• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 291 0

and Dave saw the funny side, however, and sarcastically dubbed their first recording together ‘the power metal demo’. Everything, though, was still in such a touch-and-go state that no one member could afford to laugh long at any other. Hetfield, in particular, was still suffering a massive crisis of confidence over his role in the band. When they landed a gig at the Convert Factory in Costa Mesa, on 23 April, they actually appeared as a five-piece: James was still out front as singer, but now there was a second rhythm guitarist, Brad Parker (stage name: Damian C. Phillips) to help beef up the sound. But as Ron recalled: ‘While [the rest of the band] are getting dressed to go on stage, we hear this guitar solo so we look over the railing of the dressing room and we see Brad on stage just blazing away on his guitar. So that was Metallica’s first and last gig with Damian C. Phillips. Later I think he went on to join Odin.’

It was enough to convince both Mustaine and Hetfield that no one else should be allowed to play guitar in the band. But if James was going to concentrate on rhythm guitar, he argued, they should get a ‘real’ singer in. It wasn’t just his voice he was insecure about. Plagued by severe acne throughout his teens and early twenties, James had grown so painfully self-conscious of his looks that he avoided mirrors, felt uncomfortable around pretty girls and, most lastingly, erected a huge barrier behind which he hid, disguising his minutely sensitive feelings in a cloak of monosyllables and withering glances. Being asked to stand in front of a group as musically confrontational as Metallica, he admitted he didn’t know if he could do that. After a show at Lars’ old high school on 25 May with James trying to sing and play guitar – a disastrous showing which saw them performing to a virtually empty hall – the others acquiesced. Enter yet another short-lived hopeful: Jeff Warner. Again, just for one gig: back at the Convert Factory.

There was an even more brief dalliance with a singer named Sammy Dijon, from another local outfit called Ruthless. ‘Sammy was a good singer,’ said Ron, ‘just not Metallica-style.’

They were still deep in discussion about the best way forward for James and the group when Metal Massacre was finally released on 14 June 1982. Although the conversation would continue, off and on, right up to the band’s second album, the idea of bringing in some new guy to front the band increasingly seemed off-point. They were now a band with a track on an actual album – and James was the singer of that song. Still unconvinced, James agreed at least to continue in the role for the time being. Dave and Ron, meanwhile, were determined to ensure they too would make their presences felt the next time the band got anywhere within earshot of a recording situation. They had the Metal Massacre album to swan around with and show off to people, along with their name, right there on the back cover: misspelled as ‘Mettallica’. Lars was on the phone to Brian Slagel about that within thirty seconds of spotting the mistake…

Three

Leather on Your Lips

One of those nights, 1986, I’m home and I’m high, me and my girlie, when the phone rings – again. Jaded, I pick it up. Pips. Someone calling from a phone box.

‘Hey, Mick! It’s Lars!’

A pause while I mentally shuffle through the deck for a face to go with the name.

‘…from Metallica!’

Oh…yeah, Lars. How did he get my number?

‘Hey, Lars. How ya doing?’

‘Yeah, great…’

There follows the usual lengthy exposition in which I get to hear just how great he and his band are doing. There are shows that have been ‘awesome’. There are people that have been ‘fucking assholes’ or, more often, ‘great fucking guys’. There are beers that have been drunk and furniture that’s fallen over and been flung out the window, laughs everywhere, the party never-ending, inescapable. In the background as he rants in his mangled Danish-American accent, the unmistakable sound of a pub in full swing.

And then he gets to the point. ‘Listen, I was thinking, I don’t have anywhere to stay tonight