Enter Night_ A Biography of Metallica - Mick Wall [126]
It was the same story the following night at St George’s Hall in Bradford, and the Playhouse in Edinburgh on 12 September. Interviewed backstage before the show for Sounds magazine, the whole band was clearly on a roll. Even Cliff – who usually did everything he could to avoid taking part in interviews, leaving it to Lars, who revelled in it – sat down and joined in. ‘The difference between the rest of the metal field and Metallica,’ Cliff announced, ‘is the difference between punching your fist in the air rather than at a specific target.’ He was disdainful of any suggestion, however, that the band had anything deeper to impart than whatever one might read into their music. ‘Being in a band puts you in a position to make a statement,’ he mused, ‘but we’re not some kind of fucking message band.’ Pressed on his appreciation of classical music, a baffling subject to his interlocutor, Cliff explained patiently how ‘we all go through periods of listening to classical music’, which was news to James and Lars. ‘I was consumed by it,’ Cliff went on, ‘taking lessons, getting into theory or whatever. It leaves quite an influence. A lot of music will go in one ear and out the other, but you listen to that shit for a month and it stamps you. It leaves its mark.’
The rest of the ten-show tour continued in high spirits. Jonny and Marsha, as managers of Anthrax, were also there – the first time they had seen Metallica play for nearly two years. ‘They were killing,’ says Marsha now. ‘Just great, and it was really nice to see them again, especially Cliff, who was very sweet and asked all about the family.’ Anthrax were also enjoying themselves, treated as well as Metallica had been by Ozzy. ‘We really felt that we were part of something,’ recalled Scott Ian. ‘The crowds were crazy and we really felt as if there was something happening.’ The feel-good factor extended to Lars calling Brian Tatler when the tour reached the Birmingham Odeon, inviting him up to jam on ‘Am I Evil?’, which now formed part of their encores. ‘I caught the bus up into Birmingham,’ Brian recalls. ‘They took me backstage and Lars introduced me to James. I’d never met any of them before…everybody seemed great, it was nice. Come show-time, Lars said go out front and watch the set then come back at a certain point and come on and do “Am I Evil?” with us. So I thought, ooh, okay. I hadn’t seen that coming.’ Not having his guitar with him he used one of James’. ‘I didn’t really know what was going to happen then James introduced me as “The guy who wrote this song…” Then I went on and it was great.’
Also backstage that night was a young music journalist named Garry Sharpe-Young. He was there ostensibly to interview Lars but ended up also talking to Cliff while waiting for Lars to show up. ‘We talked about bands back in the US, mainly because I was trying to save my real questions for Lars,’ Sharpe-Young later recalled. ‘Cliff found it funny that every backstage area in the British venues was painted in prison colours.’ The conversation also wandered onto the morbid topic of what Metallica would do if one of its band members died or was killed. ‘We were actually talking about Led Zeppelin and John Bonham,’ the latter’s death five years before having been the final nail in the coffin for the already ailing band. ‘What we were actually discussing was the hypothesis of Lars meeting his maker,’ Sharpe-Young continued. ‘Cliff said they would have a big drunken party in his honour, and then get in a new drummer. Fast…’
The following night, a Sunday, was the last date of the UK leg of the tour: their first headline