Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has made some pretty smart decisions in his time. Forming a band with guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield was certainly one. But when it came to naming that band, Hetfield reckons it was best for all concerned that Ulrich was overruled.
Speaking to MOJO magazine in 2008, Hetfield recalled: “The original band name Lars wanted was Thunderfuck. Okay, pretty cool! The story might have been a little different with Thunderfuck!”
What’s more, Ulrich wasn’t joking when he told the band he wanted to name their debut album Metal Up Your Ass.
As Hetfield said: “I remember Lars had the drawing, the pencil drawing, of Metal Up Your Ass. Like, that’s it, that’s gonna be the logo – a toilet with a sword sticking out of it!”
Fortunately, the perfect name for the band arrived courtesy of a metal-obsessed DJ on the early ’80s San Francisco rock scene.
“There was a guy named Ron Quintana up in the Bay Area,” Hetfield said. “He was the metalhead at KUSF radio, a college station, and he did Rampage Radio every Sunday night – all metal, all the time, for an hour.
“He had a list of names he was gonna call this fanzine that he was getting together. I think Lars saw that list, and Ron ended up choosing Metal Mania. But Metallica was on there – and Lars ‘borrowed’ it. Forever.”
In his interview with MOJO, Hetfield also reminisced about the summer of 1983, when Metallica recorded their debut album – wisely titled Kill ‘Em All instead of Metal Up Your Ass – and when they were still dreaming of being a globally famous band.
“In our minds, we were gonna surpass everything,” he said. “We were gonna be huge. We were!”
Metallica have always cited New Wave Of British Heavy Metal band Diamond Head as a key influence on their music. A lesser known band from the NWOBHM was glam rock outfit Silverwing, but Lars Ulrich was certainly aware of them.
As Hetfield said: “Lars had a poster in his bedroom: ‘Diamond Head’, in these huge, huge letters, and then below it: ‘Silverwing’. And we had a Metallica stamp made up, and Lars put the stamp under Silverwing: ‘and Metallica!’ The logo was very small, but we knew that we were gonna do our best.
“It’s weird. I can’t really describe our thoughts back then. Every time we moved forward a little bit, it was the feeling of, ‘My God, we’ve made it!’
“Like, ‘We did our first gig – yes, we’ve made it! Now we’ve got more gigs.’ Then it’s, ‘Ooh, we got out first check for $14 – we’ve made it!’ Or, ‘We’re in a van, we played in San Francisco, this is it! We got our following, we’ve got five fans – check it out! They’ve drawn Metallica on the back of their jackets – we didn’t have patches or anything, they drew it!’
“And then you make it on the fanzines, on the cover of [metal zine] Whiplash. And on it goes.
“It kept growing and growing and growing. Going to the East Coast, making a demo, making the album, all of that.
“We knew we were out for world domination. We didn’t know what the hell that meant, but we’re gonna do that!”
Hetfield said of the band photo on the back cover Kill ‘Em All: “We were sticky, zitty little kids, man! I remember Lars growing his beard to look older for Kill ‘Em All. ‘Dude, what are you doing, growing a beard? We’re gonna do pictures soon.’ ‘Yeah, it makes me look older.’ Okay!”
Ultimately, Metallica’s plan for world domination was realised.
Hetfield exclaimed to MOJO: “Thank you Ron Quintana! And you know what? Ron has not asked for anything. That’s pretty amazing. He just gets lots of love.”
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