Metallica

A group you either love or hate, I don’t know many people who are “Ho Hum” about the unconquerable Metallica. Put all the ‘who influenced who’ aside and I think you are left with what can only be called the yardstick for metal music for generations. So many times, those who don’t quite vibrate on the metal level would throw every hardcore band under the heading “You know, like Metallica…”.

You can educate me on Progressive Metal, Stoner Metal, Industrial Metal and even Norwegian Black Metal, but I think to the world at large that aren’t aware of the subtle differences of the genre, this speaks volumes. I suppose, so do their record sales. You really can’t argue with sales upward of 100million albums *quietly frowns and squints while trying to do the sums*. …its fucking mind boggling. There’s a few rock artists up in the top echelons, but they are the biggest selling heavy metal band of all time. And it’s bloody well justified.

Coming up on nearly forty years together, it was 1981 when James [lead singer] and Lars [drummer] formed what was to become one of the four founding bands of thrash metal along with Anthrax, Megadeth & Slayer. You may remember them from every bogan metal band t-shirt from the 80’s.

To be entirely honest, I have come full circle with both metal music & subsequently Metallica. I’ll be the first to raise my hand and admit that in my teens, those thrash metal bands that were the face of everything on the ‘other side of the tracks’. OK, hold the fucking phone just a second….let’s be honest here. I’m definitely NOT throwing shade onto kids who listened to metal but the fact was that I had some weird unjustified perception that everything in the world of metal was very bogan oriented. [I am actually giggling super hard at the irony of that comment] but somewhere in the mediocre, fence sitting middle ground of the Melbourne outer suburbs was a green teenager who never really opened himself to anything hard…until Led Zeppelin…which lead to Janes Addicition…which led to Soundgarden…which lead to Metallica. And let’s be absolutely crystal here metal heads, it was only the Black Album.

But that eventually lead to everything else awesome.

I was 16 when the notorious ‘Black Album’ came out. It was their fifth studio album and was in fact self titled. But for everyone who was around and aware of it…it was just the black album. I remember hearing ‘Sad But True’ at the Virgin Megastore on Bourke Street and found myself enamoured with drumming. So much so that I borrowed a copy from a mate and recorded it onto a blank tape so I could blast the shit out of it from my Panasonic RX-C36. It was friggen epic.

Somewhere in me I understood at the time that this album, as much as I began to love it, was probably a soft cock version of Metallica from anyone who had been a diehard for years. But I didn’t much care. I think that I was the exact demographic they were aiming for. And they hit the mark fair and square. It was marketing genius. Take one of the worlds best metal bands and make the music just soft enough to hit the pop charts. It’s their best selling album but over double.

“So you go into metal when you were 16 Mykie?”…Ummm…I don’t think it was that clean cut. I don’t think music ever is. Like any decent teen boy, the older I got, the harder the music got. Hmmm, thats not entirely true either.

….let me think for a second…..

OK, so maybe it was more about the idea of opening up to how different music could make me feel….differently? Nothing groundbreaking I’m sure. But always really good to reflect on because music was such a formative aspect of my growth during my teen years and into my 20’s that I refuse to play it down as “just a little thing that I listened to when I was young”.

I was always a kid who played it safe with music. Even now, when I listen to Metal, It’ll be Metallica or Tool…or Rage Against the Machine. I’ve never jumped the real metal fence to be a constant listener to Slayer, Pantera or Sepultura.

There’s a great website called Music Map. You punch in an artist and it will come up with surrounding bands that people who like that band are most likely to listen to. On one side of Metallica is that harder Slayer-esque group, but on the other are right in my proverbial slot. Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Tool, Muse etc… So I’m fully well aware that as far as true metal heads are concerned, I really am like a wet rag. But then send me to the land of the electronic connoisseur and I look like Bon Scott’s ugly and more bogan cousin on a bad day. But I’m OK with that.

I met my wife in 97′ and hilariously she is more of a metal head than I could ever be. She’s seen Guns n’ Roses play Calder Park in the mid 90’s, seen Slayer three times and I have seen her entire demeanour change during the length of one decent Tool song. So it wasn’t anything strange for me to start delving into the Metallica back catalogue around the turn of the century. I actually recall family car trips with my two boys in the back seat watching their parents sing their way through a Metallica marathon during long trips. [Metallica Parenting Tip #84: Make a favourites playlist & for gods sake, choose your songs carefully. Some songs just drag on forever. On the whole, their intro’s have mostly been much better than the rest of the remaining song. Not always….but often].

But those intro’s…Oh my lord. There is something about a great Metallica intro that can’t be replicated. If you can bend your tastes to at least swallow hard rock, there are some decent tracks [or at least the beginnings of] that could really start to water the seeds of a love for metal.

Early Metallica is different to later Metallica. Their early stuff is super raw, and a little glam. Its got that high pitched guitar that wails over the top of everything else in that cock rock kinda way. But if you stop to actually listen to it, its bigger than brilliant. the two other band members in the early days were mainly Kirk Hammett on lead guitar & Jason Newstead on bass. [I know Metallica diehards…but I don’t have time to go into the Cliff story].

The classic Metallica voice you might recognise is James Hetfield. The drummer being the tireless Lars Ulrich. But for me, Kirk has always been the key. James has a classic metal voice and sure, Lars plays great, but its the riff’s that Kirk is able to implement that makes Metallica the difference.

My favourite Metallica song and in turn album is the 1986 ‘Master of Puppets’. The entire first minute makes me go directly into my Air Guitar case, pull out my air KH2 M-II [that’s Kirk’s guitar] and begin playing a floor-less rendition along with the band. [I’ve been known to play a little air guitar in my time…which sometimes turns without notice into air drums and then back again at the drop of a hat. I’ve been playing for a long time now and am pretty good.]

But that’s what these boys do to me. I forget all sense of grown up ness and turn into a 16 year old wondering what it would be like to be a rock star playing to a stadium of fans. I quietly hope that part of me stays in me till I’m too old to hear anything. Although, that would be like a death in itself. *shudders*

Their old bassist Jason isn’t with them anymore. Around the early 2000’s, the band had somewhat of a crisis of identity. If you’re actually interested in watching a decent doco, the film ‘Some Kind of Monster’ documents their time through this period and how they come out the other side. Whether you believe the side they came out on is as good as the one they used to be on, even I’m not sure about that one. But they still play the shit out of their old songs and know that moreover, thats what everyone really wants to hear.

For now though, I’m happy to follow their journey as these mid to late 50 year old boys keep the intensity up, album after album. Tour after tour. I haven’t seen them live although I’d love to. But for now though, I’ll have to be satisfied with ensuring my kids suffer through just the right amount of Metallica intros so that when they get to an age when they might need something a little harder, darker or louder, a Metallica album might just be the remedy.

Or at least thats the dream.

M /

~ Article updated March 31st 2020