Enter Night_ A Biography of Metallica - Mick Wall [84]
They were even drawing groupies to their shows now. ‘Girls were always at the shows,’ demurred Hammett: ‘It’s just that they didn’t look much different from the guys.’ Lars would later tell Playboy how the girls were now lining up to offer blow jobs. ‘People would say, “Eww, she just blew that other guy…” So? You don’t have to put your tongue down her throat.’ Said James, ‘Back then, we all shared stuff,’ adding, ‘Lars would charm them, talk his way into their pants. Kirk had a baby face that was appealing to the girls. And Cliff – he had a big dick. Word got around about that, I guess.’ By the end of the tour, they had all ‘had crabs a couple of times, or the occasional drip-dick’.
The final show of the eleven-date winter tour was at the Agora Ballroom in Mount Vernon, New York State, on New Year’s Eve, 1983. By now, the fire sparked by the release of Kill ’Em All had spread across the Atlantic and 1984 would find Metallica doing their best to capitalise on that astonishing fact. What the devoted young thrash metal maniacs waiting for them there would not know was that for Metallica their music was already shifting. The soon-to-be-crowned godfathers of thrash had never been solely occupied with speed. Now, with technically much more proficient players such as Cliff Burton and Kirk Hammett onboard and someone to lead the band like Lars, whose own ambitions extended far beyond the safe cubbyhole such musical margins offered, Metallica was ready to push on with a far more ambitious agenda than any of their contemporaries. They were already performing some of the new songs they planned to record for their second album, including the title track, ‘Ride the Lightning’, and had, in fact, already written most of what was going to be on there. And although their hardcore, deliriously proud fans would have been aghast to be told so, very little of it had to do with thrash metal…
Six
Calling Aunt Jane
There was Peter – sharp, in your face, no shit or else. And there was Cliff – whiskery, monkish, a wise head. Not quite good cop, bad cop, but certainly happy to hover in that realm when it suited them. It wasn’t hard to figure. One was a natural balls-buster, liked to see the other guy flinch; could never be wrong. The other was the calm voice of reason that was never wrong either, but didn’t rub your face in it, just said the words; let you draw your own conclusion.
The one I knew best was Peter. I liked him – sometimes. He talked dollars and sense, kept both eyes open, yet always made a point of stopping and saying hello, checking it out, whatever it was I was into, which back then, as we almost always met at gigs by the various bands he and Cliff managed, usually meant too much to drink and smoke and everything else the moneyed-up Eighties rock scene had to offer a young dude who actually believed tomorrow never came. As Peter didn’t smoke or take drugs, rarely even sipped a beer, this meant that little by little, he grew contemptuous, began treating me like a groupie.
‘What do you think I am – a fucking groupie?’ I once asked him sulkily.
‘Yes,’ he said, then walked off, slowly.
That had been backstage at a Def Leppard show, the final date of their 1988 US tour. Leppard were then Peter and Cliff’s most successful act, which was saying something as they had several successful acts, including Metallica. I had been out on several legs of the Leppard tour, interviewing them for my Sky TV show, writing about them for the covers of various magazines in Britain, America, Japan…helping to spread the word, as I saw it. I certainly didn’t feel like a groupie. Indeed, I had flattered myself into believing I was some sort of…friend.
Then bumping into Peter on my way back to the dressing rooms at the end of the show, that final night, he had slapped me on the back so hard – in mock greeting – it nearly knocked me off my feet. I had gotten used