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Metallica · S1 E1
The Ad in the Recycler
Lars Ulrich places a newspaper ad looking for musicians, and a guy named James Hetfield answers
Los Angeles, 1981. A teenage Danish immigrant named Lars Ulrich places a classified ad in The Recycler newspaper looking for musicians into Iron Maiden and Diamond Head, and a quiet kid from Downey named James Hetfield picks up the phone.
"Enter Sandman" (Metallica, 1991). The biggest metal song ever written started with two guys who met through a classified ad in a free newspaper. Ten years after that phone call, this riff becomes the most recognizable in rock history. This is where the newspaper ad leads.
“I put an ad in The Recycler. It was me looking for people who were into Tygers of Pan Tang and Diamond Head. James was the one who called.”
— Lars Ulrich, Rolling Stone
The Danish Kid
Lars Ulrich is not from LA. He's a Danish kid whose father, Torben Ulrich, is a professional tennis player who drags the family to Los Angeles for the sunshine and the courts. Lars doesn't care about tennis. He cares about the New Wave of British Heavy Metal: Diamond Head, Iron Maiden, and Saxon, bands too fast and too loud for American radio.
Sources
Rolling Stone
So What! magazine
VH1 Behind the Music
TAP TO REVEAL: Where did the name Metallica come from?
Enter Sandman, Metallica (1991)
The riff took James Hetfield moments to write, a lick so simple he almost threw it away before the band told him to keep it. Producer Bob Rock spent months pushing them to tighten the arrangement into something radio could play without losing the weight. Listen for Kirk Hammett's wah-drenched solo, which became his signature sound from this song forward. The children's prayer that closes the song was pulled from the "Now I lay me down to sleep" verse Kirk remembered from childhood.
Sources
Bob Rock interviews
Playboy, 2001
Rolling Stone
Before Metallica
Hit the Lights, Metallica
From Kill 'Em All (1983). The very first Metallica song ever recorded. An early version appeared on the Metal Massacre compilation in 1982, before the band even had a stable lineup. It's raw, sloppy, and faster than anything else on American radio at the time. This is what a classified ad in The Recycler sounds like two years later.
Hit the Lights, Metallica (1983)
"No life 'til leather, we're gonna kick some ass tonight." The first lyric on the first Metallica album. Everything that comes after, the Grammys, the stadiums, the Black Album, starts right here.
Which NWOBHM band did teenage Lars Ulrich fly to England to see live, even crashing at their band members' houses for weeks?
Lars has found his singer. Now he needs a lead guitarist who can keep up. Next: a guy named Dave Mustaine walks into a rehearsal, plays faster than anyone they've ever heard, and brings enough anger and alcohol to fuel a band and destroy it.
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