Metallica lyrics and Metallica guitar tabs, Metallica pictures and biography

vocal,guitar --- James Alan Hetfield
guitar --- Kirk Hammett
bass --- Jason Newsted
drums --- Lars Ulrich

bass --- Clifford Lee Burton
(died)

The most consistently innovative metal band of the late 80s
and early 90s was formed in 1981 in California, USA, by Lars
Ulrich
(b. 26 December 1963, Copenhagen, Denmark; drums) and
James Alan Hetfield
(b. 3 August 1963, USA; guitar, vocals)
after each separately advertised for fellow musicians in the
classified section of American publication The Recycler. They
recorded their first demo, No Life Til' Leather, with Lloyd
Grand
(guitar), who was replaced in January 1982 by David
Mustaine, whose relationship with Ulrich and Hetfield proved
unsatisfactory. Jef Warner
(guitar) and Ron McGovney
(bass)
each had a brief tenure with the group, and at the end of 1982
Clifford Lee Burton
(b. 10 February 1962, USA, d. 27 September
1986; bass), formerly of Trauma, joined the band, playing his
first live performance on 5 March 1983. Mustaine departed to
form Megadeth and was replaced by Kirk Hammett
(b. 18 November
1962, San Francisco, California, USA; guitar). Hammett, who
came to the attention of Ulrich and Hetfield while playing with
rock band Exodus, played his first concert with Metallica on
16 April 1983. The Ulrich, Hetfield, Burton and Hammett
combination endured until disaster struck the band in the small
hours of 27 September 1986, when Metallica's tour bus overturned
in Sweden, killing Cliff Burton. During those four years, the
group put thrash metal on the map with the aggression and
exuberance of their debut, Kill 'Em All, the album sleeve of
which bore the legend 'Bang that head that doesn't bang'. This
served as a template for a whole new breed of metal, though the
originators themselves were quick to dispense with their own
rulebook. Touring with New Wave Of British Heavy Metal bands Raven
and Venom followed, while Music For Nations signed them for
European distribution. Although Ride The Lightning was not without
distinction, notably on 'For Whom The Bell Tolls', it was Master
Of Puppets that offered further evidence of Metallica's appetite
for the epic. Their first album for Elektra Records in the USA

(who had also re-released its predecessor), this was a taut,
multi-faceted collection that both raged and lamented with equal
conviction. After the death of Burton, the band elected to continue,
the remaining three members recruiting Jason Newsted
(b. 4 March
1963; bass) of Flotsam And Jetsam. Newsted played his first concert
with the band on 8 November 1986. The original partnership of Ulrich
and Hetfield, however, remained responsible for Metallica's lyrics
and musical direction. The new line-up's first recording together
was The $5.98 EP - Garage Days Revisited - a collection of cover
versions including material from Budgie, Diamond Head, Killing Joke
and the Misfits, which also served as a neat summation of the group's
influences to date. Sessions for ...And Justice For All initially
began with Guns N'Roses producer Mike Clink at the helm, before the
group opted to return to Johnny Zazula, a realtionship they had begun
with Ride The Lightning. A long and densely constructed effort, this
1988 opus included an appropriately singular spectacular moment in
'One', also released as a single, while elsewhere the barrage of
riffs somewhat obscured the usual Metallica artistry. Songs continued
to deal with large themes - justice and retribution, insanity, war,
religion and relationships, on 1991's Metallica. Compared to
Kill 'Em All nearly a decade previously, however, the group had grown
from iconoclastic chaos to thoughtful harmony, hallmarked by sudden a
nd unexpected changes of mood and tempo. The MTV -friendly 'Enter
Sandman' broke the band on a stadium level. Constant touring in the
wake of the album ensued, along with a regular itinerary of awards
ceremonies. There could surely be no more deserving recipients, Metallica
having dragged mainstream metal, not so much kicking and screaming as
whining and complaining, into a bright new dawn when artistic redundancy
seemed inevitable. Metallica was certified as having sold nine million
copies in the USA by June 1996, and one month later Load entered the US
charts at number 1. The following year's Re-Load collected together more
tracks recorded at the Load sessions, and featured 60s icon Marianne
Faithfull on the first single to be released from the album, 'The Memory
Remains'.