Veteran drummer Carmine Appice has reaffirmed his position that he considers Metallica to be "the first heavy metal band in history."
In an interview with MetalSide, the musician stated that everything that preceded the origin of the Californian quartet was nothing more than "heavy hard rock." According to him, elements such as distorted guitars, deep tones, and double bass drums were responsible for giving rise to metal.
“I consider that heavy metal started with Metallica. Before all that, it was hard rock. Those distorted guitars, that deep tone, and the double bass drum accompanying the guitar, that's what started heavy metal. Everything before that— Mötley Crüe, Van Halen , and Blue Murder —it was all hard rock. Heavy hard rock. But, for me, metal comes from the guitar,” he declared [transcription via Blabbermouth].
In 2020, Appice had already declared Metallica as "the first heavy metal band in history."
In 2020, during an interview with Sea Of Tranquility, Applice cited how the rise of grunge in the early 1990s had pushed veteran bands away from radio and MTV, but that Metallica had not been affected because they had a different sound.
“Nobody wanted anything to do with us, because we were all dinosaurs. Black Sabbath wasn’t doing well. Ozzy [Osbourne] wasn’t either. Nobody was, except Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam and all those guys,” he recalled at the time.
“Metallica wasn’t like all those other bands. I consider them the band that truly created what you would call heavy metal. All those others were hard rock, not metal. That Metallica sound, with distorted guitars, that, to me, is heavy metal, which later evolved into death metal, speed metal, and all the other subgenres. Ozzy’s first album was hard rock. Mötley Crüe was hard rock. Heavy metal was that really distorted guitar sound,” he added.
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