Rio San Gabriel’s curriculum presented an early test to the family’s religious convictions. As Christian Scientists Cynthia and Virgil were duty bound to forswear health education, as their faith contends that the human body is merely the vessel that houses the soul of the believer: consequently, James’s teachers were informed that their son would not be permitted to attend health class, the school’s introductory science course. In place of this, each afternoon the youngster would be required to stand alone in the school hallway, or outside the principal’s office, drawing unwanted attention as passing students wondered aloud as to the nature of the actions that had resulted in this punishment. Word soon got around that young Hetfield was ‘different’, a tag no child welcomes.
‘That alienated me from a lot of the kids at school,’ Hetfield recalled. ‘Like when I wanted to get involved with something like football. You needed a physical from a doctor, and I would be like, “I don’t believe in this, I have this little waiver saying I don’t need this.” In a way, it was going against the rules, which I kinda like. But as a child, it really fucked with me as far as being different from other kids. You wanna be part of the gang, you wanna do the things they do.’
Virgil and Cynthia were largely too preoccupied to notice James’s growing isolation from his peers and the attendant anxiety this engendered. With the arrival of their first daughter, Deanna, in the summer of 1966 the couple now had four mouths to feed from a single income. As much as the head of the family assured his wife that God would provide, the Almighty wasn’t prepared to clock in at 6 a.m. each morning in order to drive an eighteen-wheel rig for minimum wage, so Virgil’s stints on the road expanded from days at a time into weeks. With her eldest boys having descended into the hormonal clusterfuck of adolescence, and her infant daughter reacting to Virgil’s prolonged absences with ever more rebellious behaviour, Cynthia considered her sensitive youngest son’s sullen silences the least of her worries. But in a bid to bond with the boy, and draw him out of his black moods, she suggested to James that he might enjoy piano lessons, just as she herself had as a child. If three years of tuition proved to be an utterly joyless experience for Hetfield – ‘I hated it,’ he has stated baldly on more than one occasion – nonetheless in later years he was gracious enough to concede that it was not time entirely wasted, admitting, ‘I am so glad it was somewhat forced upon me, because the act of left and right hand doing different things, and also singing at the same time, it gave me some inkling of what I do now.’
With his interest in music piqued, the child began experimenting with some of the other instruments lying around the family home. His half-brother David played drums in a rock ’n’ roll covers band called the Bitter End, while Christopher Hale, much taken by the developing singer-songwriter scene developing in the Los Angeles Canyons, flirted with acoustic guitar: neither instrument initially made much sense to James’s young ears, though the obvious irritation his exploratory noise-making caused other family members secretly delighted the youngster and served as some incentive to persevere. But it was the discovery of David Hale’s record collection that truly brought the power of music into focus for James. David had warned his half-brother countless times that the vinyl in the corner of their shared bedroom was off-limits to him, instructions which only served to inflame the younger boy’s curiosity. And so, one afternoon while David was at his accountancy class, nine-year-old James plucked up the courage to rummage through the dog-eared sleeves. He was drawn, ‘like a magnet to metal’, to one album cover in particular, the artwork for which featured a mysterious, unsmiling black-garbed woman standing outside an old watermill in a woodland clearing. He placed the black vinyl within on David’s record-player turntable, and dropped the stylus on its outermost groove. The sound of rainfall, thunder and a single, solemn, tolling church bell crept from the stereo’s battered speakers. And in that moment everything changed for James Hetfield, changed utterly.
Released on Friday February 13, 1970, Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut album stands as a death knell for the idealistic hippie dreams of the Sixties. Inspired by horror movies, bad dreams, drug come-downs and the terminal grind of the factory floor, it was designed to unnerve and unsettle – ‘Everybody has sung about all the good things,’ reasoned bassist Geezer Butler. ‘Nobody ever sings about what’s frightening and evil.’ – and succeeded in offending the sensibilities of every notable music critic of the era. But in Ozzy Osbourne’s baleful vocals and guitarist Tony Iommi’s dread-laden, down-tuned riffs, young James heard the sound of liberation. ‘This was more than just music,’ he recalled, ‘[this was] a powerful, loud, heavy sound that moved [my] soul.’
‘Sabbath was the band that put “heavy” in my head,’ he said. ‘That first Sabbath album I would sneak out of my brother’s record collection and play on the forbidden record player. I wasn’t supposed to touch any of that stuff, but I did, and the first Sabbath album got in my head. That initial song, “Black Sabbath”, was the one [where] when you’d put your headphones on and sit in the dark and get scared to death. Then the Devil’s riff comes in, and it got you!’
For Hetfield the Black Sabbath album served as a portal into an alternative universe. Each forbidden excavation into his half-brother’s record stacks brought forth new delights – Led Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult, Alice Cooper, the Amboy Dukes – a succession of lank-haired libertines channelling the raw, ragged howl of the blues into monolithic proto-metal. When Hetfield placed his headphones over his ears and twisted the volume control on David’s record player hard right, the world outside his bedroom seemed to fade away.
‘Music was a way to get away from my screwed-up family,’ he explained. ‘I liked being alone, I liked being able to close off the world and music helped with that a lot. I’d put on the headphones and just listen … Music would speak my voice and, man, it connected on so many levels.’
Perhaps if he had been a little less immersed in his elder sibling’s vinyl treasure trove, James might have been a little more aware of the escalating rumble of domestic discord at home. As it was, he remembers nothing special about the day in 1976 on which his father walked out on his family. There were no cross words exchanged that morning, no lingering hugs on the doorstep; no tear-moistened note of farewell was found resting on the mantelpiece as Virgil hit the road. In point of fact, months would pass before Cynthia Hetfield gathered James and Deanna to her side and informed them that this time their father would not be coming home from his travels. The children were hurt, angry and confused, scarcely able to comprehend their mother’s words. When Cynthia told James that he must be strong, that with David and Christopher now living their own lives under their own roofs, he was now the man of the house, the teenager was terrified. He withdrew further into himself, raging against his father for his selfishness, despising him for not even saying goodbye. ‘It devastated me,’ he admitted.
To block out the constant hiss of white noise in his head, James attempted to drown himself in sound. Pocket money previously spent on candy and Topps trading cards was now deflected towards the acquisition of a record collection of his own, with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ single and Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic album the teenager’s first two purchases. Inspired by a poster of Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry adorning his bedroom wall, he began picking out chords and melodies on Christopher’s guitar, slowing down his favourite songs on David’s turntable from 45 rpm to 33 rpm so that he could play along.
‘My ear was developed quite a bit from the piano playing so I knew what was in tune, what was not in tune, what sounded right and what didn’t,’ he says. ‘I was always into the big, fat riffs. I was drawn to the rhythm and percussion bit because I had messed around on drums as well. The rhythm style came from percussion as well, hitting the guitar as hard as you would a drum.’
In September 1977 Hetfield enrolled as a freshman at Downey High School on Brookshire Avenue. He instantly hated the place, with its cliques and clubs and insider codes. When
he trialled for the school football team, the Vikings, Coach Cummings informed him that he had a choice to make: he could lose his long hair and join the team, or keep his locks and forfeit his shot at gridiron glory. Despite nurturing pipe dreams of a starting position with the Oakland Raiders, Hetfield turned on his heels, knowing full well that he was condemning himself to pariah status within the school echelons.
‘I was a misfit,’ he says. ‘Didn’t fit in, didn’t want to fit in. I hid as much as possible in my music … I did not feel like I identified with anyone … Basically, instead of hanging out at school, I went home and practised guitar.’
By the school lockers one morning Hetfield ran into Ron McGovney, a former classmate from Downey’s East Middle School. McGovney’s parents owned a vehicle repair shop directly across the street from Virgil Hetfield’s trucking company, but the boys had never been close: McGovney only remembered the younger boy because Hetfield was the one student in music class who could play guitar, while Hetfield did not recall McGovney at all. But cast adrift from their status-obsessed peers, each recognised a certain loneliness in the other. Drawn together by a common obsession with music, their friendship developed cautiously – McGovney’s first clumsy attempt at bonding saw him scribble the word ‘Fag’ across a photo of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler on Hetfield’s homework folder, while Hetfield taunted his new buddy by mocking the recent passing of McGovney’s musical idol Elvis Presley – but soon settled into an easy rhythm. When James purchased a 1969 Gibson SG from the guitarist in the school jazz band, Ron began taking acoustic guitar lessons, keen not to be left behind. Later that year when Hetfield joined his first band, Obsession, the older teenager offered to act as his buddy’s guitar tech.
As with most high-school bands the world over, Obsession were little more than a vehicle in which small boys put on big boys’ trousers and lived out their rock ’n’ roll fantasies. A quartet comprising Hetfield, fellow guitarist Jim Arnold and brothers Ron and Rich Veloz on bass and drums respectively, the group would convene in the garage of the Veloz family home on Eastbrook Avenue each Friday and Saturday to chew through vaguely recognisable versions of classic rock staples – Black Sabbath’s ‘Never Say Die’, Led Zeppelin’s ‘Communication Breakdown’, Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ and Deep Purple’s ‘Highway Star’ among them – taking turns at the mic as they played at being rock stars. That their audience at this point consisted solely of Ron McGovney and his friend Dave Marrs was immaterial: when the garage door was thrown open, in their collective imaginations Obsession were holding captive a sold-out Hollywood Bowl with their high-voltage soundtrack. For one young man, however, this was not enough. On July 12, 1978, a few weeks before his fifteenth birthday, Hetfield was given the opportunity to see Aerosmith (supported by AC/DC) play the 13,500-seat Long Beach Arena. Cynthia Hetfield had previously decorated her son’s bedroom with life-size painted portraits of Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, but seeing the ‘Toxic Twins’ strut and swagger across the stage of a packed arena was an overwhelming experience for James. Inspired, he returned to the Velozs’ garage with a clutch of self-penned riffs he hoped the band could develop into their first original song. Instead of this, his band mates listened politely then duly went back to practising UFO licks. It was the signal for Hetfield to move on. With his confidence dented, he temporarily shelved the notion of performing his own material, and instead started Syrinx, a Rush tribute act who took their name from movement two of 2112’s epic title track. Fleshed out by Jim Arnold and his drummer brother Chris, Syrinx were, by all accounts, a powerful live proposition, but the union lasted only marginally longer than a Neil Peart drum solo, and Hetfield was soon alone in his bedroom once more.
One afternoon as he sat practising scales at home, James glanced through his bedroom window to see a familiar figure standing outside on the driveway. More than a year after abandoning his family, Virgil Hetfield was back in Downey, with a new haircut, a new wardrobe and a brand-new Corvette Stingray. He brought with him armfuls of expensive gifts and stories of international travel, and he spoke of being reborn and at peace once more following the most turbulent, confusing year of his life. He had made mistakes, he conceded, but he hoped that his children might find it in their hearts to forgive him for his abrupt exit. Daddy’s girl Deanna immediately flung herself into her father’s arms, but James kept his distance, eyeing up the virtual stranger in his home with calm, detached fury. When he finally spoke, his words were cold and blunt.
‘Dude,’ he said, ‘you screwed us over …’
‘It was like “Who’s this guy?”’ he recalled. ‘My sister instantly accepted him back, but I was not having it. It was never resolved.’
As the winter of 1980 nudged its way inexorably towards spring, Ron McGovney arrived at school one morning to find Hetfield clearing out the locker next to his own. Bemused, McGovney asked his friend what he was doing. Hetfield replied that his mother had just passed away and so he and his sister needed to leave Downey to take up residence with David Hale and his wife Lorraine in Brea, sixteen miles east.
Cynthia Hetfield’s health had been slowly deteriorating for years. But, forbidden by her Christian Scientist faith to seek medical attention, she refused to countenance diagnosis or treatment. On February 19, 1980, one month shy of her fiftieth birthday, Cynthia passed away. In keeping with Christian Science tradition, there was to be no funeral, nor any grieving period for her children to process their loss.
‘We watched my mom wither away,’ says Hetfield. ‘I attribute it to a lot of the discomfort with the divorce and the turmoil there. It was very traumatic. Dad took the business; she didn’t have the money and had to support us. My sister and I would look at each other and we couldn’t really say anything. It was that whole catch-22 about acknowledging the illness, then of course you are going to be sick. We were imprisoned, trapped with this. We couldn’t say any thing. My brothers, finally – they were old enough to understand this – said, “Something’s really wrong, let’s get her some help.” At that point it was much too late.’
‘We had no idea,’ McGovney admitted. ‘He was gone for like ten days and we had thought he went on vacation. When he told us that his mom had just died, we were stunned.’
McGovney remained in touch as Hetfield recommenced his senior year at Brea Olinda High School. He soon received word that his friend had started a new band, Phantom Lord, with drummer classmate Jim Mulligan and a junior named Hugh Tanner, whom Hetfield first began speaking to when the younger boy brought a Flying V guitar to school to renovate in woodwork class. In truth Phantom Lord existed more as a concept than an actual band – the trio never played a show, and practised only sporadically – but in Tanner’s bedroom they plotted out strategies for nothing less than a new rock revolution. The success of Van Halen’s dazzlingly cocksure 1978 debut album had overnight rendered much of America’s hard rock establishment yesterday’s news, and Phantom Lord were confident they could further the cause of the new order by combining the Pasadena band’s sass and swagger with the heavier, darker sound of European bands such as Judas Priest, Accept and Scorpions. First, though, they needed a bassist, and Hetfield identified McGovney as the solution to that particular problem, despite the fact that his friend neither owned, nor could play, bass. An instrument was duly procured from the Downey Music Centre, and each weekend Hetfield would take on the role of tutor in McGovney’s bedroom, before the duo would hook up with Tanner and Dave Marrs for field trips to Sunset Boulevard nightspots such as the Whisky a Go Go, the Starwood and the Troubadour in order to evaluate bands the bedroom rockers perceived as their peers.
The Hollywood rock scene circa 1980 was a circus informed by theatre and spectacle, sparkle and glitz. Descended from the mid-Seventies ‘glitter rock’ scene and incubated in Sunset Strip clubs such as Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco, where artists such as the Runaways and Zolar X swapped make-up tips and Quaaludes with drag-queen hustlers and jailbait Valley girls, its shtick was loud, gaudy and sh
ameless, a flamboyant demi-monde utterly convinced of its own fabulousness. It both terrified and repulsed Hetfield and his teenage consorts, who would return to the suburbs convinced that the likes of Dante Fox, White Sister and Satyr would present little obstacle to their own plans for world domination. As Hetfield graduated from Brea Olinda High, he laid out his future plans clearly in the school yearbook: ‘Play Music, Get Rich.’ When he reappeared at the institution some weeks later as Brea Olinda’s new janitor, fellow staff members were kind enough to keep their thoughts to themselves.
That same summer, buoyed by his new-found financial independence, Hetfield moved out of David and Lorraine Hale’s house. McGovney’s parents owned three rental properties in Norwalk in an area designated for demolition by the California Transportation Commission ahead of the construction of freeway 105, and an invitation was extended to James and Ron to move into one of the vacant properties rent-free, until such time as the state bulldozers rolled in. The teenagers did not need to be asked twice. The walls of 13004 Curtis and King Road were promptly decorated with Aerosmith, Judas Priest and Michael Schenker posters. The pair then set about renovating and sound-proofing the adjoining garage for use as Phantom Lord’s new rehearsal space. But with the paint yet to dry upon the facility’s walls, Hetfield unveiled a radical new blueprint for the band. Temporarily dazzled by the scene on Sunset, or perhaps simply high on paint fumes, he declared Phantom Lord no more, and announced that the collective were to be reconstituted as Leather Charm, LA’s newest rock ’n’ roll renegades.
Birth School Metallica Death - Vol I Page 2