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Authors: Paul Brannigan, Ian Winwood
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who were that uncomfortable around adults.But I instantly felt that there was a connection there. I could tell that he was passionate about music, and there was an attraction to him because he was gifted but he was very reserved. I just remember that we were a perfect match because I thought that I could help pull some of that stuff out of him; he made up for some of my lack of talent. I felt I could do something with his gifts. It was like a yin and yang kind of thing. I felt it instantly. I felt it from the get go.’
‘We shared a “let’s fucking do something” attitude,’ says Hetfield. ‘I knew he had a lot of connections and loads of drive. I’d jammed with other guys before, and told them to fuck off because they weren’t good enough. With Lars it kinda felt different.
‘When I hooked up with Lars, I still didn’t really trust anyone. But at least we enjoyed the same kind of music.’
Having committed to making music together, one of the duo’s most pressing tasks was to decide upon a name for their new union. Naturally, Lars Ulrich had no shortage of suggestions. No stranger to choosing terrible band names himself, James Hetfield was nonetheless less than impressed as he regarded Ulrich’s initial list. The drummer’s ideas included Deathwish, Death Threat and Death Chamber. From this starting point, somehow it got worse: Nixon. Dumb Fuck. Bigmouth and Friends. Execution. Exterminator. Helldriver. Napalm. Vietnam. Thunderfuck.
The singer wondered aloud whether his new friend might have any alternatives that were a bit less … shit.
‘Metallica?’ Ulrich suggested.
The fact that this name was not the drummer’s to offer was not a matter that detained him. Inspired by the launch of
Sounds
magazine off-shoot
Kerrang!
– the world’s first dedicated hard rock/heavy metal periodical, titled in onomatopoeic tribute to the noise made when an over-amplified electric guitar is struck with force – in the summer of 1981, Ron Quintana, Ulrich’s friend from San Francisco, had determined to start his own heavy metalfanzine: the word ‘Metallica’ was among a list of possible titles he drew up for consideration. When Quintana sought Ulrich’s counsel on the matter, the opportunist Dane made a mental note of the name and suggested that his buddy might like to go with the title
Metal Mania
. With Motörhead’s Lemmy now glowering from the xeroxed front cover of
Metal Mania
issue number one, Ulrich surmised that Quintana would have no further use for the alternative titles on his list. An approving James Hetfield immediately set to work on creating a band logo.
Even as Hetfield and Ulrich edged closer to a creative union, Brian Slagel grew increasingly fretful over their participation in his planned compilation album. Eventually he placed a phone call to Ulrich to inform him that he and John Kornarens had booked a mastering session for the album at Bijou Studios in Hollywood. If Lars’s band missed the studio deadline, he was told, they would miss the cut. The drummer asked for the date and time of the mastering session and promised he would deliver. True to his word, at around 3 p.m. on the appointed day, he arrived at Bijou with a cassette tape in his hand. Mastering engineer Joe Borja placed the cassette on the console and asked the drummer if he also had $50 to cover the cost of transferring the track to two-inch audio tape. The colour drained from Ulrich’s face. Panicked, and potless, the drummer begged Slagel and Kornarens for help. As Slagel shrugged apologetically, Kornarens opened his wallet to display $52 in cash, which the Dane gratefully snatched from his hands. Borja took the money, inserted the cassette into a tape deck, and pressed ‘Record’ on the studio’s reel-to-reel machine, as Slagel and Kornarens sat back to listen to their friend’s band for the very first time.
‘Wow,’ said Slagel, ‘this is actually not bad.’
‘Hit the Lights’ had its origins in an unfinished
‘We shared a “let’s fucking do something” attitude,’ says Hetfield. ‘I knew he had a lot of connections and loads of drive. I’d jammed with other guys before, and told them to fuck off because they weren’t good enough. With Lars it kinda felt different.
‘When I hooked up with Lars, I still didn’t really trust anyone. But at least we enjoyed the same kind of music.’
Having committed to making music together, one of the duo’s most pressing tasks was to decide upon a name for their new union. Naturally, Lars Ulrich had no shortage of suggestions. No stranger to choosing terrible band names himself, James Hetfield was nonetheless less than impressed as he regarded Ulrich’s initial list. The drummer’s ideas included Deathwish, Death Threat and Death Chamber. From this starting point, somehow it got worse: Nixon. Dumb Fuck. Bigmouth and Friends. Execution. Exterminator. Helldriver. Napalm. Vietnam. Thunderfuck.
The singer wondered aloud whether his new friend might have any alternatives that were a bit less … shit.
‘Metallica?’ Ulrich suggested.
The fact that this name was not the drummer’s to offer was not a matter that detained him. Inspired by the launch of
Sounds
magazine off-shoot
Kerrang!
– the world’s first dedicated hard rock/heavy metal periodical, titled in onomatopoeic tribute to the noise made when an over-amplified electric guitar is struck with force – in the summer of 1981, Ron Quintana, Ulrich’s friend from San Francisco, had determined to start his own heavy metalfanzine: the word ‘Metallica’ was among a list of possible titles he drew up for consideration. When Quintana sought Ulrich’s counsel on the matter, the opportunist Dane made a mental note of the name and suggested that his buddy might like to go with the title
Metal Mania
. With Motörhead’s Lemmy now glowering from the xeroxed front cover of
Metal Mania
issue number one, Ulrich surmised that Quintana would have no further use for the alternative titles on his list. An approving James Hetfield immediately set to work on creating a band logo.
Even as Hetfield and Ulrich edged closer to a creative union, Brian Slagel grew increasingly fretful over their participation in his planned compilation album. Eventually he placed a phone call to Ulrich to inform him that he and John Kornarens had booked a mastering session for the album at Bijou Studios in Hollywood. If Lars’s band missed the studio deadline, he was told, they would miss the cut. The drummer asked for the date and time of the mastering session and promised he would deliver. True to his word, at around 3 p.m. on the appointed day, he arrived at Bijou with a cassette tape in his hand. Mastering engineer Joe Borja placed the cassette on the console and asked the drummer if he also had $50 to cover the cost of transferring the track to two-inch audio tape. The colour drained from Ulrich’s face. Panicked, and potless, the drummer begged Slagel and Kornarens for help. As Slagel shrugged apologetically, Kornarens opened his wallet to display $52 in cash, which the Dane gratefully snatched from his hands. Borja took the money, inserted the cassette into a tape deck, and pressed ‘Record’ on the studio’s reel-to-reel machine, as Slagel and Kornarens sat back to listen to their friend’s band for the very first time.
‘Wow,’ said Slagel, ‘this is actually not bad.’
‘Hit the Lights’ had its origins in an unfinished
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