Enter Night_ A Biography of Metallica - Mick Wall [0]
Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue – Just Before the Dawn
PART ONE: Born to Die
1. The Prince
2. The Cowardly Lion
3. Leather on Your Lips
4. Nightfall at the Halfway House
5. Long-haired Punks
6. Calling Aunt Jane
7. Masterpiece
PART TWO: The Art of Darkness
8. Come, Sweet Death
9. Blackened
10. Wild Chicks, Fast Cars and Lots of Drugs
11. Long Black Limousine
12. Loaded
13. Monstrum
14. The New Black
Notes and Sources
Index
Acknowledgements
This book could not have been written without the invaluable aid of the following people, to all of whom I owe the utmost thanks.
First and foremost, my wife Linda Wall, who journeyed with me there and back. Also my agent and good friend Robert Kirby of United Agents and Malcolm Edwards at Orion, in whom resides the true spirit of gentleman publishing. Sincere gratitude also to Elizabeth Beier at Saint Martin’s Press. Also Charlotte Knee, Ian Preece and Stephen Fall. Class acts. As, too, are Michelle Richter, Katy Hershberger, Brendan Fredericks, Gemma Finlay and Angela McMahon.
Heartfelt thanks also to two people whose researches on my behalf went beyond the call of duty: Joel McIver and Malcolm Dome. Then there are those whose input was less specific but who, again, were there for me, often just in the nick of time. They are: Diana and Colin Cartwright, Damian McGee, Bob Prior, Chris Ingham, Scott Rowley, Sian Llewellyn, Ian Fergusson, Russ Collington, Alexander Milas, Megan and Dave Lavender, and Yvonne and Kevin Shepherd. Most especially, though, Evie, Mollie, Michael, Tad and Ruby, who always helped as best they could, bless them.
And finally, of course, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett, for the memories and the music…
Prologue
Just Before The Dawn
It was cold that rotten dark morning, the temperature dropping to just below freezing as the dirty-white tour bus trundled along the old single-lane highway. Still only late September but in Sweden, where in summer the sun never sleeps, the nights were now growing long again. Soon the heavy snows would come and there would be twenty-four-hour darkness, that bleak mid-winter period when the national suicide rates went up, along with the consumption of drugs and alcohol. For now, though, the road ahead lay clear. It was cold and dark out there all right, but there hadn’t been rain for days, the ground beneath the spinning wheels of the vehicle dry as old bones.
Only the driver was awake – so he later said. Everyone else – the four-man band, their tour manager, three-man backline crew – were all sleeping in the thin wooden bunks bolted into the sides of the bus at the back, cardboard placed over the windows to keep out the draught. The bus, an English model with the usual right-hand drive, was not ideal for long night journeys across non-English roads where traffic drove on the right, not the left. But both it and the driver were experienced. Unlike the young band they were carrying, they had travelled these roads many times before. Nothing had ever gone wrong; nothing would go wrong now, either.
And then it did.
They argued about it afterwards. They argue about it still, a quarter of a century later. Was there ice on the road? It was certainly cold enough, and yet there had been no rain – no snow or ice particles – in any of the days leading up to it. Had the driver fallen asleep then? Or was he drunk, perhaps, or stoned? If so, why did the police, who arrested him at the scene, later let him go, free of all charges? Could there have been something wrong with the bus? Again, forensics said no. Mechanically, when they came to examine the wreckage, everything checked out fine. All anyone knew for sure afterwards was that the bus got into trouble when the road took a slight left bend. The first the driver, seated on the right, knew about it was when he realised the bus had slipped over the hard shoulder and was headed onto the hard gravel along the side of the motorway, its right-side wheels careering over the dirt.
Fully alert now, eyes wide open, the driver