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okay.” Then I’d phone up the pressing plant and they’d say, “We haven’t got any blue vinyl left.” And I’d go, “Well, what have you got?” and they’d go, “We’ve got some yellow…” So I’d phone back New York and say, “Can’t do blue, can do yellow and you can have them in seven days, any good?” They’d say, “Okay, done.” And it literally was like that. I know that we did blue, red, green, yellow, brown. “They’ve only got brown.” “Okay…” I don’t actually know how many colours we did in the end. I think we did it in clear as well. And gold, of course…’

Many Metallica fans would buy the record again and again just to collect the set. Sales began to rocket so high in Britain and Europe they began to sell more copies of the ‘Creeping Death’ twelve-inch than they did of Ride the Lightning. Boggle-eyed, the rest of the biz took note and within two years singles in multiple formats became the industry standard in the UK, with releases being staggered so that new formats appeared every week for up to eight weeks in the knowledge that many fans were simply buying repeats. (This practice was later restricted under new legislation.)

All of this was done with the blessing of the band – or certainly Lars. ‘Lars was always the spokesperson,’ points out Hooker. ‘Any business you had to do, everything went through Lars.’ But then Lars wasn’t like other drummers. He knew there was no music to be made without the business side being taken care of too, and vice versa. As Hooker says, ‘It’s always helpful if you’ve got one guy in the band who has his business head screwed on. So many bands haven’t a clue. Metallica always kind of knew where they wanted to go. They had one guy who was great doing the interviews and the business. It left the others time to take care of the music.’ He adds, ‘But that’s also something that American bands have that English bands never have. Like Twisted Sister were unbelievably professional; so together and business-minded, but without selling-out on the music front. Metallica were very much that way.’

Delighted though they were over this newfound excitement abroad, now they had a major deal Metallica were in a hurry to get back on the road in America. But Burnstein and Mensch brought their experience to bear and persuaded them that their best move now would actually be to return to Europe where their profile remained highest, and begin touring as headliners. With Elektra not prepared to put their full marketing machine behind Ride the Lightning until it was rereleased in the States in November, a US tour in the New Year was a more sensible option, allowing momentum to build. ‘Which is exactly what happened,’ says Hooker. With fellow MFN act Tank in to provide support, Metallica kicked off their twenty-five-date Bang the Head That Doesn’t Bang tour on 16 November with a show at the Exosept club, in Rouen, France, before moving on to Poperinge, Belgium, then heading south for shows in Paris, Lyon, Marseilles, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Nice. Concerts in Milan, Venice and Zurich followed before the tour arrived for seven shows in West Germany, interrupted only by a quick drive across the border for a smoke-ringed sell-out date at the notorious Paradiso club in Amsterdam. After that the highlight was a gut-busting hometown show for Lars at the Saga club in Copenhagen, which a ‘very proud’ Flemming Rasmussen attended, the tour concluding with more sold-out club shows in Sweden and Finland.

The final night of the tour was an ambitious one-off UK date at London’s Lyceum Ballroom on 20 December. Part of a larger strategy to push Metallica’s profile in Britain further towards the same level it now enjoyed in Europe, the band also appeared on the front cover of Kerrang! for the first time. Featured on the cover of the Christmas 1984 issue of the mag was a sole picture of a sunglasses-wearing Lars Ulrich, head thrown back in drunken exultation, and – bizarrely – spray-painted silvery pink, holding a similarly spray-painted, nuts-and-bolts-encrusted Christmas cake. It seemed an incongruous image for a band then building