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Guitar Hero Metallica wouldn’t have needed a big-budget ad campaign to become a hit. As development for the title kicked off in mid-2008, Guitar Hero had just become the first billion-dollar series in videogame history, and its offshoot Guitar Hero Aerosmith was about to reportedly make more money than any one of the hard rockers’ albums. Plus, after almost a decade of upheavals and St Anger, Metallica had just become cool again, having re-embraced thrash with the album Death Magnetic.
But, the higher-ups at Activision still decided to invest hard in promoting their collab with the biggest band in heavy metal history. Thank God they did. The ad campaign for Guitar Hero Metallica was nothing short of glorious in its over-the-top, late-noughties machismo.
Activision first announced that Guitar Hero Metallica was on their slate at the E3 expo in July 2008, and the fact that it made more headlines than their confirmation of new titles in the Call Of Duty, Wolfenstein, James Bond and Spider-Man franchises at the same event says everything about the levels of hype.
The reveal trailer followed later that same year, presenting the game, which let players tear through their favourite songs from the Bay Area titans using plastic guitars, with pomp worthy of the second coming of Christ. Ennio Morricone’s The Ecstasy Of Gold (Metallica’s longtime concert intro tape) blared as digital avatars of the four-piece walked in slow-motion. Then came a frantically edited sequence of the same avatars onstage, shredding the Master Of Puppets solo on stadium stages where fire spurted from the floor and American flags hung from the ceiling.
“PLAY ON GUITAR,” read text in the Metallica typeface, surrounded by bolts of lightning, “OR WITH THE FULL BAND! RIDE THE LIGHTNING IN 2009!”
As an introduction to the game and what it would let the player do, it was about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the temple. Yet, it also played things dead straight: a promise of the most metal thing gamers had seen this side of Doom and an essential experience for any Metalli-fan. What came next is when things truly tumbled into the unhinged.
As the build to the March 2009 release date continued, more details emerged, including the fact that the game’s drum attachment would have a never-before-seen double-bass feature for the thrashiest tunes, which got a truly wacky bit of promotion. A GameStop ad decided to explore what Metallica’s music would sound like with and without double-bass. The ‘with’ was your typical fare – audio of recent Death Magnetic rager All Nightmare Long at full tilt – but ‘without’, for some reason, the music abruptly switched to hey-nonny-nonny mediaeval folk music. Let’s ignore the fact that many, many Metallica songs don’t feature double-bass – it was weird yet right good fun all the same.
The apex, though, was the TV spot. Where every other trailer used in-game footage, this was live-action, with all four members of the band there, in the flesh. A parody of the recent Guitar Hero World Tour ads which featured basketball player Kobe Bryant and skateboard legend Tony Hawk, it depicted Metallica tying up a bunch of pensioners and blowing up their house. Seriously.
Here’s how it goes down: a bunch of older gentlemen in their underwear open the ad, using the Guitar Hero guitar and drum controllers to recreate the iconic scene in Risky Business where Tom Cruise gets his groove on to Old Time Rock’n’Roll by Bob Seger. With a sudden “What are you doing?” from guitarist Kirk Hammett, it cuts to Metallica looking on disapprovingly.
“We’re playing Guitar Hero!” the lead pensioner replies, presumably wondering how four metal musicians broke into his living room.
“Well, now, there’s Guitar Hero Metallica,” says Lars Ulrich.
“So?”
“So, it means you’re gonna have to put on some pants, pops!” counters a surprisingly sassy James Hetfield.
The band then make the measured decision of tying the pensioners to a tree outside of their home and posing in their front garden. “You really thought we’d let them prance around in their underwear for our commercial?” asks Hetfield. “We think not!” Cue the man pressing a wireless detonator in his hand and blowing up the entire building behind him. The members walk forwards, flames roaring and debris falling in the background, as All Nightmare Long bursts from the speakers.
It’s so excessively, stupidly macho that it needs to be seen. How these clips haven’t become internet memes after all this time beggars belief, so for now, this is simply our treat to you. Please enjoy some of the most ludicrously metal advertising ever broadcast to TV screens.
