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  To fill the last few open minutes on Metal Massacre, Slagel agreed to accept an entry by young metal enthusiast Lars Ulrich. “My friend John Kornarens and I met Lars in 1982 at a Michael Schenker show at the Country Club,” says Slagel. “John was in the parking lot after the gig and saw this kid wearing a Saxon European tour T-shirt. We had never seen anything like that. He said he had just moved here from Denmark and he was really big into metal. The next day we all ended up at Lars’s house, and we all became friends. He seemed about sixteen, I was nineteen, and John was twenty. We just used to drive around to the record stores for hours trying to find NWOBHM stuff.”

  Though aware of Ulrich’s taste and his wide circle of contacts, Slagel was uncertain whether the young Dane actually had a band. “It was really funny. He was this crazy little kid, and he had a drum set in his room that wasn’t really put together. He had been jamming with James Hetfield for a while, but there was nothing going on. When he said he was going to start a band, everyone thought, ‘Yeah, sure you are, Lars.’”

  James Hetfield pre-Leather Charm

  The pairing of Hetfield and Ulrich represented the marriage of two great metalhead characters. James Hetfield was a middle-class loner, quietly resisting a brutal domestic grind that constantly tested his free will. He was raised with piano lessons and public school in the fading industrial Los Angeles suburb of Downey. The Hetfields were Christian Scientists, and James compared his home life to being raised in a pressure cooker. He was excused from high school health class, where his parents feared he might learn too much about his body. When Mrs. Hetfield, a former opera singer, grew sick with cancer in 1979, she refused medical care and died, leaving James without emotional support. He discovered petty theft in junior high and kept extensive lists of his pirate’s booty, until—to the relief of area drugstores—he channeled his quirks into playing guitar.

  Lars Ulrich, on the other hand, was a privileged scion whose sense of entitlement prevented him from embracing mundane, normal teenage pursuits. Ulrich’s family left his hometown of Gentofte, Denmark, in late 1980 and relocated to Newport Beach, California, one of the most conspicuously tanned and Ferrari-laden sections of the Los Angeles sprawl. From there his father, Torben Ulrich, traveled often to compete in world-class tennis tournaments, such as the World Cup and Davis Cup, a career young Ulrich was well on his way to inheriting. The trouble was that Lars, a ranked teen player in Denmark, fell off the map entirely when pitted against California jocks.

  As his sporting career ran afoul, Lars Ulrich turned his love to heavy metal—especially the heaviest possible varieties. Raised traveling frequently to international matches with his father, Ulrich thought nothing of flying to England in 1981 to catch a few shows by his idols in Diamond Head. He stalked the band and, incredibly, was invited to spend two months living with the parents of singer Sean Harris. Barely a musician himself, owning just a few mismatched pieces of a drum set, Ulrich spent days watching the band work through the less glamorous routines of rehearsing and writing songs.

  Ulrich later followed Motörhead on the road in America. He recognized few boundaries when it came to absorbing not just the glory hours but the minute details of the metal bands he really loved. “That’s him,” says Ron Quintana, recalling the concentrated assault of his friend’s fandom. Ulrich was so thoroughly consumed by heavy metal that he would make it his life—spending the next decades not only playing metal but finding new ways to beat his excitement about the music into the heads of the world.

  With Metal Massacre offering Metallica a reason to exist, Ulrich and Hetfield found it easier to find players and form a real band. Het-field himself had been unsure of Ulrich after an earlier meeting. In January 1982 they recruited Jamaican headbanger Lloyd Grant to play lead guitar on “Hit the Lights,” a song carried over from Hetfield’s previous band, Leather Charm. “James couldn’t really play the lead,” says Slagel, “and Lars knew Lloyd, who was a pretty good guitar player, so Lars just got him to play guitar.”

  Sorry as the band was, Metallica finished its recording—if only by the skin of its teeth. “Of course, they were the last band that I got the track from,” Slagel says. “I think they recorded it two nights be fore we mastered the record.” From fan to fanzine writer to fledgling record-company mogul, Slagel pressed several thousand copies of Metal Massacre, using money he had saved by working at Sears and borrowed from his aunt. Soon mom-and-pop metal shops in America were stocking Metal Massacre along with the other alluring fare imported in regular overseas relief packages.

  Metal Massacre

  Metallica now had a track on a record, but they had yet to play live. Grant, the only member with any developed musical ability, departed immediately. During this period the days were most often spent in a metal haze. “Back when Lloyd Grant was in the band, Metallica was really fun,” says headbanger Katon DePena, who hung out at the house where James Hetfield and Metallica bassist Ron McGovney lived. “We’d go to this record store called Middle Earth and buy nothing but imports—Saxon, Motörhead, Riot, Angel Witch, Anvil, Satan, Trust, Tank, even the first Def Leppard album. Still, we all thought we could do it a little bit better and harder.”

  If the concert experience was akin to high mass, scattered specialty record stores were the roadside chapels of the metal world. The Record Vault in San Francisco was a hangout for the Metal Mania and KUSF metal gang. Back in London, the boutique Shades on St. Anne’s Court was where Tom Warrior of Hellhammer discovered the first Venom single during a tourist pilgrimage. Tokyo, Japan, had The Black and Metal Kids shops. These holes in the wall catered to head-bangers, stocking Kerrang!, spiked wristbands, intriguing UK imports, and shaped picture discs by Accept, Oz, Mercyful Fate, and Earthshaker. “Early on, the Record Exchange in Walnut Creek, California, was the heaviest store in the States, as far as I knew,” says Ron Quintana. “I think I bought the first Kerrang! there. In fact, the first time I met Lars Ulrich, we went over and checked out that place. We freaked out those people—they didn’t believe anyone knew so much about metal. We made them order all kinds of weird stuff that got the ball rolling.”

  By February 1982, Kerrang! was popular enough to warrant doubling its publishing schedule, and the editors began publishing a new issue every two weeks. Kerrang! became the cultural glue that kept the ragtag American metalheads inspired and united. Even a kid from Downey like James Hetfield, who had never traveled outside the country, was dropping British slang and referring to fans as punters—the Kerrang! term for London’s front-row headbangers.

  Wobbling toward something “a little bit better and harder,” the embryonic Metallica went through a number of personnel changes in its first months as they found gigs opening for local talent like Roxx Regime, later known as Stryper. One of Metallica’s early concerts in Costa Mesa, California, tested a five-piece configuration featuring guitarists Dave Mustaine and Brad Parker, aka Damian C. Phillips. Hetfield sang lead vocals. As bassist Ron McGovney told Shock Waves, the experiment ended after Phillips quickly proved wrong for the job. “While James, Lars, and I were getting dressed to go onstage, we heard this guitar solo, so we looked over the railing of the dressing room and saw Brad onstage by himself just blazing away on his guitar! That was Metallica’s first and last gig with Damian C. Phillips.”

  Phillips later resurfaced in the lipstick-laden glam band Odin, but despite such missteps the bright green “go” switch was engaged for Metallica. The band’s lineup hardened around Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, Ron McGovney, and Dave Mustaine. In one year Ulrich had graduated from extraordinary fan to drummer of a fledgling heavy metal force, and bootlegs of Metallica concerts began to circulate up the West Coast and even across the waters to Europe. Soon after the June 1982 release of Metal Massacre, Lars Ulrich reported losing his virginity at a party at Dave Mustaine’s house.

  For Brian Slagel the Metal Massacre gambit was a different kind of success. The entire first pressing of 4,500 copies sold out in one week, as fans rallied around a reco
rd featuring a dozen nearly unknown regional bands. Slagel had correctly guessed the taste of the emerging hard-edged heavy metal audience, even underestimating its scope. His picks were certainly the cream of the unharvested crop. Most of them—Ratt, Ron Keel and Yngwie Malmsteen’s band Steeler, Malice, Black ‘N Blue, even the homely Metallica—eventually signed major-label deals. (For this reason Ratt and Steeler were removed from subsequent pressings of Metal Massacre; a more experienced Metallica also slipped in a newer version of “Hit the Lights” recorded with Mustaine.)

  At this stage the do-it-yourself metal fanatics did not expect to make money, and Slagel was ill equipped to finance and manage the scene’s growth. “All the distributors called asking for more, but I didn’t have any money and didn’t know what to do,” he says. “We had a meeting with a guy who was managing the Dixie Dregs, and he had a label deal with RCA. We never got paid, and it was a complete nightmare. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I was just some twenty-one-year-old kid who thought it was great.”

  Slagel set about replicating his success with the 1982 compilation Metal Massacre II, again joining California bands Warlord, Savage Grace, and Trauma with far-flung acts like Hawaii’s Aloha, featuring future Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman. He hoped to lead the record with a track by the mystical Danish troupe Mercyful Fate but lost touch with them after a management shake-up. Instead he turned to leather-clad locals Armored Saint, who cruised into position with the rousing “Lesson Well Learned.”

  Progressing just as quickly, in July 1982 Metallica recorded “No Life ‘Til Leather,” a demo tape featuring the songs “Hit the Lights,” “Mechanix,” “Motorbreath,” “Seek & Destroy,” “Metal Militia,” “Jump in the Fire,” and “Phantom Lord.” The sound was bright and brash, with energy that overcame traditional concepts of tunefulness. Hetfield’s voice was high and whiny, and Dave Mustaine’s guitar solos were charged and frantic. The cuts resonated like a faster, heavier, younger American version of what the Brits had been doing in Diamond Head. While not yet arriving at the flowing force that would become their trademark, the tape proved that Metallica had learned to play, and it garnered the acclaim of fans who wanted to hear the NWOBHM taken one step further.

  “No Life ‘Til Leather” paved Metallica’s way out of town, leading to its first appearance in San Francisco on September 18, 1982. At a show to promote Metal Massacre, the band that had been quietly doing its own thing in Los Angeles suddenly encountered tape traders who had already previewed the Metallica cassette. “It was supposed to be Metallica, Bitch, and Cirith Ungol,” says Brian Slagel, “but Cirith Ungol dropped out at the last minute. When Metallica came out, it was like magic. The crowd was going wild, and the band just sort of freaked out. They had a few fans in L.A., but nothing like this. It was unbelievable. I knew at that point they should leave L.A.”

  “No Life ‘Til Leather” demo case

  Compared to the music-industry feeder trough that was Los Angeles, San Francisco was a cultural island and creative paradise. The city offered a more urban environment, with a higher density of clubs, record stores, and radio stations staffed by friends eager to push each other to heavier heights. As NWOBHM bands had unraveled the frayed ends of British hard rock, bands like Trauma and Exodus gleefully presided over the extinction of Bay Area wimp rockers Starship and Journey. Says Jeff Hanneman of Slayer, “When we first heard Exodus, I was surprised there was a band that kinda sounded like us, playing the same style of music. I was stoked the first time we played in Frisco that somebody actually played something similar to our style.”

  In hindsight it was unlikely that the denim-jacketed and pimply Metallica would have found such acceptance in Los Angeles, where show business would always rate higher than musical might. The most extreme example was W.A.S.P., whose blaring shock rock came with an elaborate stage show that included torture instruments, skulls on poles, and more fire, smoke, and lights than Halloween in the Munsters’ front parlor. “Before we became successful, my dad had a construction company,” explains bandleader Blackie Lawless, “so when I came to California, I worked for a special-effects company and built fog machines and pyro. A lot of that went into the show. Because I had firsthand information, I knew what was and wasn’t possible. Especially the exploding codpiece and stuff like that.”

  Without makeup or exploding codpieces, Metallica’s appearance was anti-image. Sticking with leather jackets, denim vests, T-shirts, and the occasional spiked or studded belt, Metallica looked like the headbangers in the front row of every Iron Maiden and Judas Priest show. Their pins and patches held together the classic image of the metal fan, not the flashy rock star. There was finally a hopping heavy metal scene in L.A.—Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Quiet Riot, and Dokken all landed major recording deals by the end of 1982. The irony was that total metal boosters Metallica did not fit in to the new environment.

  The deciding factor in Metallica’s leaving Los Angeles was a desire to replace Ron McGovney with the wiry and forceful bassist Cliff Burton: A 1970s throwback with long straight hair and flared bell-bottom jeans, Burton played in Trauma, a San Francisco band that appeared on Metal Massacre II. “Trauma was pretty generic hard rock,” says Ron Quintana, “with a weird-looking bass player [Burton] who was really good. They wore matching outfits, and they had the Judas Priest guitar-swinging moves. The couple guitarists and the singer wore custom-made lightning bolts on their leathers. Cliff always looked the same, like he just walked in off of Haight Street, but the other three guys looked alike. We thought they were cool, because at least they weren’t pop-glam crap.”

  Burton liked the no-nonsense, aggressive approach of Metallica. After significant cajoling over a period of months, he agreed to leave Trauma to join Metallica on December 28, 1982, stipulating that he would not have to uproot from family and friends in the Bay Area. Six weeks later the mountain happily moved to Mohammed. Ulrich, Hetfield, and Mustaine hauled their gear north, stashing Marshall amps and cassette-tape collections at a soon-to-be greatly punished house in El Cerrito, California—immediately decorated with posters of Michael Schenker, UFO, and Motörhead alongside banners promoting various brands of cheap beer.

  It was bold for a band as ambitious as Metallica to abandon the Los Angeles music industry, but San Francisco clearly had the fans, and Metallica invested in its relationship with them. As the chorus heralding America’s newfound infatuation with heavy metal swelled in the background, Metallica concentrated on its audience and its craft. The promoters and music-business lawyers could find them later.

  IV

  Heavy Metal America:

  Highways & Video Waves

  May 18, 1983: Judas Priest Screaming for Vengeance goes platinum in the United States

  May 29, 1983: U.S. Festival ‘83 draws 600,000 fans for Judas Priest, Scorpions, Van Halen, and Ozzy Osbourne

  November 26, 1983: Quiet Riot’s Metal Health hits #1 in Billboard

  October 12, 1984: Def Leppard‘s Pyromania goes sextuple platinum in the United States

  No longer the exclusive domain of die-hard devotees by 1983, heavy metal was airlifted into America and popularized through larger and more frequent concert tours. Fans whose idea of excitement was rearranged by AC/DC were completely swept off their feet by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and other British invaders. Video would soon offer immense exposure, but the groundwork was established over years spent on the road cultivating a growing and immensely loyal audience base.

  Rare appearances by Iron Maiden and Judas Priest on the radio and covers of American rock magazines were nowhere near commensurate with their status in the hearts of headbangers. “Some people buy songs,” notes Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood, “and some people buy bands.” In April 1983, after years on the margins of the music industry, Judas Priest was awarded its first U.S. platinum album for Screaming for Vengeance. Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast and Piece of Mind also both went gold the same year. Positive signs indicated that Def Leppard’s Pyr
omania would soon follow suit. The top British heavy metal bands were finally enjoying success on their own terms in America, the largest and most lucrative market in the world.

  For American teenagers, heavy metal became the soundtrack to a cultural revolution that included cable television and the first home computers and arcade video games. While Judas Priest sang of hightech satellites in “Electric Eye,” fans were plugging in to a new portable personal cassette player called the Sony Walkman, then blasting aliens in attention-addling electronic amusements like Vanguard, Robotron, Asteroids, Battlezone, and Defender. Saving the universe one quarter at a time to a backdrop of high-energy music, a nation of adrenaline addicts found hope in the future. As the games later grew faster and more intricate, so would heavy metal.

  The country was also demonstrating an appetite for adventure scenarios and alternate realities. The popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game brought to life the quests of fantasy literature like the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien—another son of Birmingham, England. In the layered escapist universe of D&D, players assumed the roles of various social and ethnic beings like elves, warriors, magic users, and bardic musicians. The plots of the games generally involved killing monsters and collecting treasure while pursuing some greater heroic goal. Much of heavy metal took place on similar turf, a realm of dark towers and impenetrable wilderness populated by battles and adversity. “You’ve gotta write about heavy subjects; the metallers freak out over it,” Dan Beehler of Exciter told Canada’s The New Music television show. “It’s better than something like ‘I was walking down the street, da da,’ you know? The medieval days were heavy; it was certain death for most people. That’s what metal’s all about—it’s a fight.”