Metallica

Metallica is an American thrash metal band formed in 1981 in Los Angeles, California. The band has sold over 110 million albums worldwide, including 58 million in the US, and is considered to be the most influential band in its genre. Together with Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax, Metallica is considered The Big Four of Thrash. The debut album Kill 'Em All was released in 1983. They collaborated with Lou Reed on the album Lulu which was released in 2011. In 2009 Metallica was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They received the 2018 Polar Award.

Metallica was formed as a garage band in Los Angeles on October 28, 1981. The band then consisted of the Danish Lars Ulrich (drums) and the American James Hetfield (song and guitar). Hetfield came into contact with Ulrich through a magazine called Recycler where Ulrich had posted an advertisement. The bassist Ron McGovney was also in the beginning. The name "Metallica" had its background in that a friend of Ulrich's started a fanzine and chose between calling it Metallica or Metal Mania. Ulrich's opinion was that Metal Mania was better suited for a fanzine and he then took the name Metallica for his newly started band. When the band needed another guitarist, Ulrich put an ad in a local news magazine. Dave Mustaine responded to the ad and after a rehearsal he joined the group. Metallica made its first gig in Anaheim, California, on March 14, 1982. At its first concert, the band played their own songs "Hit the Lights" and "Jump in the Fire" as well as covers on songs by, among others, Diamond Head and Savage.

In early 1982, Metallica released a first demo recording, which led them to act as a liaison to Saxon at the Club Whiskey A Go Go in Los Angeles. The play on March 27 included mainly covers of songs from various NWOBHM bands, but also Dave Mustaines new song "Metal Militia". Metallica hired another guitarist, Damien C Philips (really Brad Parker) for his gig at the Consert Factory in Costa Mesa on April 23 of that year. Another new song, "The Mechanix" was performed this evening. However, this became the only appearance with Philips who subsequently left the band.

Metallica recorded four track demos "Power Metal" which contains the songs "Hit the Lights", "Jump in the Fire", "The Mechanix" and "Motorbreath". Hetfield sang on this demo only waiting for the band to find a real singer. Along with singer and guitarist Jeff Warner, the band performed at the Consert Factory in Los Angeles as a band for Roxy Rollers, Leatherwolf and August Redmoon. The play was not a success and Warner was allowed to leave the band.

In June, the metal album Metal Massacre was released where Metallica participated with the song "Hit the Lights". The band was still looking for a singer, but it asked John Bush of Armored Saint, later in Anthrax, refused. In the same month, Metallica released its first studio-produced demo, No Life 'Til Leather, which soon circulated within the underground stage "tape trading" system. Demon hosts such classics as "Jump in the Fire" and "Seek & Destroy" that the band plays at their concerts even in 2010, and meant that Metallica's name began to spread internationally.

McGovney left Metallica in November 1982. The others in the band then moved on to San Francisco which was, among other things, a claim from Cliff Burton who, at the end of December, took the place as the band's bass player. Burton's arrival in Metallica also meant more influences in American and English punk music as well as progressive rock from the early 1970s. In San Francisco, Metallica shared the stage with bands like Possessed, Metal Church and Exodus.

The next demo release was live "Damage Inc" and the instrumental song "Orion" that is often associated with Cliff Burton. With this album also came Metallica's real breakthrough and it became the first thrash album to place itself on the American Billboard Top 100 list. The launch was supported by a US tour that connected with Ozzy Osbourne. A European tour was conducted together with Anthrax. On the way from a concert in Stockholm towards Copenhagen on September 27, the tour bus took the icy road near Ljungby and Burton was thrown off the bus and died immediately.

With support from Burton's parents to continue, the band conducted auditions to find a replacement. The choice was Jason Newsted, formerly of Flotsam And Jetsam, and already a month after Burton's death, he and Metallica conducted a previously planned tour in Japan, and in January 1987 returned the band for gigs in Europe and Scandinavia.

In August 1987, Metallica released an EP, Garage Days Re-Revisited, with five cover recordings of songs by Diamond Head, Holocaust, Killing Joke, Budgie and Misfits. During the year, the band's first video was also released, a tribute to Burton called Cliff 'em All, featuring live recordings recorded from 1983-1986. During the fall, Metallica again participated in the Monsters of Rock tour, with Bon Jovi as the main act in England, and with Deep Purple as the first name as the tour continued on the European continent.

Metallica's next album, and Justice for All is the first studio album with Jason Newsted on base and also as cocomposer, for the opening song "Blackened". The album was released in September 1988, by Elektra in the US but in the rest of the world by Metallica's new record company Vertigo, owned by Polygram. And Justice for All became a commercial success with a top ranking number six on the Billboard list. The album also received a Grammy nomination but lost to Jethro Tull. However, the following year Metallica received a Grammy for the single "One" from And Justice for All. The band's first music video was also made into the song "One", and this single was frequently played on the radio.

On the album the bass is heard very little. According to Newsted, it was part of the other members' derogatory treatment of him, as well as not taking note of his musical ideas. Even in the future, Newsted had difficulties in being accepted as a full member of Metallica.

After the release, Metallica conducted a world tour beginning in Europe and the first gig in Budapest, Hungary, then continuing with a US tour with Queensrÿche as support and ending it all in South America. In May 1990, the band toured again in Europe, this time with Dio as support, before returning to the studio to record their fifth album.

The bestselling album Metallica, also known as The Black Album because of the cover with a black snake on a black background, was released in 1991. The self-titled album was recorded at One On One Studios in Los Angeles, and the band thereby canceled the collaboration with Flemming Rasmussen. With Bob Rock as a new producer, the soundscape was very different from the previous album. The album has sold by far the most of all Metallica albums with over 22 million copies sold, of which 15 million only in the US. This also led to a first place on the US sales list, with sales of 598,000 copies the first week and it remained on the Billboard 200 list for 85 weeks.

Metallica's style changed radically on this record. But the record was accepted and greatly appreciated by the fans and critics. The album contains songs like "Enter Sandman" and "Nothing Else Matters" which became very popular. Other famous songs from the album include "Sad But True", "The Unforgiven" and "Wherever I May Roam". Metallica managed with The Black Album to create a record that has both made an indisputable impression in the history of hard rock and partly became a commercial success. The album "Metallica" also gave the band their only Grammy to date for an album.

In August, the band again participated in the Monsters of Rock tour in Europe as "special guests" to AC/DC and then a concert was held in Moscow on September 28 at Tuschino airport in front of a crowd of half a million people. Metallica returned home to San Francisco's Day of the Green festival before starting the World Tour Wherever I May Roam.

In 1992 a number of tours and concerts were performed, including as the main act in Monsters of Rock together with Guns' n Roses and with the support of Motörhead and Faith No More. During a concert, Hetfield was badly burned by the stage fireworks and for the remainder of the gigs on the tour, Metal Church's John Marshall was hired as a guitarist. The following year, Metallica also toured Asia, Australia and South America. In November 1993, Live Shit: Binge & Purge, a collection box consisting of three CDs from a concert in Mexico City in 1993, was released during the Nowhere Else to Roam tour, two videos from a concert in San Diego 1992, during Wherever I May Roam the tour, a video from a 1989 Seattle concert, during the Damaged Justice tour, and a 72-page booklet.

The Live Shit tour was performed in 1994 with support from Danzig and Candlebox, and Metallica was one of the main attractions at this summer's Woodstock '94 festival. The tour concluded in Florida in August and at the gig on August 21, Judas Priest singer Rob Halford was invited to the stage and participated in the song "Rapid Fire".

During the winter of 1995-1996 the band recorded material for their upcoming album. Load was released in June 1996 and expectations for the new Metallica album were high after the success of The Black Album. The first week, 680,000 copies of the record were sold and this in turn gave Metallica a first place on the Billboard list. On the whole, however, the album did not become one of Metallica's major successes, but soon managed to disappoint both the old and the newer fans. Some pictures in the disc's textbook upset many fans when the band members were makeup, short cut and with a different style of clothing. However, several songs from the album were played extensively on radio stations and tracks such as "Until It Sleeps", "Hero of the Day" and "Mama Said" became popular singles.

Despite the comparatively cool reception of the album, Metallica maintained its popularity and the US tour that followed Load was the third largest in the US that year, with sales of $ 37 million, surpassed only by Rolling Stones and U2. Metallica was also the main band at the touring Lollapalooza festival with bands like Ramones and Soundgarden.

The following year Reload was released, which partly contained recordings made simultaneously with the previous record. The first single "The Memory Remains" has a background song performed by Marianne Faithfull and on "Low Man's Lyric" there is violin playing by Bernardo Bigalli. Reload was released by the record company Vertigo in November 1997 and sold 435,000 copies during the first week. It thus became one on the US sales list. Metallica was also awarded the Grammy Award "Best Metal Performance" for the song "Better than You". The songs "Fuel", "The Memory Remains", "The Unforgiven II" and "Better Than You" were released as singles. "The Unforgiven II" became like a sequel to the previously popular song "Unforgiven". There are partly the same noises in both songs. Both discs have very similar covers and are often considered similar, even in terms of music.

In 1998, the double-CD Garage Inc was released, which was a collection of covers the group had recorded throughout their existence, ranging from B-sides from early singles to new recordings. Among other things included the entire EP Garage Days Re-Revisited from 1987. Also a track from this record gave a Grammy, namely Thin Lizzy cover "Whiskey in the Jar". In December of that year, they released the DVD Cunning Stunts, a live recording from Fort Worth, Texas during the Poor Touring Me tour. In April 1999, the band collaborated with conductor Michael Kamen and played two shows in San Francisco with a symphony orchestra. The concert was released on the album S&M November 23 of the same year.

In 2000, Metallica got an offer to record a soundtrack track for the movie Mission, Impossible 2. The song wrote Hetfield in a day and the result was "I Disappear" which was also released as a single. However, the single had begun to spread online even before it was officially released, and this was the start of a fight between Metallica and file sharing company Napster. Lars Ulrich, together with the rapper Dr. Three, Napster sued for having spread their music without permission. The legal action resulted in an agreement where more than 300,000 users were suspended from Napster's services. Many fans were critical of Metallica's way of handling this.

In the summer of 2000, Metallica spent a North American tour called Summer Sanatorium with support from Korn, Kid Rock and Powerman 5000. In February 2001 Jason Newsted left the group. The reason was mainly that the others in the band had provided family and children while Newsted himself wanted to devote all his time to the music; he had his own band next to Metallica, Echobrain. When he wanted to take leave from Metallica for a year to spend all his time with his other band, the rest of the group said off. Then Newsted decided to jump off Metallica. Speculation about who would become a new bass player took off and a couple of current names were Mike Inez, formerly with Ozzy Osbourne and Alice in Chains, and Pete Way from UFO. However, Hammett, Hetfield and Ulrich decided to record their next album as a trio.

Metallica was missing a bass player for two years, and producer Bob Rock was allowed to play bass during parts of the St Anger recording and also during some live performances. In February 2003, Robert Trujillo, formerly in Suicidal Tendencies and Ozzy Osbourne, was announced as the new bass player in the band. Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted later became Ozz bassisty Osbourne. Trujillo's first appearance with Metallica was in an MTV show where several different artists interpreted Metallica songs. Sum 41 performed "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and "Enter Sandman", Staind played "Nothing Else Matters", Avril Lavigne made a cover on "Fuel" while rapper Snoop Dog interpreted "Sad but True". Korn performed "One" and Limp Bizkit interpreted "Sanitarium" before Metallica itself ended the evening.

In June of the same year, the album St. Indicates who entered first place on the Billboard list with 416,000 albums sold the first week. In the UK, it ranked third on the sales list, while in the Scandinavian countries it landed in first place. The album received lukewarm criticism and was criticized, for example, for elements of socalled numetal. After the album release, Metallica went on tour, Madly In Anger With the World, which lasted until November 2003. Despite the criticism of the latest album, Metallica filled the arenas around Europe with, for example, 46,000 visitors to the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland, and the performance at the Rock in Rio Festival in Lisbon, Portugal, was broadcast live on TV channels in 45 different countries.

The film Some Kind of Monster premiered in July 2004 and depicts unmasked the band's problems from Newsted's dropoff to the tour with St Anger. The band had been forced to hire a psychologist Phil Towle to solve the internal problems and much of the recordings went to quarrels, especially between Ulrich and Hetfield. Some time later, Hetfield was also charged with detoxification for what turned out to be extensive alcohol abuse. This documentary really gives an unflattering picture of, in particular, Ulrich and Hetfield and the "rock star elites" the band has acquired in recent years. In 2005, they took a break but had two gigs when they acted as bandmates for The Rolling Stones in San Francisco, November 13 and 15. The band opened both concerts with the first half of the instrumental classic "Orion" released on the record Master of Puppets in 1986. This was the first time ever that part of the song was played live.

On November 30, 2005, the band's drummer Lars Ulrich announced to a Danish news magazine that the band had once again entered the studio to make a new record. The record was produced by Rick Rubin who previously worked with Slayer, AC/DC, System of a Down, Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana. With this, the collaboration with former producer Bob Rock was broken. In the summer of 2007, the band was out on a tour called Sick of the Studio "together with HIM. Among other things, they were in Sweden at Stockholm Stadium on July 12. The concert received the highest score in, among others, Aftonbladet.

Metallica's ninth studio album, Death Magnetic, was released by Warner Bros., September 12, 2008. The album ranked first on the sales lists in the US and Canada. The first single from the album, "The Day That Never Comes", was released August 21. Additional singles became "My Apocalypse", "Cyanide", "The Judas Kiss" and "All Nightmare Long". Music videos have been released for "The Day That Never Comes", "All Nightmare Long" and "Broken, Beat & Scarred".

In 2007 and 2008, Metallica participated in the Live Earth Gala at Wembley Stadium in London. Metallica started the Death Magnetic tour in America in the fall of 2008 and continued in Europe in the spring of 2009. In March, the tour came to Sweden ahead of two sold-out gigs in the Globe. The concert on March 7 was performed while Sunday's concert had to be canceled as Hetfield became food poisoned and had to be taken to hospital. The concert was finally performed on May 4, 2009 in the Globe. The band's members operated with food poisoning both on stage and, among other things, by offering t-shirts with prints that alluded to Hetfield's food poisoning.

Metallica made their third Sweden visit for the year when they came to Hultsfred, Folkets Park on July 18, 2009 as the main band in the new Europe-touring festival Sonisphere. It was Metallica's first festival visit in Sweden.

During the summer of 2010 Metallica performed a number of concerts in Europe with the Sonisphere festival. In June, gigs were performed in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey together with the other three bands in The Big Four of Thrash, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth. The Death Magnetic tour ended on November 21, 2010. The band had been on tour for over two years.

In the summer of 2011, more joint concerts were performed with The Big Four of Thrash, including as part of the Sonisphere Festival in England July 8, and in France July 9. The Big Four also performed April 23 in California, USA, in Germany July 2, Sweden July 3, and Italy July 6, 2011. In June 2011, Metallica and Lou Reed announced that they have begun a collaboration and that the joint album Lulu will be released October 31. In September, the song list and cover image were published on the joint site loureedmetallica.com. In October, Ro confirmedbert Trujillo that Metallica had started writing on his new album. Lars Ulrich said in an interview that the album will be released in early 2015.

In 2012, the band started the record company Blackened Recordings, which bought all the rights to their previous recordings.

On August 18, 2016, it became clear that the band would release their tenth studio album Hardwired to Self-Destruct in November of that year. The message also released the first single from the album, which is called "Hardwired". The album is a 77 minute long double album. The next single, "Moth Into Flame", was released with video September 26 The album was released on Blackened November 18, 2016.

In 2018, the Metallica Polar Prize was awarded. They thus became the first metal band to be awarded the award. The jury's statement states, among other things, that "Not since Wagner's emotional storms and Tchaikovsky's cannon has anyone created music that was so physical and insane, yet accessible at the same time".

Current members

James Hetfield, vocals, guitar (1981–)

Lars Ulrich, Drums (1981–)

Kirk Hammett, solo guitarist, background song (1983–)

Robert Trujillo, bass guitar, background song (2003–)

Former members

Ron McGovney, bass guitar (1981–1982)

Dave Mustaine, solo guitarist, background song (1981–1983)

Cliff Burton, bass guitar, background song (1982–1986)

Jason Newsted, bass guitar, background song (1986–2001)

Technician

Mick Hughes