Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal

by Jon Wiederhorn

  JAMES HETFIELD: On Master of Puppets, we started getting into longer, more orchestrated songs. It was more of a challenge to write a long song that didn’t seem long. The riff for “Master of Puppets” was pretty messy—constantly moving. It works good live. People love to scream “Master!”

  By the time Metallica was opening for Ozzy in 1986, big things were happening for other bands as well. Megadeth was about to release Peace Sells . . . but Who’s Buying?; Anthrax was touring for its major label debut, Spreading the Disease; Slayer was being courted by Rick Rubin and Def Jam Records; and Testament was on the verge of its first big break.

  ERIC PETERSON: We were talking to Megaforce about doing a record as Legacy. All these people wanted to sign us because of our 1985 demo.

  MARIA FERRERO: Elliot Cahn, a lawyer, sent a cassette, and I was like, “Oh my God, this is great!” I kept playing it over and over, and Jonny was like, “Get it the fuck off, you’re driving me crazy!” Finally he said, “OK, we’ll sign this, we’ll sign this.”

  CHUCK BILLY: Jonny Z was like, “Send me a demo of the new singer.” So I went and did a demo of “Over the Wall” and “The Haunted.” He’s like, “Okay, we got a deal.” So Jonny and Marsha flew out to San Francisco to see us at this little tiny room. They looked beat up and were all down because the night before they got a call that Cliff Burton had died. And we couldn’t be excited either because Cliff was our good friend.

  JONNY ZAZULA: We were completely devastated. We didn’t believe it at first—then we found out it was true and that Cliff had died, and we had already made this appointment to go out and listen to Testament. We already knew we were going to sign them and this was just to seal the deal. So they did this showcase, and they were a lot better with Chuck Billy than they had been with Zetro. We told them they had a deal. But everyone was just too upset about Cliff to celebrate.

  Cliff Burton’s death is one of the metal world’s greatest tragedies. Metallica was enjoying breakthrough success, and Burton was in his prime as a musician. Some say he was the main force behind Metallica’s sound. Sadly, the world will never know what Burton would have contributed to a post–Master of Puppets Metallica. On September 26, 1986, the band was in the middle of a European tour and heading to a show in Copenhagen. Shortly after 5 a.m., their driver skidded on black ice and lost control, and the bus rolled over into a ditch. Burton was ejected through his bunk window while he slept and crushed under the bus.

  JAMES HETFIELD: I saw the bus lying right on him. I saw his legs sticking out. I went to pieces. The driver tried to take Cliff’s blanket and give it to someone else. I just screamed “fuck that!” I wanted to kill the guy. I don’t know if he was drunk or if the bus had skidded on ice. All I knew was Cliff was dead.

  SCOTT IAN: We were on tour with Metallica when that happened. We left halfway through their set the night before. I said goodbye to them before they went onstage because I knew we weren’t going to see them when they got offstage. We got into the hotel that morning and I saw our tour manager Mark talking to some guy. I walked up all bleary-eyed looking for my room key, and he’s like, “There’s bad news.” I said, “What?” He goes, “Metallica’s bus crashed on the way here last night and flipped over and Cliff was killed.” It didn’t even register in my brain. It made no sense. I said, “Bullshit. They probably just got super drunk and made up some story about a bus accident because they’re going to be late or they can’t make it to the gig.” I was in complete denial. Then fans started showing up as the word got out. There were hundreds of people around the hotel because somehow people knew this is where both bands were gonna be staying. Later that day, James and Kirk got brought to the hotel and they told us the whole story of how Lars had broken a toe, but outside of some other scratches and bruises that was it. Cliff was killed. It was completely insane. We spent a really horrible night in Copenhagen with James and Kirk. James was inconsolable and uncontrollable. He was smashing things in the hotel. So we took him outside to walk him around and he started smashing things in the street. We didn’t know what to do. Obviously, we didn’t want him to get arrested. The cops don’t give a fuck that his best friend was just killed. So we stayed up all night with those guys in disbelief, and then they got on the plane the next morning to fly home.

  MARIA FERRARO: Marsha [Zazula] called me from California to tell me. I was standing in my old house where I grew up, on the steps in my kitchen on the phone, and I sunk to the floor. The first person I thought to call was Mustaine, because, you know, he wasn’t in Metallica anymore, but I knew he cared. I called him, and I know he mentioned that in his book.

  DAVE MUSTAINE: Maria told me all about it. I just stood there clutching the phone, feeling like someone had punched me in the stomach. I hadn’t talked to Cliff in a while but still considered him to be a friend. If I harbored some lingering anger toward Lars and James, well, it was impossible to work up the same degree of animus toward Cliff. He was just too decent a person. For whatever reason—guilt, anger, sadness—I hung up the phone, got in my car, and went out and scored some heroin. I got loaded, sat around and cried for a while, then picked up my guitar and in one brief sitting I wrote an entire song, “In My Darkest Hour,” which wound up on Megadeth’s next album, [1988’s So Far, So Good . . . So What!]

  SCOTT IAN: I was out there with those guys for the funeral and then with them for days in San Francisco, and the mood was very much, “Who are we gonna get and what are we gonna do and how are we moving forward?” They set their minds to it immediately because they felt that the last thing that Cliff would want would be for the band to end, and that’s absolutely 100 percent true. So they charged right back into it and we were back out doing shows together in February of 1987 when Jason [Newsted] was in the band. We went back and made up some of these dates that got canceled, and that’s just six months after Cliff died. So they never took the time to grieve. Maybe in retrospect taking three months off and dealing with it would have been the thing to do. But they were Metallica. At the time, how could they have stopped? They were on this path that led them to where they are now and there was no way to stop the machine.

  MICK WALL: [Cliff] was incredibly important [to Metallica]. I think without him, there would be no them. But because he died, people trot out a lot of clichés about what happened. And the biggest cliché is that they had to carry on, because that’s what Burton would have wanted. That’s bullshit. They carried on because that’s what Ulrich and Hetfield wanted. The other thing [about Burton] is how his death freed them to become the monster success they became. I think had he stayed in the band, they would have made a much more interesting album than . . . And Justice for All. But the fact that he wasn’t around really did leave Ulrich and Hetfield to run the show without any interference. And Ulrich and Hetfield have run the band ever since. That’s how the Black Album came about. I have serious doubts that the Black Album would have happened had Burton not died.

  JOEY VERA: People think that I auditioned for Metallica, but the truth is that they were basically having cattle calls and it was depressing for them. I think that they just wanted to play with people that they knew personally, to get more friends to come out. Armored Saint were my buddies from school and we were on a major label, making our third record, Raising Fear, even though, in hindsight, maybe the business wasn’t going so well. Still, you can look at it as some sort of job security, because you’re still signed, you’re in a band that’s working. So I declined the invitation because I wasn’t in a place in my mind to say about Armored Saint, “This is enough, I’m done with this. I need something different.”

  MICHAEL ALAGO: Lars called and said, “We’re going to move forward. Do you have anybody in mind?” Funny enough, I had just signed Flotsam and Jetsam. I was crazy about them. [Bassist] Jason Newsted was their spokesperson. It bothered me for a moment because I knew it was going to upset the apple cart with the boys in Flotsam, but he had that same kind of charm, integrity, and his bass playing was wild and animated,
and I knew he would be the perfect fit for the guys. I also suggested Phil Caivano, who was playing bass in Blitzspeer [and later joined Monster Magnet as a guitarist].

  LARS ULRICH: I called up my friend [Metal Blade label owner] Brian Slagel, who had given Metallica their first break. I asked him, “Who are the hot young cats out there?” All roads were leading to this guy Jason Newsted. We were auditioning bass players right down where Cliff used to live in Hayward. And Cliff’s mom and dad were hanging around the rehearsal rooms. It was a pretty beautiful thing, but it was also a little intimidating for the bass players. Jason Newsted came in and he didn’t look a day over fourteen. He was very serious and fired up and knew all the songs. He had tremendous energy, enormous tenacity. He was the kind of guy that you could tell, “Okay Jason, you’ll get the gig in Metallica on one condition. You have to go lay in the street and get run over by a truck.” I mean, he would have done that.

  Metallica persevered with Jason Newsted and started working on its most progressive album up to that point, the schizophrenic . . . And Justice for All. At the same time, Slayer was injecting thrash with a new degree of intensity and malice, thanks to the blinding ferocity of Reign in Blood, which was released October 7, 1986. It was Slayer’s fastest, most lyrically vicious and controversial album. Produced by Rick Rubin, Reign in Blood featured graphic cover art and ultraviolent lyrics—especially those in “Angel of Death,” a song about the grisly human experiments performed in concentration camps by Nazi doctor Josef Mengele during World War II. Largely because of the song, Def Jam’s distributor, Columbia Records, refused to release the album. Reign in Blood ultimately came out on Geffen Records, a more daring label. It became Slayer’s first gold album.

  DIMEBAG DARRELL: Slayer’s Reign in Blood was groundbreaking. They did shit that was unorthodox. They did shit that was out of the books, but somehow it wasn’t out of place. There were two wild-ass crazy guitars, and you’re going, “What key are they in and what kind of lead playing are they doing?” But it’s just so bad, dude. Nobody can play it because nobody can figure it out.

  SCOTT IAN: Reign in Blood defines thrash metal. If anyone ever has a question of what thrash metal sounds like, just put on Reign in Blood. The songs are amazing, the riffs are sick, and it’s heavy as hell from start to finish.

  TOM ARAYA: At the time we did Reign in Blood, everyone was all about being politically correct. We got accused of being neo-Nazis because of “Angel of Death.” If you look at it, the song just tells a story. It doesn’t glorify anything. Anyone who thinks we’re Nazis isn’t paying close attention because I’m originally from Chile, so I’m a minority, and that would have to mean I hate myself.

  KERRY KING: We like being the bad guys. We branded ourselves as that years ago because we write about shit no one else will. It’s better than singing about posies. When I go to movies, I always cheer for the bad guys. The thing that pisses me off is the bad guys always get killed in the end of the movies. I just like to ignore that part.

  JEFF HANNEMAN: We’re not praising Mengele or terrorists or serial killers. We just write from their perspective. I’ve got some German war artifacts, and a lot of people don’t understand it. They say, “Why would you have that in your house?” But it’s cool. It’s evil. It’s part of what being in Slayer is. And it’s a major part of history. It doesn’t mean I’m a Nazi, because I’m not and I don’t want to be one. Since we did “Angel of Death” I’ve had three occasions where somebody will go, “Psst, hey. I’m part of this Aryan world nation group and we’re thinking of having you speak.” I’m like, “Why?” And they’ll go, “You know.” I’ll be like, “No, why?” And they’ll go, “Aren’t you . . . ?” I’m like, “What? No. Go away. You don’t get me at all.”

  LEMMY KILMISTER: I collect German war memorabilia because the Nazis made the best shit. I’ve often said if Israel made the best stuff I’d collect that, but they didn’t. The Germans had the best uniforms. The bad guys always have the best stuff—the Confederates, Napoleon. I’ve been collecting ever since I first came to America because this is where all the stuff is. GIs were allowed to ship anything home. And now it’s worth plenty. It isn’t skinheads who are collecting this shit, it’s dentists and doctors.

  DAVID DRAIMAN (Disturbed): That’s super-duper taboo and offensive to me. It’s the most provocative imagery, and that’s why people utilize it. If that’s their goal, I guess they’re achieving it, but just know there are going to be repercussions. I don’t give a fuck who you are. If you’re going to brandish Nazi symbolism, I’m going to have a problem with you because I don’t understand how anybody could think it’s okay to wear something on their body that symbolizes the annihilation and genocide of my people. There is no excuse for that and there is no explanation.

  Numerous German thrash bands were greatly inspired by Slayer, but they stayed away from any sort of nationalistic imagery because it hit too close to home, instead embracing tried-and-true tales of death, dismemberment, monsters, and demons. The main players in the Kraut metal kingdom were Sodom, Kreator, and Destruction.

  GENE HOGLAN: We were all fans of Destruction, and we liked Sodom because they were so bad and could barely play their instruments—kind of like Venom. And Kreator were just trying to do the hyper-blur thing that was really cool.

  MILAND “MILLE” PETROZZA (Kreator): Being fifteen-year-old kids when we started the band, we were like, “Man, we gotta be Satanic like Venom.” So we got books and tried to celebrate the black mass. The Satanic thing was a gimmick to me that was really entertaining. Of course we thought for maybe a year or so that we were real Satanists, but then we were like, “Ah, this is all bullshit. It doesn’t work.”

  TOM ANGELRIPPER (Sodom): I read a lot of books by and about Aleister Crowley, like The Beast: 666 and Equinox. I was really inspired by his lyrical writing, but by the time we did our 1986 debut Obsessed by Cruelty I realized that it gives me nothing. We never practiced any of the rituals. We had some black candles and skulls in the rehearsal room, but I think it was just funny. By 1987 we did Persecution Mania and I wanted to write more political songs that were heavier and faster than Venom.

  While the German thrash bands Kreator, Sodom, and Destruction played an important role in building upon the sounds of Slayer and Venom, it was a group from Brazil, Sepultura, that ultimately became the most innovative and influential non-American thrash band.

  IGOR CAVALERA (ex-Sepultura): My father used to tell me that I didn’t pick drums, the drums picked me. Once we went to a restaurant and they had drums there for some old people to play jazz, and I couldn’t eat. I would just stare at the drums. I started playing right around that time. I was seven.

  MAX CAVALERA (ex-Sepultura): Igor never actually got a drum kit until after [Sepultura’s 1986 album] Morbid Visions. He used to practice on the sofa, and then he used pots and pans. I really wanted to be a drummer, too, man, but he was so much better than me. Guitar was my second choice, but I was never completely serious because I’m a drummer at heart. I only use the four lowest strings. One of the strings broke once, and I was like, fuck it, I don’t use it anyway, so I just got rid of the two high strings.

  IGOR CAVALERA: That’s something I look at in a very positive way. Max doesn’t treat the guitar like a lot of players do. He’s a lot more percussive.

  MAX CAVALERA: Our first jams were crazy. Igor’s drum kit was a broom with one cymbal, a snare from marching band, and a bass drum from school band. Our first bass player, [Roberto] “Gato” [Raffan], had a dad who was a missionary Canadian preacher. We had a guitar player, Julio [Cesar Vieira Franco], and he was a full-on doctor doing surgery. He was thirty-five and we were, like, fifteen. Then we had another guitarist Roberto [UFO] whose mom wouldn’t let him go out after ten. He missed one of our very first shows because it was too late.

  At first, Sepultura’s ambition substituted for their lack of talent and experience, but it didn’t take long for front men Max and Igor Cavalera to hone their musical chops and
songwriting skills. The band’s 1986 full-length debut, Morbid Visions, was brutal and primitive, and the more refined 1987 follow-up, Schizophrenia, set the stage for its deal with American indie label Roadrunner.

  MAX CAVALERA: I got a meeting with Roadrunner in New York, and a friend gave me an employee airline ticket. I had to travel with a tie and my hair pulled back and say I worked for Pan Am Airlines. It was the only way for me to get to America. And when we got there, they signed us.

  STEFFAN CHIRAZI: At first, Sepultura were a little messy, but when Chaos AD came out [in 1993] it brought everything into focus. Then, of course, there was Roots; it was percussive, it was conscientious. These guys weren’t just singing about darkness and violence. It was relevant shit. That’s one thing you can say about Max Cavalera. He’s one of those guys you would point a stranger to if you wanted to explain how this music can actually be a really positive and educational force.

  MAX CAVALERA: The music is angry and pissed off, but it’s also very personal and passionate. I don’t want to write songs about serial killers, and I get really angry when people think we’re a negative influence or blame us for something violent. We played this big show in São Paulo and one of our fans got killed with an axe by some skinheads. I realized, “Fuck, we were the soundtrack of that brutality.” The next day every newspaper was blaming us, and we had nothing to do with it. We just did a show. That was so upsetting to me. Our fan took a fucking axe to the chest.

  While Anthrax launched around the same time as Metallica, it took them a few more years to reach a serious level of critical and commercial acclaim. That era began with their groundbreaking 1987 album, Among the Living, which featured speed-freak tempos, propulsive yet memorable riffs, and plenty of sing-along vocals.