NEW RECORDINGS ’98

1. FREE SPEECH FOR THE DUMB (2:35)

2. IT’S ELECTRIC (3:33)
3. SABBRA CADABRA (6:20)
4. TURN THE PAGE (6:06)
5. DIE, DIE MY DARLING (2:26)
6. LOVERMAN (7:52)
7. MERCYFUL FATE (11:10)
8. ASTRONOMY (6:37)
9. WHISKEY IN THE JAR (5:04)
10. TUESDAY’S GONE (9:03)
11. THE MORE I SEE (3:23)

GARAGE DAYS RE-REVISITED ’87

12. HELPLESS (6:36)
13. THE SMALL HOURS (6:40)
14. THE WAIT (4:52)
15. CRASH COURSE IN BRAIN SURGERY (3:08)
16. LAST CARESS/GREEN HELL (3:29)

GARAGE DAYS REVISITED ’84

17. AM I EVIL? (7:50)
18. BLITZKRIEG (3:36)

B-SIDES & ONE-OFFS ’88-’91

19. BREADFAN (5:41)
20. THE PRINCE (4:24)
21. STONE COLD CRAZY (2:17)
22. SO WHAT (3:08)
23. KILLING TIME (3:03)

MOTORHEADACHE ’95
24. OVERKILL (4:05)
25. DAMAGE CASE (3:40)
26. STONE DEAD FOREVER (4:51)
27. TOO LATE TOO LATE (3:12)

1
 i g h t ly
i n g N
p p e ar
A

The
Met a l l i c a t s
o u r f a v o r i t e s
y
covering all

2
3
 JAMES HETFIELD – GUITARS, VOCALS NEW RECORDINGS ‘98 GARAGE DAYS RE-REVISITED ‘87 22. SO WHAT
LARS ULRICH – DRUMS (Exalt/Culmer)
KIRK HAMMETT – GUITARS 1. FREE SPEECH FOR THE DUMB 12. HELPLESS Published by Link Music Ltd
(Morris/Wainwright/Molaney/Roberts) (Harris/Tatler) Originally released by the Anti-Nowhere League in 1981
JASON NEWSTED – BASS Published by Maxwood Music Ltd Published by Happy Face Music Ltd/Zomba Enterprises, Inc as a B-side to the “Streets of London” single
Originally released by Discharge in 1982
on the “Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing” album
Originally released by Diamond Head in 1980 23. KILLING TIME
on the “Lightning to the Nations” album (Sweet Savage)
Tracks 1-11:
2. IT’S ELECTRIC Published by Telstar Music
Somewhat produced by Bob Rock with Hetfield & Ulrich (Tatler/Harris) 13. THE SMALL HOURS Originally released by Sweet Savage in 1981
Engineered by Randy Staub Published by Happy Face Music/Zomba Enterprises, Inc (Holocaust)
as a B-side to the “Take No Prisoners” single
Additional Engineering by Brian Dobbs Originally released by Diamond Head in 1980
Published by Edgy Music Ltd
Assisted by Kent Matcke, Leff Lefferts and Chris Manning Tracks 22-23 originally released by Metallica in November
on the “Lightning to the Nations” album Originally released by Holocaust in 1983 1991 as B-sides to “The Unforgiven” UK single
Digital Edits by Paul DeCarli and Mike Gillies on the “Holocaust Live – Hot Curry and Wine” EP
Recorded & mixed at The Plant Studios, (except Track 10), 3. SABBRA CADABRA
Sausalito, California, in September-October 1998 (Featuring an excerpt from A NATIONAL ACROBAT) 14. THE WAIT MOTORHEADACHE ‘95
(Killing Joke)
Mixed by Randy Staub and Mixed by Mike Fraser (Black Sabbath)
Published by E.G.Music Inc/BMG Music
24. OVERKILL
Published by Essex Music, Ltd (Kilmister/Clarke/Taylor)
Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound Originally released by Black Sabbath in 1973 Originally released by Killing Joke in 1980 Published by EMI Intertrax
As always, thanks to all the good people involved at The Plant on the “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” album on the “Killing Joke” album Originally released by Motorhead in 1979
Tracks 12-16: Not very produced by Metallica 4. TURN THE PAGE 15. CRASH COURSE IN BRAIN SURGERY on the “Overkill” album
Engineered by Csaba “The Hut” Petocz (Seger) (Shelley/Bourge/Phillips) 25. DAMAGE CASE
Recorded in Los Angeles, California, in 1987 Published by Gear Publishing Co Published by Essex Music International, Ltd (Kilmister/Clarke/Taylor/Farren)
Tracks 17-18: Produced by Metallica and Mark Whitaker Originally released by Bob Seger in 1973 Originally released by Budgie in 1971 on the “Budgie” album Published by EMI Intertrax
Engineered by Jeffrey “Nik” Norman on the “Back in ‘72” album Originally released by Motorhead in 1979
16. LAST CARESS/GREEN HELL on the “Overkill” album
Recorded in Sausalito, California, in 1984 5. DIE, DIE MY DARLING (Danzig)
CLIFF BURTON – BASS (Danzig) Published by Evilive Music 26. STONE DEAD FOREVER
Tracks 19-20: Not produced Published by Evilive Music “Last Caress” originally released by The Misfits in 1980 (Kilmister/Clarke/Taylor)
Engineered by Mike Clink and Toby “Rage” Wright Originally released by The Misfits in 1984 as a single on the ”Beware” EP. “Green Hell” originally released Published by EMI Intertrax
Rough mix by Flemming Rasmussen by The Misfits in 1983 on the “Earth A.D.” album. Originally released by Motorhead in 1979
Recorded in Los Angeles, California in 1988 6. LOVERMAN Tracks 12-16 originally released by Metallica in August 1987 on on the “Bomber” album
(Cave)
Track 21: Kind of produced by Metallica Published by Mute Songs Ltd/Windswept Pacific Songs The $5.98 E.P. – Garage Days Re-Revisited 27. TOO LATE TOO LATE
Engineered by Toby “Rage” Wright Originally released by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Kilmister/Clarke/Taylor)
Recorded in Berkeley, California in 1990 in 1994 on the “Let Love In” album GARAGE DAYS REVISITED ‘84 Published by EMI Intertrax
Tracks 22-23: Roughly produced by Bob Rock Originally released by Motorhead in 1979
with Hetfield & Ulrich 7. MERCYFUL FATE 17. AM I EVIL? as a B-side to the “Overkill” single
(Featuring SATAN’S FALL, CURSE OF THE PHARAOHS, (Harris/Tatler)
Engineered by Randy Staub A CORPSE WITHOUT SOUL, INTO THE COVEN and EVIL) Published by Happy Face Music Ltd/Zomba Enterprises, Inc Tracks 24-27 originally released in September 1996 by Metallica
Recorded in Los Angeles, California, in 1991 Originally released by Diamond Head in 1980 as B-sides to the “Hero of the Day” UK single
(Shermann/Diamond)
Tracks 24-27: Not produced Published by Roadblock Music, Inc on the “Lightning to the Nations” album
Recorded live direct to two-track at The Plant Studios in
Sausalito, California, in December, 1995
“A Corpse Without Soul” originally released by Mercyful Fate in 18. BLITZKRIEG
1982 on the “Mercyful Fate” EP. All other songs originally (Jones/Smith/Sirotto)
Mixed by Randy Staub released by Mercyful Fate in 1983 on the “Melissa” album. Published by Men From The North Ltd
Remastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound 8. ASTRONOMY Originally released by Blitzkrieg in 1981
as a B-side to the “Buried Alive” single
Album Design by Andie Airfix at Satori (S.Pearlman/A.Bouchard/J.Bouchard)
Front cover photography and “Metallicats” photograph by Anton Corbijn Published by Sony ATV Tunes Tracks 17-18 originally released by Metallica in November 1984
Back cover photography of original sleeve by Ross Halfin Originally released by Blue Oyster Cult in 1974 as B-sides to the “Creeping Death” UK single
Additional photography by Ross Halfin and Mark Leialoha on the “Secret Treaties” album
Management by Q Prime, Inc. B-SIDES & ONE-OFFS ‘88-’91
9. WHISKEY IN THE JAR
(Traditional) 19. BREADFAN
Released by Thin Lizzy in 1972 as a UK single (Phillips/Shelley/Bourge)
Published by Essex Music International Ltd
10. TUESDAY’S GONE Originally released by Budgie in 1973
(Collins/Van Zandt) on the “Never Turn Your Back on a Friend” album
Published by MCA Duchess Music
Originally released by Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1973 on the 20. THE PRINCE
“Pronounced Léh-nérd Skin-nérd” album (Harris/Tatler)
Published by Happy Face Music Ltd/Zomba Enterprises, Inc
Original Metallica (& friends) version heard on the “Don’t Call
Us, We’ll Call You” radio special on December 18, 1997 Originally released by Diamond Head in 1980 FOR FAN CLUB INFORMATION GO
on the “Lightning To The Nations” album
Jerry Cantrell appears courtesy of Columbia Records. Les Claypool appears courtesy of
Tracks 19-20 originally released by Metallica in September 1988 as TO WWW.METALLICA.COM
Interscope Records and Primus. Pepper Keenan appears courtesy of Columbia Records and
Corrosion Of Conformity. Sean Kinney appears courtesy of Columbia Records. Jim Martin B-sides to the “Harvester of Sorrow” UK single
appears courtesy of himself. John Popper appears courtesy of A&M Records and Blues
Traveler. Gary Rossington appears courtesy of CMC International. 21. STONE COLD CRAZY metallica.com
(Mercury/May/Taylor/Deacon)
11. THE MORE I SEE Published by Glenwood Music Corp
(Morris/Wainwright/Molaney/Roberts)
Published by Maxwood Music, Ltd Originally released by Queen in 1974
Originally released by Discharge in 1984 as a single on the “Sheer Heart Attack” album
Originally released by Metallica in September 1990 on
”Rubaiyat,” Elektra’s 40th Anniversay compilation album
©1998 Blackened Recordings. 4

It may be the worst thing you
can say about a rock band:
“They just play covers.”
The very word
– covers – is terse and ugly.
It stinks of long nights in smelly bars
run by shitbird owners who pay base-
ment wages. It reeks of four-and-more
sets a night, tired hits, human-jukebox
arrangements and dispiriting crowds,
dazed barflies and howling frat guys
more interested in getting laid – or
just laid out on hard drink – than in
getting rocked.
But everybody who’s anybody has
done it; there’s no better kind of rock
& roll schooling. Every great band, any
superstar combo that has ever truly
mattered, started out playing covers,
forging an identity and agenda out of
the licks and kicks of other people’s
songs: the Beatles in Hamburg, gassed
on German beer and amphetamines,
roaring through Chuck Berry and Carl
Perkins; the Rolling Stones in London
blues pubs, putting an English, subur-
ban spin on the black Chicago mojo of
Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed and Muddy
Waters; the Grateful Dead taking
20-minute improv rambles through
Bob Dylan and classic Motown at acid-
dance parties in San Francisco; Led
Zeppelin dropping napalm shots of
Buddy Holly, the Buffalo Springfield,
Spirit and the Sun Records catalog
into the elastic jam sections of
“Whole Lotta Love” and “How Many
More Times.”
The Who, the Beach Boys, Deep
Purple, the Yardbirds, the Sex
Pistols, the Allman Brothers, Blue
Öyster Cult, R.E.M.: they were all
cover bands at one point – on stage,
on B-sides, in the garage. Go back 16
years – past the sold-out, 24-month
tours; the gizzillion-selling albums;
the MTV video awards – and yeah,
Metallica played covers. From Day
One. At their debut live perform-
ance, in March, 1982 at a club called
Radio City in Anaheim, California,
Metallica – the first gigging four-
some of drummer Lars Ulrich, singer-
guitarist James Hetfield, bassist Ron
McGovney and guitarist Dave
Mustaine – performed everything
they knew. That included three orig-
inals, all they had so far: “Hit the
Lights,” “Jump in the Fire” and an
early blueprint of “The Four
Horsemen” called “Mechanix.” And
there were seven covers, all pulled
from Ulrich’s deep library of British
metal-underground
vinyl.
Five of those covers are
on this album. One of
them, “Am I Evil?” by
Diamond Head, is still a
Metallica-encore stan-
dard. In fact, there is
nothing in this collec-
tion – 27 songs or med-
leys from 18 artists cov-
ering nearly 30 years of metal, thrash,
punk, post-punk and otherwise – that
doesn’t have a vital, valid connection to
Metallica’s history and ambition. This is
the stuff that made the classic lineup(s)
– Hetfield, Ulrich, guitarist Kirk
Hammett, bassist Jason Newsted and
his crucial predecessor, the late, great
bass monster Cliff Burton – want to
play instruments, form a band, hit the
road and write original songs. In short,
to be as good, and maybe even better,
than the records they loved.
But that was down the road apiece.
That night in Anaheim; the show a
week later opening for British cult gods
Saxon at the Whisky A Go Go in Los
Angeles; the Blitzkrieg, Sweet Savage
and four Diamond Head songs they
played at those shows – there was a
simple reason for all that. “It was,”
Ulrich insists, “just, ‘Let’s do something
fun.
Here are these records we sit around
and listen to, here are the records that
get us off. It would be fun to play some
of this music.’ We started life as a cover
band.”
You probably know at least the pocket-
edition version of Metallica’s origins: A
Danish-born, junior-tennis player and
aspiring drummer, living
in Southern California
with a massive record
collection, places a news-
paper ad in the spring of
1981 seeking like-minded
headbangers. A guitarist
from the L.A. suburbs –
the son of a trucking-
company owner and
light-opera singer, raised in a strict
Christian Science household – answers
the ad; jam sessions start. In the fall of
‘81; the band (briefly including guitarist,
Lloyd Grant) cuts “Hit the Lights,” which
ends up on a local, independent compila-
tion, Metal Massacre. First shows in
early ‘82. World conquest begins.
There is, of course, more. Born
December 26, 1963 in Copenhagen,
Ulrich enjoyed the kind of breezy inde-
pendence and cultural exposure only
possible in a truly bohemian family. His
father, Danish tennis pro Torben Ulrich,
was a jazz head, tight with many of the
expatriate American stars living in
Scandanavia. Lars’ godfather was the
great saxophonist Dexter Gordon; trum-
peter Don Cherry lived down the street.
One of Lars’ first rock-concert experi-
ences was going with his parents to the
Rolling Stones’ historic free show in
London’s Hyde Park in July, 1969 – he
was five. Lars was nine when he saw
Deep Purple in Copenhagen.
Ulrich was already a teenage metalhead
when he was knocked flat by the young-
blood renaissance that ripped through
England between 1979 and 1983, a roar-
ing hybrid of air-guitar testosterone and
punk-ish DIY temper christened the New
Wave of British Heavy Metal by Geoff
Barton, a writer for the British music
weekly Sounds. In L.A., where he
moved with his parents in 1980, Ulrich
kept up to date with the torrent of U.K.
indie-label and living-room-imprint
releases (some with pressings in the low
three figures) by subscribing to an
English mail-order house, Bullit Records.
He was such a loyal customer that after 5

awhile, rather than wait for Ulrich’s
want lists and checks, Bullit just dis-
patched everything – regular ship-
ments every couple of weeks – and
billed him for the goods.
Born August 3, 1963, Hetfield was
already hip to the tip of the
NWOBHM, bands like Iron Maiden
and Angel Witch, when he met
Ulrich. He learned to play guitar by
playing along with Scorpions and
UFO albums, slowing the turntable
down to copy Michael Schenker’s
solos. Hetfield developed his taut,
muscular style of rhythm playing
from hours of study with Black
Sabbath platters.
But he was astounded by the size
and specialist depth of Ulrich’s col-
lection. It was, Hetfield says plainly,
“fucking huge. When Lars first came
to the States, he had all these sin-
gles with devils and pentagrams and
rough-looking guys with leather
jackets on the covers: Motörhead,
Diamond Head, Witchfynde, Sweet
Savage, Tygers of Pan Tang. I would ‘Xanadu’ by Rush and Led Zeppelin’s
stay over at his place for days at a ‘Kashmir.’ We liked epicness; we want-
time, making tapes of his records ed things to be grand.”
and sleeping on the carpet. “Am I Evil?,” “The Prince,” “Helpless”
“The other thing that was amazing and “It’s Electric,” – all from Lightning
to me was that all these bands lived – are covered here. The first three
in the same cities and towns in were performed in Anaheim and at
England, scraping the money the Whisky. (A fourth number from
together to make a single. In the album, “Sucking My Love,” was
Birmingham, there would be ten
bands and they’d all sound differ-
ent.” In L.A., you could go stupid
from hearing local bands wringing
the life out of the same old tem-
plates – Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Purple,
AC/DC.
Two decades later, it is hard to imag-
ine why a scene as short-lived and
geographically provincial as the
NWOBHM was such a wow. Many of
the hallowed, seven-inch artifacts of
Lightning was an Ulrich passion
the day sound like rushed, shoe-
and Diamond Head became one of
string-budget demos, which many
the single biggest influences on
actually were. There is also the lin-
Metallica’s sound and modular riff-
gering aroma of rock-warrior cheese
based style of composition. Ulrich
in fly-the-flag anthems like Diamond
even roomed with Harris and Tatler
Head’s “It’s Electric”: “I’m gonna be a
during that ‘81 trip and sat in on
rock’n’roll star/Gonna groove from
their writing sessions. dropped from the set soon after.)
night to day. . .”
“I used to go over to the singer’s Diamond Head were, Ulrich bluntly
Maybe you had to be there. I was –
house and we’d write in his bed- declares, “50 percent of what ended
in the spring of 1980, on a Def
room,” Tatler explained to me in a up being Metallica. We got the whole
Leppard tour – and it was righteous
1989 interview. “And Lars would be thing about riffs and structuring, the
fun: a breath of hot, dank air from
there, hanging out while we were adventure and liberties, from them.”
the street, a fan-driven backlash to
laboring over arrangements. We’d The other 50 percent was Motörhead:
the platinum-rock aristocracy and
spend all day writing songs, arrang- the howling aggro, the lean, mean
the hokey grandeur of arena-show
ing sections, and he probably attack. Hetfield: “We put the two
culture. It was the punk-rock wars
thought that was the way bands ‘Heads together and came up with
all over again with longer hair,
write. We didn’t worry about how something unique.”
longer songs and an obsessive
long a song had to be. It came out They just didn’t have enough of it
emphasis on the power and glory of
however it felt right, whether it was – yet. No one noticed. There was no
the Almighty Riff. Which is why,
three minutes or ten. We probably stage banter, no announcements
when Ulrich made an NWOBHM pil-
got the idea from things like about who wrote what, at the Radio
grimage in July, 1981 to experience
the action first hand, he zipped right City and Whisky gigs. Metallica played
from Heathrow Airport to the the songs. And the covers were so
Woolwich Odeon to see Diamond obscure that, Ulrich admits, “every-
Head. body just assumed they were our
Formed in 1977 in the West songs.” Everybody except a guy who
Midlands town of Stourbridge, came up to the band backstage
Diamond Head– singer Sean Harris, at the Whisky. In a British accent, he
guitarist Brian Tatler, bassist Colin dryly inquired, “Have you guys ever
Kimberley and drummer Duncan heard of a band called Diamond
Scott – were that very rare bird in Head?” Ulrich, stunned, just asked,
heavy metal: hard and smart. Their “Why?”
debut album, Lightning to the “Well,” the guy replied, “I worked
Nations, initially released in 1980 by with Diamond Head for the last two
the band with a plain white sleeve years doing their monitors.”
and label, remains one of the finest “Of course, we’d heard of fucking
full-length documents of the period, Diamond Head,” Ulrich says, laughing
a record of ferocious riff games and in retrospect. “We’d just played half
clever, expansive arrangements, their catalog. That was so surreal – he 6
honed to crisp, stabbing effect.
was the only one in Southern
California who was in on the
secret.” The punch line: that British
gentleman, Paul Owen, one of
Saxon’s sound men that night, has
been a member of Metallica’s road
crew for the last decade.
The cassette cover was black all
over, with nothing on it except a
piece of white tape with the word
“Mezzfits” written on it. The music
was supersonic punk-a-rama, B-
movie gore and two-
minute riff’n’roll by
the Misfits, a New
Jersey band of late-
’70s vintage,
extraordinary stay-
ing power and mad
pop genius. And it
was the only thing
Cliff Burton listened
to during Metallica’s
summer of 1985.
He drove the rest of
the group, in Ulrich’s
words, “fucking crazy
with this shit. We were writing
Master of Puppets and driving
around in his green Volkswagen sta-
tion wagon to photo sessions,”
Ulrich says. “Cliff would just pound
this Misfits stuff, drum on the dash-
board and make everybody fucking
nuts. And Cliff wasn’t the best driver
to begin with.
“But through submission, we got
into it too. The vocals and melodies
were infectious. When you heard
the stuff ten times, no matter how
hard you tried to resist it, you got
caught up in it.”
“Cliff,” Kirk Hammett notes fondly,
“had a way of commandeering the
tape player in any vehicle.”
In 1985, Metallica were an older,
bolder and profoundly more power-
ful band than the one that began by
cribbing from NWOBHM 45’s. Their
1982 demo cassette, No Life ‘Til
Leather, had been the talk of the
international tape-traders network.
They had two new members –
Burton, who joined in late ‘82, and
Hammett, who replaced Mustaine
the following March. The realigned
Metallica then took speed metal
overground, big time, with the 1983
release of their atomic debut LP, Kill
‘Em All, and now had a deal with a
major American label, Elektra. The
group had also recorded its first
cover versions: “Am I Evil?” and
“Blitzkrieg,” paired as Garage Days
Revisited on the 1984 U.K. 12-inch
single, “Creeping Death.”
In Burton, born February 10, 1962 in
San Francisco, Hetfield and Ulrich
found a young musician so special –
a college-level student of classical
piano with feral stage presence and
a volcanic bass technique — that
they relocated to the Bay Area just
to poach Burton from his old band,
Trauma. Born
November 18,
1962 and, like
Burton, an S.F.
native, Hammett
was a guitarist
whose catholic
education in
heavy music –
Kiss, UFO, the
rich, local punk-
metal scene, the
Haight-Ashbury
flavor of his
older brother’s
records (Santana, Hendrix) – could
be heard in his knockout combina-
tion of chops and velocity.
Making Garage Days Revisited
was an accident of necessity.
“Creeping Death” was pulled from
the ‘84 album, Ride the Lightning,
to promote a European tour and it
has long been an article of faith in
England and Europe that singles, as
an art form and value-added item,
include fresh kill on the B-side.
Metallica had no new or leftover
originals. “Am I Evil?” and
“Blitzkrieg” were naturals.
Blitzkrieg – the band – formed in
1980 in Wolverhampton, England
and were one of several NWOBHM
bands (including White Spirit and
Tygers of Pan Tang)
associated with the
Neat Records label in
Newcastle. The origi-
nal quintet never
got to make an
album; they lasted
just over a year and
broke up shortly
after issuing their
only single in 1981.
(Later Blitzkriegs
featured different
members.) But the
group’s namesake anthem, the B-
side of “Buried Alive,” was demon
wax, a shameless but irresistible
rewrite of the 1973 hit “Hocus
Pocus” by the Dutch group Focus,
given the bracing, twin-guitar treat-
ment of mid-’70s Thin Lizzy. To
Ulrich, “Blitzkrieg” was “just one of
those singles: ‘Fuck, this rocks.’”
The title, Garage Days Revisited,
was a literal tribute to Metallica’s
beginnings. Early rehearsals in L.A.
were held in Ron McGovney’s
garage, soundproofed with card-
board, supermarket egg cartons and
old carpet remnants pinched by
Hetfield and Ulrich from trash dump-
sters in the Newport Beach apart-
ment complex where Ulrich lived at
the time. When Hetfield and Ulrich
moved to San Francisco after recruit-
ing Burton, the pair made one last
sweep of the dumpsters and scored
enough carpet, however worn and
smelly, to outfit the garage in their
new bachelor crib in the East Bay
neighborhood of El Cerrito.
Burton would not live to see
Metallica’s next Garage Days
record. On September 27, 1986,
Metallica were on an overnight
drive between gigs in Sweden when
the tour bus suddenly veered off the
road and overturned. Burton was
killed instantly; he was 24. But his
broad taste in music had a lasting
effect on Metallica’s songwriting
and the genre spread of later cover
romps. Hammett recalls many listen-
ing sessions with Burton: “He’d
make us listen to Creedence
Clearwater Revival, Simon and
Garfunkel. He turned me on to the
Velvet Underground and the
Dictators.” Burton frequently played
piano recordings of the works of
Johann Sebastian Bach and was
always spinning Thin Lizzy, particu-
larly songs from
the group’s early-
’70s period with
guitarist Eric Bell.
“Cliff had a very
melodic sensibili-
ty,” says Hammett.
“If you listen to
‘Orion’ (on Master
of Puppets), the
melodic part at the
end with those gui-
tar harmonies – he
wrote that entire
bit. I remember when we were
going over that, I said to him,
‘Damn, that sounds like Thin Lizzy.’
He turned to me and said, ‘That’s
where I get all my shit from, man.’”
Like the “Creeping Death” B-sides,
The $5.98 EP: Garage Days Re-
Revisited – its full title, with the
price up front so retailers couldn’t
fuck the kids for an extra buck – was
partly conceived as a promo tool. In
November, 1986, Hetfield, Ulrich and
Hammett picked themselves up out
of mourning and found a new
bassist, Jason Newsted, from the
Phoenix, Arizona, band Flotsam and
Jetsam. The four of ‘em quickly hit
the road, fulfilling outstanding
Master of Puppets tour dates.
They also got a prestigious booking
for the summer of 1987: a slot on
the Monsters of Rock bill at Castle
Donington, England. The band’s U.K.
label, Vertigo, proposed an EP to
coincide with the appearance.
Never a band of overwriters,
Metallica had nothing to pull out of
the songbag. An attempt, after the
last Puppets shows, to jump into
the next studio album proved pre-
mature, yielding only a formative
“Blackened.” Then Hetfield broke his
arm skateboarding; another couple
of months went out the window.
With Donington looming, the solu-
tion was clear: more covers.
For Hetfield, Hammett and Ulrich,
The $5.98 EP was therapy through
noise, a chance to work through
their loss via songs that were part of
their years with Burton. For
Newsted – born March 4, 1963, in
Battle Creek, Michigan – it was an
opportunity to prove himself as a
player and bandmate without the
immediate burden of a new studio
record. He started by assuming the 7
role of job foreman in the renova-
tion of Metallica’s lat-
est rehearsal space:
the garage in Ulrich’s
new house, right
across the street
from his and
Hetfield’s old pad in
El Cerrito. Raised on
a farm and experi-
enced in construc-
tion, Newsted put
together a $4,000
budget, bought tools
and materials and,
usually with a team of friends,
appeared at Ulrich’s place at 10
o’clock each morning, ready to ham-
mer. To soundproof the walls, he
used the old-carpet trick, hauling
discarded rolls from his apartment
building.
“At first, you didn’t notice it,”
Newsted says, “but once the carpet
was in the room, the stench hit you
– huge spill spots, beer stains, that
used to be on people’s floors. I tried
to create a little air-conditioning sys-
tem in there; it never really worked.
But we spent a lot
of time in
that garage and rehearsed those EP
songs for a month before going into
the studio to cut ‘em.”
While in high school, Newsted
moonlighted at the University of
Black Sabbath, taking bass lessons
from Geezer Butler by listening
repeatedly to the Master of Reality
album. He had a “big hero-worship
thing” for Rush’s Geddy Lee and was
dead into Lemmy from Motörhead
because “he was playing distorted
bass, fast, with a pick.” In Phoenix,
Newsted haunted the import-metal
bins in local record shops, getting
his fill of Iron subtle, they’re not progressive. . . they gers got caught in a roadcase on the
Maiden and are a Rock Band, a freaking good Rock loadout. I think he broke his thumb.”
Diamond Head. Band.” Too true. What Budgie lacked in “Helpless” by Diamond Head and “The
Still, most of the finesse they made up in the tonnage Small Hours” by Holocaust were the
material recorded and ten-story-drop impact of their guitar EP’s inevitable nods to the NWOBHM.
for The $5.98 EP hooks. Metallica gave a near-literal, hyper-
was new to him. “I Alas, the group tended to lace the big speed reading of the first two-thirds
just studied it the fun with incongruous acoustic-ballad of “Helpless,” lopping off a lengthy
best I could,” passages and weird ham like the “Oooh, coda that Diamond Head had played
Newsted says, “and baby, I can rock’n’roll” vocal break in in a strange type of metal gallop.
tried to put my sig- “Crash Course in Brain Surgery.” Holocaust were from Edinburgh,
nature on there.” “There’d be this awesome riff,” says Scotland. “They were one of those
Among the songs Hetfield, “then they’d go off into some bands kicking around in 1981 and
considered for The mellow trip through the daisies.” For the ‘82,” Ulrich says. “They had a little bit
$5.98 EP, then dropped: “White EP, Metallica replaced the “Oooh, baby” of cheese factor to them, but they
Lightning” by a NWOBHM group, part with massed drunken bellowing. also had some stuff that was really
Paralex; “Signal Thunder” by Bow When Metallica covered Budgie’s weighty.” “The Small Hours” was a
Wow, a Japanese band that enjoyed “Breadfan” during the . . . And Justice slow, mean bruiser, with a tempo like
a minor flurry of U.S. cult interest; for All sessions, they simply chopped a dying man’s crawl, taken from a
and “I’m No Fool,” by the NWOBHM the mellow-daisies bit. 1983 EP, Holocaust Live: – Hot Curry
trio Gaskin. At one rehearsal, Budgie footnotes: The label copy of The and Wine.
Hammett says, Metallica were run- $5.98 EP noted that “Crash Course in “I’ve got something to say/I killed
ning into brick walls with “White
Lightning,” so he began playing the
hellish, staccato riff of “The Wait” by
the British post-punk band Killing
Joke. The rest of Metallica fell in.
They all knew it from a mix tape
given to Burton by Rich Birch (R.I.P.),
best known to Metallifans as “Rich
Banger” for his immortal quote on
the back cover of Kill ‘Em All,
“Bang the head that doesn’t bang.”
“The Wait” was not obvious
Metallica meat. A London four-piece,
Killing Joke were part of the art-
house mutiny in British punk at the
turn of the ‘80s. Like their best con-
temporaries – Gang of Four, The Pop
Group, Public Image Ltd. – Killing
Joke applied the rhythms and instru-
mental character of funk and dub
reggae to punk’s martial-riff dynam-
ics and black-hearted world view.
The 1980 album, Killing Joke,
which included “The Wait,” remains
a high-octane cocktail of heaving
guitar corrosion and nihilistic snarl. Brain Surgery” was recorded in 1974. It
Budgie were from the far, opposite was included on Budgie’s album of that
end of Metallica’s heavy-boogie year, In For the Kill, but had been cut
radar. From Cardiff, Wales, Budgie – in 1971 and first issued on Budgie, list-
led by singer-bassist Burke Shelley – ed simply as “Crash Course.” Also,
played old-school muck’n’howl, the Budgie had some of the best song titles
thermal-trio sound of Cream curdled in the business: “Hot as a Docker’s
with mega-spoonfuls of Black Armpit,” “Panzer Division Destroyed,”
Sabbath. Rodger Bain, Sabbath’s “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist
original producer, even did the hon- Woman.” Not as amusing was the night
ors on the 1971 debut, Budgie, not- Metallica met Burke Shelley in Cardiff on
ing in his back-cover testimonial that the Justice tour. He was employed at
Budgie “aren’t the world’s greatest the venue as a stage hand. “Then, to
composers, they’re not particularly add injury to insult,” says Ulrich, “his fin- 8

your baby today”: Those memorable
lines were the starting gun for the cli-
mactic Misfits medley, a grafting of the
homicidal “Last Caress” and the head-
long death curse “Green Hell.” “There
was a huge comic element to the
Misfits,” Hetfield says with nothing but
admiration. “They got their whole
being from comic books and
monster mags. But I loved their
amazing, almost pop-y hooks.
They were smashing guitars and
singing about some horrible
stuff – in these pop songs.
“And Glenn Danzig was singing
some cool shit. He was a major
influence when I was trying to
become a real singer, getting that
yelling/singing sound down. Most of
the other punk bands – there were no
notes. The Misfits had notes.”
But no respect. Now routinely cited as
godhead, the Misfits were ignored by
critics and record-company A&R clowns
in their first lifetime, from 1977 to
1984. Danzig and bassist Jerry Caiafa
(a/k/a Jerry Only) started the band as a
trio in Lodi, New Jersey, naming them-
selves after Marilyn Monroe’s final
movie and initiating their own label,
Blank, with the hard, brooding sin-
gle “Cough/Cool.” In 1978, in a freak
twist of business, the Misfits, by
then a quartet, received 30 hours of
free studio time from Mercury
Records in return for dropping the
Blank name, also used by a Mercury-
distributed imprint – run by
Metallica’s future managers, Cliff
Burnstein and Peter Mensch.
Among the 17 songs recorded at
those sessions – material that was
supposed to comprise the Misfits’
debut album, but which went unre-
leased in America until 1996 as
Static Age – was “Last Caress.”
(Hetfield knew the song from a 1980
English EP, Beware.) “Green Hell”
was on the 1983 LP, Earth A.D., a
fast, vicious document of the Misfits’
evolution into mighty hardcore-
metal rompers. Despite the spread
in vintage, “Last Caress” and “Green
Hell” were, Hetfield says, “just two
songs we liked, so we butted them
together.”
The snatch of bent-note wailing in
the fadeout was not from the
Misfits catalog but a nutty bow to
Iron Maiden, an out-of-tune taste of
“Run to the Hills.” “Lars had learned
this drum bit,” Hetfield explains. “He
kept playing it over and over, and
we just kind of goofed on it at the
end of the track. It was nothing
against Maiden. It was just a way to
take the piss out of metal.
“And,” he quickly adds, “a way to
take the piss out of ourselves.”
According to Newsted,
The $5.98 EP: Garage Days
Re-Revisited was recorded and
mixed in six days. Metallica never
work that fast on their own songs.
For Metallica, studio albums are
marathon labors in obsession and
perfection, completed in what
Hammett characterized to me in
1996 as “Metallitime”: “We’re the
master procrastinators. We tend to
sweat and toil on the beginning of a
record, and a lot of that has to do
with establishing a stride that works
for us. Sometimes establishing that
momentum is very difficult.”
Revisiting their garage days on the
EP proved beneficial on that count.
Metallica discovered that, instead of
leaping into the deep end of a new
album, they could work up to run-
ning speed – check guitar and drum
sounds, settle into a studio – with
covers. The first things to hit tape
when Metallica started . . . And
Justice For All were Diamond
Head’s “The Prince” and Budgie’s
“Breadfan.” Ulrich concedes that it
was “predictable” to go back to
Diamond Head; he also uses the
word “loyal.” “Breadfan” was a mix-
tape favorite, something he and
Hetfield listened to as they tooled
through L.A. in a rental car, checking
out prospective recording facilities
for Justice.
The start-of-session covers solved
the continuing B-sides problem as
well. “Breadfan” and “The Prince”
appeared on the backside of
“Harvester of Sorrow” in Britain.
Emerging from twelve months of
writing and recording Metallica in
1991, the band had “Killing Time” by
Sweet Savage and the ludicrously
obscene “So What” by Anti-
Nowhere League in hand.
“Killing Time” was NWOBHM time
again. Today, the Irish band Sweet
Savage are best known, if at all, for
their lead guitarist Vivian Campbell,
a Belfast native now in Def Leppard
who did time with Ronnie James Dio
and David Coverdale’s Whitesnake.
But “Killing Time” – the B-side of
Sweet Savage’s ‘81 single, “Take No
Prisoners” – was solid metal, a pas-
sionate blast of anti-war games in
the same, high-decibel protest tradi-
tion as Metallica’s “One.”
Anti-Nowhere League were, by con-
trast, cartoon hooligans, comic relief
from the Sid Vicious clones and skin-
head riots that brought U.K. punk to
a disheartening, early-’80s low. A
quartet including an Iranian drum-
mer, a guitarist called Magoo and a
singer, Animal, who definitely
looked the name, the League
became the toast of British lager
lads with a riotous disemboweling
of a genteel, ‘70s folk hit, “Streets of
London,” by singer-songwriter Ralph
McTell. The London police were not
so pleased with the B-side, “So
What,” a feast of sexually, scatologi-
cally explicit, pub-bully boasts. In
February, 1982, authorities confiscat-
ed 10,000 copies of the 45, then
destroyed them under the Obscene
Publications Act and forbade the
label, WXYZ, from pressing any
more. A BBC Radio jock, Tony
Blackburn, was quoted on the mat-
ter in the tabloid press: “These
records are a disgrace to the indus-
try. They are obviously made by
untalented people who are out to
make money by shocking people.”
Purists to the bone, Metallica record-
ed the song with speed and sleaze
intact.
Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy” is the
only cover Metallica has ever cut to
order. To celebrate its 40th anniver-
sary, Elektra Records asked 38 acts
on the roster to record vintage
Elektra-catalog songs for a double
CD, Rubáiyát. Ulrich says doing
Queen was a no-brainer: “You could 9
sit down, look at the song list and
go, ‘Well, maybe someone else
should cover ‘Hotel California.’” For
Hetfield, picking “Stone Cold Crazy”
– two minutes of premium locomo-
tion from 1974’s Sheer Heart
Attack – was a tribute to Queen
guitarist Brian May:
“Brian May was the harmony mas-
ter. He came up with these huge
parts that sounded like string sec-
tions, flamboyant orchestrations.
And he was doing it all on guitar.
Along with Thin Lizzy, what he did
on those records helped us a lot in
using guitar harmonies in our
songs.”
Metallica were deep into the Re-
Load sessions, in December of 1997,
when they were called about a
birthday party – for Ian “Lemmy”
Kilmister of Motörhead, about to
turn 50. Metallica said yes, without
thinking twice, but passed on the
notion of showing up for an all-star
jam in L.A. at the Whisky. Instead,
they offered to open for Motörhead,
unannounced, as a tribute band.
Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett and
Newsted quickly rehearsed six tunes:
“Overkill” and “Too Late, Too Late,”
both sides of a 1979 single;
“Damage Case” from the Overkill
LP; “Stone Dead Forever” on the ‘79
album Bomber; and, from 1980’s
Ace of Spades, “We Are the Road
Crew” and “The Chase Is Better Than
the Catch.” Tape was rolling
(Metallica keep a DAT machine run-
ning at all times in the studio) and
the first four songs, taken live from
the floor, mistakes and all, became
U.K. B-sides.
Much has been said about Lemmy as
a punk and metal father figure. It’s
still not enough. He is one of the
most ferocious bass players to walk
the earth and a seemingly indestruc-
tible embodiment of the road life.
Born on Christmas Eve, 1945, Lemmy
played in Beatle-pop and acid-rock
bands in the ‘60s, roadied for Jimi
Hendrix and was the bassist in the
British space-rock group Hawkwind
until they fired him following a 1975
Canadian drug bust. Lemmy then
formed the first of several proto-
lineups of Motörhead (slang for
amphetamine user) before settling
on the classic ‘76-’82 formation with
guitarist Fast Eddie Clarke and drum-
mer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor.
Lemmy once claimed that if
Motörhead moved next door to you,
your lawn would die. That is every-
thing you need to know about the
raw, violent magic of Motörhead at
their best.
Metallica turned up at the Whisky in
Lemmy wigs and aviator shades. For
“We Are the Road Crew,” the man
himself hit the stage, singing and
playing bass with an awestruck
Newsted. “I knew all the words –
Flotsam and Jetsam used to play
‘Road Crew’ all the time –
but he was right next to
me, rubbing his warts on
me, talking in my ear, say-
ing the words back-
wards,” Newsted says,
laughing. “I was like,
‘Dude, I love you, but I’m
freaking out enough
without you fucking with
me.’”
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s
“Tuesday’s Gone” is
another oddfellow here – acoustic
and recorded live at the studios of
KSJO-FM in San Jose, California, dur-
ing a national interview-and-camp-
fire-jam broadcast to promote Re-
Load in December, 1997. Friends on
hand included Blues Traveler har-
monica wiz John Popper, guitarist
Jerry Cantrell and drummer Sean
Kinney of Alice In Chains, Les
Claypool of Primus on banjo,
Corrosion Of Conformity guitarist
Pepper Keenan, ex-Faith No More gui-
tarist Jim Martin and Metallica’s spe-
cially invited guest, founding Skynyrd
guitarist Gary Rossington.
Metallica had deep, if not visible,
roots in Skynyrd. “Sweet Home
Alabama” was the first record
Hetfield ever bought (“I rode my
Schwinn bike over to the music store
where I bought the sheet music for
my fucking piano lessons”); Newsted
talks about how much he learned
(“the swing and rockin’ vibe”) from
Leon Wilkeson’s bass work. And it is
not hard to find parallels in the way
Skynyrd, a working-class-outlaw
crew from Jacksonville, Florida, and
Metallica, a generation later, both
became stars – by singing and play-
ing not for the press and the indus-
try, but the people. “The very plain-
spokenness that was Skynyrd’s
glory,” Dave Marsh wrote in Rolling
Stone in 1978, “was also what kept
them from critical acclaim; they
always seemed too vulgar. Mostly,
the group’s music is about simple
pleasures and grim problems, but if
the songs are realistic, a romantic’s
vision has shaped that reality.”
There may be no finer example of
Skynyrd’s intuitive balance of gritty
truth and bittersweet yearning than
the chiming guitars, slow, sad gait
and gin-soaked blues of singer
Ronnie Van Zant in “Tuesday’s
Gone,” from
Skynyrd’s August,
1973 debut,
Pronounced. . . “I
always loved that
one,” says Hetfield.
“It’s a movin’-on
song – you’re split-
ting, you’re leaving
your woman at
home. You’re off
doing your own
thing. It really fits
the road.”
Touring and startime; the hunger,
the parties, the work and learning –
Metallica have tried to telescope it
all into the ten new recordings in
this collection, selections meant to
capture the long haul from youthful
exuberance and what-the-hell reck-
lessness to craft, experience and
reflection. Black Sabbath,
Mercyful Fate, Discharge, Blue
Öyster Cult, more Diamond
Head (“It’s Electric”) and Misfits
(“Die, Die My Darling,” the last
single of the Danzig era): it’s
obvious which end of the
yardstick they come from.
Metallica could have pulled
anything from Sabbath. They
declined, naturally, to do the
hits: “Paranoid,” “War Pigs,”
etc. Buried in the middle of the 1974
album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,
“Sabbra Cadabra” has always been,
in Ulrich’s estimation, “the fucking
riff from hell. I remember, on the
Load tour, talking with Kirk about
this project one night in Frankfurt,
staying up and watching the sun
rise, and saying, ‘If we do any
Sabbath, it’s got to be “Sabbra
Cadabra.”’ There’s actually a bit of
that feel in ‘2X4’ (on Load).” But
Sabbath’s original also had a spaced-
out midsection not as suitable to
Metallica’s temper; hence the insert-
ed, cast-iron shot of “A National
Acrobat,” also on Sabbath Bloody
Sabbath.
“Black Sabbath were not a direct
influence on our music,” Ulrich
asserts. “They had been going for
too long. But they were a big influ-
ence on the four of us as we were
growing up.” He adds that on their
1986 tour dates, opening for the
solo Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica had
the love and nerve to soundcheck 10
with songs from Osbourne’s Sabbath
days: “We were doing it, hoping he’d
be backstage in his dressing room,
hear us and come out and jam.” It
didn’t happen.
“Astronomy” comes from Blue Öys-
ter Cult’s 1974 guitar-army classic,
Secret Treaties. Newsted claims
that, in his teenage concert-going
years, he saw BÖC more than any
other band – “because they toured
more than any other band.”
I vividly remember seeing them in
Philadelphia in ‘75, Buck Dharma and
Eric Bloom locking guitar necks like
medieval swordsmen in front of
three floor-to-ceiling banners with
the group’s trademark cross-and-
claw logo, turning the classy Shubert
Theater on Broad Street into some
kind of electric teenage Nuremberg.
On record, BÖC were metal with
brains. They wrote fierce, savvy
garage-noir songs about biker wars
and adolescent meltdown. They col-
laborated with punk priestess Patti
Smith and rock critic Richard Meltzer,
were literate in ‘60s punk and psy-
chedelia and, in Dharma, had a lead
guitarist of astounding force and
precision. He didn’t just play licks;
he shoved hot needles in your ears.
“Whiskey in the Jar” is a traditional
Irish folk ballad, certainly the oldest
song Metallica have ever covered.
Revived on record in 1967 by the
Irish singing group the Dubliners, the
song was radically recast in 1972 by
Thin Lizzy. A young man of mixed
race in a rough-and-tumble culture,
the group’s singer-bassist Phil Lynott
was a part-black, part-Irish poet and
raver who understood all too well
the deep blues and swaggering,
embattled optimism of great Irish
storytelling. “Whiskey in the Jar”
was definitely his cup of sorrow – a
dashing young bandit robs an army
officer to keep his girlfriend happy,
only to be imprisoned after she
betrays him – and Lynott sang with
the warm, resigned soul of wound-
ed youth. Eric Bell created the ele-
gant, signature guitar line, with its
distinctive stutter, and the song,
released in the middle of English
glam mania, became the first of
many hits for Lynott and Lizzy. But it
was a rough ride. Lynott died in
January, 1986, after experiencing, all
too intimately, the blinding excesses
and bleak depths of rock-star living.
Metallica were as likely to be listen-
ing to the English bullet-punk anar-
chists Discharge as they were Lizzy
or the Misfits during those record-
playing binges in El Cerrito. “Back in
the partying days,” says Hetfield,
“we’d put on a Motörhead record,
Angel Witch, then Discharge — and
no one flinched. It all belonged
together. It was aggressive, it had
guitars, it felt good.” That’s
Hammett in a Discharge T-
shirt on the back cover of
Ride the Lightning.
“Free Speech for the
Dumb,” one of fourteen
torpedos on Discharge’s
1982 debut album, Hear
Nothing See Nothing
Say Nothing, is definitive
punk pith: The title – that’s
the whole lyric – is repeat-
ed four times in two pass-
es over roiling hardcore
thunder. “The More I See”
is only slightly more wordy: “From
where I stand I see/Pain, suppression
and misery/The more I see, the more
I see/The less, the less I believe.” “I
love singing the Discharge stuff,”
raves Hetfield. “You’ve only got
three lines, sung 50 times over. But
the riffs – that guitarist Bones was
pulling off some serious metal riffs.”
Unlike most of the acts Metallica
have covered, Mercyful Fate were
friends and contemporaries. They
formed in 1981, the same year as
Metallica, and, like Ulrich, were
Danish. Fronted by King Diamond –
an operatic howler with aspirations
to Satanism who performed in face
paint which made him look like a
cross between Gene Simmons of
Kiss and a professional
wrestler – Mercyful Fate followed a
roughly parallel track to Metallica in
the early ‘80s underground, scoring
raves for the dense, torrid riff archi-
tecture of guitarist Hank Shermann
on three privately-released demo
tapes and a 1982 EP, Mercyful Fate.
When Metallica went to Denmark in
1984 to make Ride the Lightning,
they practiced in Mercyful Fate’s
rehearsal studio. Of the five Fate
songs in Metallica’s medley, “A
Corpse Without a Soul” is from the
EP; “Evil,” “Curse of the Pharaohs”
and “Satan’s Fall” first circulated
among tape traders as a BBC Radio
session, done in March, 1983; “Into
the Coven” was on the ‘83 album,
Melissa. “Mercyful Fate were very
Danish guys in attitude,” says Ulrich,
who should know such things.
“They were very pure, very sarcastic,
very friendly, very open and warm.
And they were doing this wild
Purple-meets-Judas Priest thing with
a more progressive element. Really
insane stuff.”
Nick Cave’s “Loverman” is at once
the most bizarre, and logical, entry
here, an example of how superficial
categorization confuses deeper con-
nections in music. Cave and Hetfield
couldn’t come from more apparently
different worlds: Hetfield was a sub-
urban adolescent metalhead at the
same time Cave – born in 1957 in
Warracknabeal in Victoria, Australia,
the son of a mathematics and litera-
ture teacher – was terrorizing punks
and Goths as the shamanistic vocal-
ist of the pioneering Aussie band
the Birthday Party. But Cave, with
the Birthday Party and then with his
own group the Bad Seeds, found
lyric inspiration in the darkest cor-
ners of the human condition, partic-
ularly as described in the Old
Testament; Hetfield wrote about
capital punishment and ancient
Egyptian plague. And both men are
very fond of extremes, the juxtapo-
sition of soft, focused menace with
chaotic despair. The same jarring mix
of light and dark in Metallica’s “Fade
to Black” can be heard in the convul-
sive erotic misery of “Loverman,”
from Cave’s 1994 album with the
Bad Seeds, Let Love In.
Cave first came to Hetfield’s atten-
tion through Metallica’s producer
Bob Rock, who gave the guitarist a
copy of Cave’s death-song cycle,
Murder Ballads. “I went, ‘Whoah!
These are cool songs and they’re all
about murders,’” Hetfield says, cack-
ling. “But that made me investigate
his other material and I was turned
on by it completely, by the moods 11
he created.”
In 1996, at the time of Murder hours and there’s nothing there to
Ballads, I asked Cave in an inter- do/And you don’t feel much like
view about his impulse, and talent, writin’/You just wish the trip was
for writing about violence and through.” It was a song of brooding
degradation. “I’m no authority on quiet, pregnant with the loneliness of
the subject at all,” he said. “I just hotel rooms, the stares in restaurants,
have a certain way with words the deafening silence after the audi-
when it comes to writing about vio- ence goes home. Seger told Rolling
lence. I enjoy ruminating over the Stone in 1978 that “all the roadies I’ve
details.” Love songs were a thornier ever met say, ‘Yeah, you’re telling my
problem. “I don’t think I could ever story.’” Metallica have told it again,
write a straight love song in the their way.
sense that it’s truly optimistic, And that’s it, all the covers Metallica
because I don’t have that relation- have committed to record – for now.
ship with love. I’m always conscious They don’t need to play other people’s
of the way it’s gonna end from early songs, for fun or profit, ever again. But
on, from the tiny cracks that appear. they will. “Man, it helps you get bet-
You can see the things that will ulti- ter,” Hetfield contends. “It gets you
mately destroy the relationship.” thinking about sounds and things,
Like, for instance, the road. Listening makes you a better musician. You can
to his car as he drove across the go in some of these directions, and it’s
Golden Gate Bridge about three a little less of a shock, at first, for the
years ago, Ulrich heard Bob Seger’s fans – ‘Oh, it’s just a cover song.’”
“Turn the Page,” a brutally honest, “The songs we write,” says Ulrich, “are
white-soul ballad about the oppres- dissected and analyzed. We sit with
sive grind and stupefying ennui of them for months. With someone else’s
touring, the stuff the fans never see. song, you only have to capture the
Ulrich’s response: “That song has moment. And there will always be a
‘James Hetfield’ written all over it.” real need for us to have that outlet, as
Hetfield had a similar initial reaction: long as there is a Metallica. I really
“It was the lyrics. We should have believe that.”
written that.”
– David Fricke
A heartland-rock superstar working
New York City, October, 1998
consistently, proudly, in the rock &
roll mainstream of Dylan, the
Stones, Presley and classic soul,
Seger, a Detroit native, was the
antithesis of everything Metallica
aspired to in 1981 and ‘82. But like
them, he knew about the high price
of going for the gusto, of putting
your music on small-hope indie
labels and playing in bars for beer
money and flickers of encourage-
ment. He cut a string of mid-’60s
singles (“Ramblin’, Gamblin’ Man,”
“East Side Story,” “Heavy Music”)
now considered garage-punk dia-
monds but which were mostly
regional hits. For a decade, Seger
was virtually unknown outside the
Midwest, where he toured tirelessly
on the back of fine, woefully under-
promoted albums, like Back in ‘72.
Released the following year, Back in
‘72 included “Turn the Page,” a slice
from Seger’s own life on the endless
highway: “But your thoughts will
soon be wandering the way they
always do/When you’re riding 16
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NEW RECORDINGS ’98
1. FREE SPEECH FOR THE DUMB (2:35)
2. IT’S ELECTRIC (3:33)
3. SABBRA CADABRA (6:20)
4. TURN THE PAGE (6:06)
5. DIE, DIE MY DARLING (2:26)
6. LOVERMAN (7:52)
7. MERCYFUL FATE (11:10)
8. ASTRONOMY (6:37)
9. WHISKEY IN THE JAR (5:04)
10. TUESDAY’S GONE (9:03)
11. THE MORE I SEE (3:23)
22. SO WHAT (3:08)
GARAGE DAYS RE-REVISITED ’87 23. KILLING TIME (3:03)
12. HELPLESS (6:36)
13. THE SMALL HOURS (6:40) MOTORHEADACHE ’95
14. THE WAIT (4:52) 24. OVERKILL (4:05)
15. CRASH COURSE IN BRAIN SURGERY (3:08) 25. DAMAGE CASE (3:40)
16. LAST CARESS/GREEN HELL (3:29) 26. STONE DEAD FOREVER (4:51)
27. TOO LATE TOO LATE (3:12)
GARAGE DAYS REVISITED ’84
17. AM I EVIL? (7:50)
18. BLITZKRIEG (3:36)
metallica.com
B-SIDES & ONE-OFFS ’88-’91
19. BREADFAN (5:41)
20. THE PRINCE (4:24)
21. STONE COLD CRAZY (2:17)
©1998 Blackened Recordings. BLCKND-477308
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