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By Root 352 0

’s been times when I had to carry both James and Lars because they were so drunk.’ It was true. As Brian Slagel says now, ‘Everybody back then was partying. None of us were sober when things were going on.’ Nor was Dave Mustaine the only one who became angry and unpleasant when drunk. Harald Oimoen recalls a late-night visit to his apartment during which a drunken James badly lost his cool, showing his mean streak after Oimoen showed him a picture he’d taken recently of Hetfield and Ulrich in bed together, goofing around, that was then used on the cover of Ron Quintana’s Metal Mania, along with a joke picture of Eldon Hoke, a.k.a. El Duce, the notoriously overweight drummer-vocalist of Seattle’s self-styled ‘rape rock’ band The Mentors. ‘James hadn’t seen it before and I hadn’t realised at the time that they wanted to keep those pictures to themselves; it was like a private fun kind of thing,’ Oimoen recalled. ‘So I showed the magazine to James and he had a big smile on his face, he thought it was great. And then all of a sudden he realised what the picture was of and he kicked me in the stomach, and we almost got into a brawl and he said I was never taking photos of them again after that. But once the alcohol wore off and we started talking about it, it was all cool.’

Even Hetfield’s later assertion that Mustaine’s drug-dealing was a factor – ‘the money he had coming in was not legal’, James told writer Mat Snow in 1991, ‘and his buddies would come in to rehearsal and things would go missing’ – sidesteps the real reasons behind his dismissal. More to the point, said Hetfield, ‘He was obnoxious. That was kind of what we were into back then, but when it turned in towards us, it was inevitable he’d be out.’ Says Brian Slagel, ‘That was James’ and Lars’ band from the beginning and, you know, Dave had a pretty full personality as well. It was unfortunate and a bummer because he’s a phenomenally talented guy and musician. But when I heard about it I couldn’t say that I was shocked.’ Looking back now, Ron Quintana characterises Mustaine as ‘hardcore hard rock, but he was hard to read. As well as I got along with Lars, Dave had a totally endearing personality and was the face of 1983 Metallica. Dave had charisma galore and I honestly thought they wouldn’t be as good without him. But he was kind of like 1977 Ozzy: alcoholic and occasionally dangerous to himself and others.’ He adds, ‘Dave drank more and faster than anyone at every party and was often dead drunk by the time the party started. He often was passed out [and] if he was awake somebody might get punched! Sober, he was the life of the scene, but he never stayed sober. I don’t think he ever got in a fight until he’d had a drink.’ Often it would be because ‘some girl gravitated towards him then her aggravated boyfriend would always show up and get bloodied’. Other times it most definitely was Dave’s fault: ‘He would almost always be a centre of attention and consequently a target. James was usually an ally in some shenanigan, but always in the background and usually overshadowed.’ Quintana refutes any suggestion that Mustaine was still dealing drugs in San Francisco: ‘Dave drank and smoked everything but didn’t know enough locals to be dealing back then.’ Ultimately, Quintana says, Mustaine ‘could be a train wreck’ but when they set off for Jonny Z’s ‘it looked like a strong foursome that would stick together’.

According to Bill Hale, another friendly face from those days then taking his first tentative steps as a photographer for the Metal Rendezvous Int. fanzine: ‘Lars always had a plan.’ Hale thinks Lars probably knew he was going to replace Dave Mustaine with Kirk Hammett as early as the first show Metallica and Exodus played together at the Old Waldorf in November 1982, although, ‘I don’t think Kirk knew it yet.’ He adds, ‘Dave was funny [and] he wasn’t as violent as he’s [now] claimed to be – none more than anyone else in San Francisco.’ He cites Paul Baloff of Exodus as ‘the king of excess’, compared to whom, ‘Dave wasn’t that bad.’ He also suggests that Metallica