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By Root 378 0

didn’t know yet was having other ideas. His name was Jon Zazula – Jonny Z – and though he didn’t have any money either, he and his wife and business partner Marsha Zazula more than made up for that with what Jonny now calls ‘the passion’. He and Marsha ‘loved music so much’, he says, ‘that we were willing to sacrifice anything for music and for metal. “For the metal” – that’s what we used to say.’ It was a phrase that Jonny and Marsha would repeat like a mantra over the coming months as they struggled to keep pace with what was already one of the toughest times they would endure, even before the four beer-hungry kids in Metallica arrived on their doorstep to disrupt and forever change their lives.

At the time he heard his first Metallica recordings – a ten-track bootleg cassette of one of Ron McGovney’s last shows at the Mabuhay Gardens in November – Jonny was then running a record-and-tape stall named Rock ’n’ Roll Heaven in a flea market near to his and Marsha’s home in Old Bridge, New Jersey. Offered a copy of the cassette by a regular customer who insisted he play it immediately, the Mabuhay tape consisted of live versions of the seven-track No Life demo plus the newer ‘No Remorse’ and ‘Whiplash’ and the inevitable Diamond Head cover, ‘Am I Evil?’, which Jonny, another NWOBHM aficionado, instantly recognised. Jonny remembers how, ‘One of our customers came back from San Francisco like he saw Jesus Christ! We would be playing Angel Witch or Iron Maiden or whatever in the shop and never played a demo…but we sold them. And [this guy] came over with a [live] tape cassette of Metallica. It wasn’t even No Life ’til Leather and I was blown away. Actually the song that got me was “The Mechanix”. That was the one that initially just blew me out of my seat. I wanted to find out where I could find these guys. This all was happening as I’m listening to the tape the first time. Then someone hands me K.J. Doughton’s name and I think I called up somebody to get K.J.’s phone number and then I called him and he called Lars and then Lars called me.’

When Lars phoned during dinner one night, Jonny wasn’t even sure yet what he wanted to tell this unknown new band. ‘Damned if I know. I just got caught in this passion, like there’s this little Led Zeppelin hanging out in El Cerrito, you know? Just a little gem that blew my mind. They seemed like America’s antidote to the NWOBHM. America really didn’t have anything, especially in the east, to compete in that world.’ The only concrete proposal Jonny had for them at that point was the suggestion they might like to open up at some of the shows he and Marsha had recently begun promoting locally, featuring the sorts of artists his regular customers at Rock ’n’ Roll Heaven were interested in seeing. They had begun by ‘being in cahoots’ with the then-hot Anvil. After that came NWOBHM outfit Raven. At the same time as they first discovered Metallica, the Zazulas were also looking at bringing in Germany’s best new metal act, Accept, and taking a punt on local boys Manowar. Says Jonny, ‘We had Raven tearing up the place and Anvil tearing up the place before Metallica. And they were big successes, Raven and Anvil. That’s how we started.’

Jonny and Marsha’s next venture was twelve dates they were putting together: ‘The shows were to be with Venom, Twisted Sister…We [also] had Vandenberg and The Rods.’ Talking on the phone to Lars for the first time, Jonny impetuously ‘offered all twelve to Metallica, if they’d come over. Marsha thought I was crazy.’ Lars, who had already heard through the grapevine of something happening in the north-east, told Jonny: ‘Let’s go! Send me some money, I’ll get everybody together, we’ll come over!’ Jonny acted delighted, then got off the phone and immediately started worrying. Money was so tight he and Marsha still relied occasionally on handouts from her father just to buy groceries. He’d also omitted to tell Lars one other important detail: Jonny was actually halfway through serving a six-month jail sentence for conspiracy to commit wiretap fraud, while working for a