Enter Night_ A Biography of Metallica - Mick Wall [65]
The only area Metallica still felt weak in was the issue of the lead vocals. The closer Jonny took them to actually recording their first album, the more of an issue it became for them. They decided, once again, to see if they might be able to persuade someone to come in and take over the frontman role, leaving James free to concentrate on the music. Marsha offered to line up some auditions, while Lars, as ever, had ideas of his own. Bill Hale claims Lars suggested they try and track down Jess Cox, original vocalist of NWOBHM archetypes Tygers of Pan Tang, who had left the band after their debut album, Wild Cat, in 1980. But while Cox had the sort of gravelly voice that might have fitted, what Lars didn’t know was that the singer was already embarked on a solo career that would see him moving more squarely towards the Eighties mainstream, padded shoulders, hair-sprayed mullet and all. But while Cox may have been ‘number one on their list’, according to Hale, it was to someone much closer to home that they next turned: the nineteen-year-old singer of another local LA outfit, Armored Saint, called John Bush.
Lars Ulrich openly admired called Armored Saint. The two bands’ paths would cross more than once in the future as Lars, briefly, became something of a champion for them. In 1983, however, he and James would happily have poached their singer – if only he would agree to throw in his lot with them. In fact, Bush turned Metallica down flat. ‘They got Jonny to call him,’ recalls Marsha. ‘But he wasn’t interested.’ For good reason, or so it seemed at the time. As Bush now points out, this was at a time when Metallica had yet to release an album, and while there was already ‘a giant buzz’ about them, ‘it wasn’t like they were that far past where Armored Saint was at, at that point. It was like, I don’t wanna join that band, I’m already in this band and these are all my friends.’ He admits that ‘whenever I tell that story now kids look at me like, you’re fuckin’ crazy’, but that, ‘Nobody anticipated what was to come – the whole face of it could have changed, literally. ’Cos who knows…I could have ruined it,’ he laughs. ‘I could have ruined metal!’ In fact, Bush adds, more seriously, ‘The enormous key to Metallica’s success, in my opinion, was the emergence of James as the frontman. His voice [in the early Metallica] is the way it is. But he turned into an awesome rock singer. You know, the riffs were great and all the fiery music and the energy and the attitude but the key to it all was the emergence of James as a singer and frontman. That’s what took it to a hundred levels higher. I remember saying, “You guys don’t need anybody. James is awesome!” It wasn’t like I said, “I’m not right but maybe somebody else is.” James was just coming into his own.’ Says Marsha Z: ‘James never wanted to take that frontman position. He wanted to step back and be a guitarist. He really never had a desire, I don’t think, to step into that front space. But…he did. And as he did, James became James. I think his real person came out when he took that position permanently. It was almost like it gave him, oddly enough, another voice.’
Meantime, Jonny had moved the band out of his house. ‘It was too intense.’ It all came to a head when the band raided their drinks cabinet one night and uncorked some bottles of champagne the Zazulas had been given as wedding presents. Jonny and Marsha talked to Anthrax, another unsigned local metal band that had a rehearsal space at a place called the Music Building in Queens where many bands also slept in their rehearsal rooms. Recalls Jonny, ‘I said, you know what, they need to rehearse, let’s get all their gear and get them down there too. ’Cos I had to get ’em out of the house.’ There were no spare rooms going, though, so Jonny fast-talked the building manager into allowing Metallica to share Anthrax’s room to rehearse,