But James
still couldn't play guitar so they got John Marshall else to fill in. He was a friend of
the band and he pulled double duty, acting as Kirk's guitar roadie and filling in on
rhythm guitar until James healed. Then on September 26th, 1986, James came
back to perform, sadly it was their last performance with Cliff.
| In Memoriam: Cliff Burton |
Early that morning on the tour bus in
Sweden, the tour bus hit some black ice and the bus flipped, killing Cliff. They were
about to call a quits after that because Cliff was major part in the band. Not only
playing bass but also giving the band some musical wisdom. But Metallica still carried on
because they felt that Cliff wanted it that way.
They chose Jason Newsted
out of over 40 auditions to play bass mainly because he was the only one that was able to
keep up with the bands drinking habits and he knew every Metallica song. Jason seemed
worthy to succeed Cliff. To Then they went right back to the studio to record there fourth
album, '...And Justice
For All'. The album had huge success. It won them their first Grammy award for Best
Metal/Hard-Rock album and they made their first music video for 'One'. That also won them
their second Grammy Award for Best Single for One.
Then in 1991 they released their fifth
album which was self-titled. But 'Metallica' was also called 'The Black Album' because
of its black cover. The album had shorter songs, and each song was fuller and deeper. The
album went straight to number one all over the world and stayed there for several weeks.
The album released several singles and videos and won them several awards including the
Grammy for best album and a few MTV and American Music Awards.
Five years would pass before they would
release their next album. They went to the recording studio with a whole bunch of songs
that would not fit on one disk. So they released them separately. First came 'Load' in 1996 which is the
longest Metallica CD ever. It had 14 songs and used up all of the available space on a CD.
Then in 1997 they release 'Reload' which was like a follow up to 'Load'.
This albums had song that were loose and more powerful.
And as they did in 1981 when they
started, 1984 with Garage Days Revisited and 1987 with Garage Days Re-Revisited, the band
did what comes naturally.. they went back to the garage. They had already
released 2 garage projects and put out a smattering of cover songs as B-sides. In fact,
the Garage Days projects had become so collectable and rare, that poorly-recorded bootleg
copies have been circulating for outrageous prices. The band chose 11 new
songs to record its third "in the garage" project, again with Bob Rock. The
project was aptly-titled Garage Inc. as it incorporates ALL the
previously-recorded garage cover songs along with the 11 new tracks.
Then in April 1999, the band joined up
with the San Francisco Orchestra and played for two nights a number of songs including
'Master of Puppets', 'For Whom the Bell Tolls', and 'One'. They also play two brand new
songs, 'No Leaf Clover' and '-Human'. The 'S&M' album got released in November 1999.
In 2000 they did their first movie soundtrack. 'I Disappear' was the soundtrack of the
movie Mission: Impossible 2, directed by John Woo. The same year the band went on the
'Summer Sanitarium Tour' with other artists like KoRn and System Of A Down ao. |
