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band would cover. They even had a new name to go with the new sound: Leather Charm. Hard though it is now to imagine gruff James Hetfield trying to pass himself off as a pouting glam-rock singer, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the new direction, even dropping guitar to concentrate on becoming a full-on frontman. It was also in Leather Charm that Hetfield came up with his first attempts at performing original songs, three of which, in reconfigured form, would eventually be recorded two years later for the first Metallica album: a prototype of ‘Hit the Lights’, which Ron McGovney later claimed Hugh Tanner came up with most of; and two Charm numbers James had more of a hand in, ‘Handsome Ransom’ and ‘Let’s Go Rock ’n’ Roll’, an improved and much speeded-up amalgam of which later became the Metallica epic, ‘No Remorse’.

Once again, however, the new band had only managed a couple of appearances at friends’ backyard parties when it fell apart. This time it was Mulligan who jumped first, preferring to take up the offer of a more challenging spot in another local outfit that specialised in Rush covers. At this point Troy James also quit, leaving James and Ron alone again in their silver and black garage. To try and help out, Hugh Tanner told them about an ad he’d seen in The Recycler: ‘Drummer looking for other metal musicians to jam with. Tygers of Pan Tang, Diamond Head and Iron Maiden’. It was the mention of Iron Maiden that had gotten his attention. None of the Leather Charm guys knew as much about the NWOBHM as Lars Ulrich – who did? But, lately, they had taken to including a version of Maiden’s ‘Remember Tomorrow’ in their set. James and Ron, however, were apathetic about the ad. Nothing had gone right lately, why should this? Hating to see them so down, Hugh offered to reply to the ad himself and set up a meet for them with the guy who’d placed the ad – some kid with a funny accent from Newport Beach called Lars – at a local rehearsal studio he’d booked under the pretext of recording a demo, and which James later claimed they ‘stiffed’ Lars on the bill for. Ron, never completely convinced about trying to make it as a bass player, was now concentrating more on a possible career as a rock photographer, so didn’t even bother to turn up to that first meeting with Lars. Not that it mattered. Neither James nor Hugh had anything good to say about the encounter afterwards. The kid was ‘weird’ and ‘smelled funny’. He couldn’t even really play drums. The whole thing was really a waste of time. ‘We ate McDonald’s, he ate herring’, was how James would summarise that first meeting twenty years later. Lars was simply ‘from a different world. His father was famous. He was very well off. A rich, only child. Spoiled – that’s why he’s got his mouth. He knows what he wants, he goes for it and he’s gotten it his whole life.’

The ill feeling, however, wasn’t entirely mutual. One of the first things Lars did, in fact, after returning home from his summer jaunt to Europe was call up James and invite him round to his house. James acted aloof, like he didn’t even remember who Lars was, giving him the ‘stay-the-fuck-away-from-me’ face. Shrewdly, though, Lars felt James might be less hostile to the notion of forming a ‘jam band’ with him, overlooking for the time being Lars’ obvious drawbacks as a drummer, if he had a better idea of who it was exactly he was dealing with. At the very least they could kick back and play some records together. Sure enough, the first time James visited Lars’ parents’ house his attitude instantly changed. ‘I would spend days just going through Lars’ record collection. He introduced me to a lot of different music.’ James, who ‘could afford maybe one record a week’, would be flabbergasted as Lars ‘would come back from the store with twenty!’ As Lars would later tell me, ‘When I came back to America in October of ’81 I was kind of energised from hanging out in Europe and then I called up James Hetfield because I thought there was something interesting about him and he seemed like he was pretty into the same stuff