The drummer says James always jokes when he tells this story
In a video interview with Mike Hogan, Metallica drummer and founder Lars Ulrich explained how he and James Hetfield met and formed what would become the biggest metal band.
According to Lars, this version is different from the one James always tells:
"Obviously, this happened before the internet existed – in Los Angeles there was a classifieds newspaper called 'The Recycler', which people used to advertise and sell things.".
It was like Craigslist for selling cars and anything else you wanted, lawnmowers, etc… and it had a small section – so small that you had to know where to look in the newspaper – for musicians looking for bands and bands looking for musicians.
And I put an ad there – by the way, it was free, which was really cool – of a drummer looking for other musicians to form a band. And I included references to some obscure New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands like Diamond Head, Tygers of Pan Tang, and Witchfinder General.
And I got several calls from guys saying, 'Heavy Metal? In the style of Kansas and Styx?' [Laughs]. And then I'd tell them about the 3 Tygers of Pan Tang singles that had come out in England.
Obviously, it didn't go very far, but to make a long story short, a guy named Hugh Tanner showed up one day and said, 'Can I bring a friend of mine?' And then he showed up with this super shy, introverted, kind of weird kid. Tall, skinny… and his name was James Hetfield.
I've heard James tell this story a thousand times, and he always says things like, 'Lars, the stand on your hi-hat keeps falling off,' or 'Lars, being Danish, hasn't showered in two months,' or things like that.
I heard his side of the story, but now you're going to hear mine – and I'll be nicer and kinder than him. So nothing much happened, just that the three of us didn't really connect. But there was something – because this Hugh Tanner was trying to be the lead singer – but there was something about James that made me feel like he was family.
"I spent four months in England following bands like Diamond Head and Motörhead, and when I got back, I called James and said, 'Let's try to do something, but let's leave Hugh Tanner out of it?' And I showed him all the obscure band records I brought back from Europe… Because James's idea of Heavy Metal at the time was Aerosmith and Ted Nuggent. I don't know if he fell in love with those bands or with me, but here we are.".
The full interview (in English) can be viewed here:
