When Slayer began their first real tour of the UK in April 1987, thrash was barely out of its infancy. For the average rock fan at least, the jury remained out on a style of music that naysayers considered a flash in the pan or just plain unmusical.

Compared to their peers and rivals Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax, there seemed something different about Slayer. They felt just a little more edgy, and a bit less cartoonish. Were they really Devil-worshippers? No one knew for sure, and few dared to ask.

Although the Californians’ third full-length, the Rick Rubin-produced Reign In Blood, was their most complete statement so far, distributors of Def Jam Records declined to release it as its opening track, Angel Of Death, was inspired by the Auschwitz concentration camp butcher Josef Mengele.

Slayer’s attitude was simple: Reign In Blood is art, and if you don’t want to put it out, it’s your loss. They found another distributor. The controversy only heightened an increasing sense of notoriety, though zero fucks were given when people began branding them as Nazis. “If you’re afraid of words then you’re a fucking idiot,” reasoned guitarist Kerry King.

Prior to Reign In Blood, Slayer had played the UK just once – a sold-out show in June 1985 at London’s Marquee Club in support of Hell Awaits attended by metalheads, punks and assorted outcasts who spat on them as they performed. Reviewers did likewise, though only in print, but in the summer of 1985 Slayer were considered a joke.

The 28 minutes and 58 seconds of unbridled ferocity known as Reign In Blood changed everything, and in ’87, over the Easter weekend – what perfect timing! – they returned to Britain for a handful of shows as part of their Reign In Pain European tour. For most of us, this was a first chance to experience Slayer in the crawling, decaying flesh.

Hammer was invited to spend a few days on the road with the band. On their first trip, the foursome had had to drive and navigate around the UK. Though their fortunes were on the rise this time, there was no luxury Nightliner tourbus, just a simple van fitted with bucket seats to accommodate the guys and a tour manager, Rick Sales. Besides yours truly and photographer Tony Mottram, there was an additional passenger. And her presence was controversial.

Dave Lombardo was Slayer’s not-so-secret weapon. His powerful, versatile drumming was the cornerstone of their sound. And yet in the early stages of the US leg of the Reign In Pain tour, he had quit, to be replaced by Tony ‘TJ’ Scaglione of Whiplash.

When things didn’t work out as they’d hoped, Dave was asked – quite probably begged – to reconsider his decision. The answer was a tentative ‘yes’, but there were provisos. In stark contravention of one of the key rules of a touring rock band, Dave wanted his wife, Teresa, to accompany him as he worked. And being broke, Dave demanded his rent and utility bills should be paid for him. Reluctantly, especially on the former point, Slayer caved in.

On the tour things seemed a little tense. Dave and Teresa sat in the back of the bus, talking in low voices and gazing into one another’s eyes. Another part of the deal that triggered his return was that the Lombardos received their own dressing room wherever possible.

Though they mellowed a little as the years rolled by, Slayer have never been a band to gratefully welcome outsiders into their midst, and even then they seemed a little standoffish. When I asked Kerry why Dave was back (which, given his close proximity, now seems insensitive), he growled: “Because he wanted to play.”

So what happened to TJ Scaglione? “He just didn’t work out. He’s a great drummer but Dave’s family.”

And was Dave back in Slayer for good this time? “I’m not sure,” he hedged his bets. “We’ll have to see.”

Bassist/frontman Tom Araya sat in the front seat fooling around with his latest toy, a video camera, and as the miles towards Manchester ticked away the van rocked to the sound of Electric by The Cult. Copies of Hammer were circulated and read in a companionable silence until Kerry reached the live reviews and shattered the peace with a roar of “MEGADETH SUCKS!” upon discovering a critique of Mustaine and co. at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. Two years earlier Kerry had, of course, joined Megadeth but lasted a mere five shows before returning to Slayer. The move would inspire one of many feuds to involve the outspoken guitarist.

Though their show at the Apollo was far from sold out, the van was greeted in Manchester by a sea of autograph-seeking fans. A soundcheck revealed Slayer’s old-school metal roots via ramshackle versions of Symptom Of The Universe by Black Sabbath, the Scorpions’ The Zoo and the Judas Priest classics Victim Of Changes, Heading Out To The Highway and Breaking The Law. But Dave Lombardo remained in a private dressing room with his missus while Kerry and fellow guitarist Jeff Hanneman played the drums.

The evening’s performance, which all but one song from Reign In Blood (Piece By Piece being its sole omission), was among the finest metal gigs ever witnessed by this writer. Kerry and Jeff, the latter of whom had kept himself to himself on the journey, flayed the skin with their scintillating lead guitar runs and Dave’s rhythmic contribution was extraordinary, his blur of feet and sticks causing the now rather silly prediction from this writer: “Lars Ulrich had better watch his arse in the next set of readers’ polls.”

At the centre of it all was Tom. Earlier in the day the frontman had seemed quietly spoken and comparatively meek, but at the Apollo he evolved into a dark and genuinely frightening character. Introducing Necrophiliac, Tom’s face took on a gleeful grin while asking the Manchester crowd: “Are you guys into dead fucks?” There was a massive roar. “That’s OK, I’m into dead fucks too. You know what I like best about these little ladies that live six feet underground? Every time I eat them out I can hear the maggots crunching in my teeth.”

Given that Tom would later own up to Christian beliefs, such a statement was as shocking as the transformation that took place as he strode from the wings into the spotlight. Years later in another interview, he told me: “I’m a very laidback guy, that stage persona is just a part of me. It’s like a switch that goes on and off.”

Of course, these were early days for Slayer. Over the years Dave would come and go, exiting the band for the final time in 2013, but they got by without him and outlived every passing fad.

“Why would we try to be like Korn?” Kerry laughed when I interviewed him again in 2002. “Why would anybody who likes metal want to play that stuff? It fucking sucks.”

Tragically, Jeff Hanneman died in 2013, but Slayer continued with Exodus’ Gary Holt in his place. In 2018, they announced their decision to retire, wrapping up their farewell tour the following year – only to make a surprising return in 2024.

2026 will see the band play a pair of shows in Los Angeles to mark the 40th anniversary of Reign In Blood. Presumably, they’ll be travelling to the gig in something more than a van this time.

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 329 (Nov 2019). Updated April 2026

By the end of the 1980s, four bands had emerged as kings of the burgeoning thrash metal scene: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. Though not yet the ‘Big 4’, they’d each released landmark albums and were heralded as indicators of the genre’s enormous potential. But Metallica were quickly pulling ahead, as 1989’s …And Justice For All had broken the Top 10 on the US Billboard 200.

“Metallica were in a league of their own – they didn’t need anything from anybody. They chose their own path. I think it was like, ‘We’ve done all that [thrash] stuff’, and so they aimed higher,” says Slayer guitarist Kerry King.

Their peers weren’t about to miss their own shot at the big time, however. A plan was hatched: to bring Slayer and Megadeth together for a tour that would see them reach the arena-headlining level of Metallica.

Package tours weren’t new. A decade earlier, the Metal For Muthas tour – Motörhead, Samson and Saxon each playing on different dates, supported by a range of young bands – had helped popularise NWOBHM, thrash’s direct progenitor. But Clash Of The Titans was something different: a coalition of greats who could achieve more together than alone. This is the story of how Clash Of The Titans revolutionised touring, took thrash into the big leagues and cemented the concept of the Big 4.

It began in Europe. Co-headlined by Slayer and Megadeth, the bill was designed to cross the enormous gap between the venues they had been headlining (2-5,000 capacity) to full arenas (average capacity: 16,000). There were logistical challenges: getting two of thrash’s biggest names together came with the mammoth task of ironing out every detail to ensure both bands were equally represented on the bill. The clash had begun…

John Jackson (Founder of K2 Agency): “We already had a tour approved by Slayer’s manager, Rick Sales. Megadeth were also looking to tour around the same time, so I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we could put them together?’ On the face of it, it wasn’t necessarily a slam dunk, but that was one of the reasons we had pulled it together – we felt together those bands could do better than either would on their own.”

David Ellefson (Megadeth): “The thinking was, if we could combine forces, Megadeth and Slayer – later Anthrax too – we figured we could achieve the same level of success as a band like Metallica. We’d already worked together a few times by that point anyway – Kerry was even in Megadeth at the start.”

Kerry King (Slayer): “[Playing with Megadeth] was killer! The only reason I considered it is because I was such a big Mustaine fan – I saw him play with Metallica when they were still a southern California band. It blew me away that he’d be up there ripping on guitar, not even looking at what he was doing. I played the first five shows and it was a good time; I was just honoured that he wanted me to help him out.”

John Jackson: “We settled on the name Clash Of The Titans because a) it’s a great name, and b) it says exactly what it is!”

David Ellefson: “It’d be a team effort where we’d have to put our egos aside. That was probably the biggest clash of the titans – not with the outside world, but internally! Who closes the show, who gets the right set time… these were discussions that turned into finer negotiations behind the scenes. In Europe, the line-up was fixed: Slayer would close and Megadeth were in third position, which I always maintain is the best position as the fans still have loads of energy and the beer’s still working!”

Kerry King: “I would always rather close. I don’t care who plays before us, we’re gonna smoke ’em.”

Clash Of The Titans kicked off in Belgium on September 22, 1990. It soon became the hottest ticket going, and city after city sold out as the tour rampaged through Switzerland, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the UK. The bill was rounded out by the addition of Bay Area contemporaries Testament and Suicidal Tendencies – the LA crossover thrashers who represented a new breed of thrash. This was the genre’s commercial and critical peak, and each band had just released – or were on the verge of releasing – game-changing records.

David Ellefson: “Slayer were just about to drop Seasons In The Abyss and we were working up to Rust In Peace. The tour took us into arenas, so it was big news, you know? Testament had got Souls Of Black coming around that time too, so it was a really special time for heavy metal.”

Kerry King: “That kind of thing never happens for a two-band bill let alone four. Bands with big albums just don’t tour together and here we were with four bands with huge albums. I mean, Suicidal were coming off of Lights, Camera… what a great album!”

Chuck Billy (Testament): “Clash Of The Titans was a big opportunity – it was a chance to play some real shows in places we’d otherwise only visit for festivals. We’d never even played shows indoors at some of these places! Soon we realised that shit, there was a caveat that we needed a new record out to get on the tour. Cool – let’s go to the studio and drink some beers and play some songs!”

David Ellefson: “Dave [Mustaine] and I saw Megadeth as an arena band right from the off – you have to remember it was a conception before it was a reality. I remember sitting in the apartment in Sycamore Avenue [in Hollywood] discussing everything, down to our names – how do you have a band with two Daves in it? It was all about the vision of what we could be and the band formed to fill that vision.”

Chuck Billy: “That tour launched us as a headliner in Europe. We’d been working hard on our music for four years and really wanted to prove that we belonged there. The other guys were so cool and down to earth, so we could all just go out and put on a great performance.”

The tour wasn’t without hitches, however. At the time, we asked Suicidal Tendencies frontman Mike Muir how it was going. “We haven’t had any problems with Slayer, they’re really cool. The same applies to the crew,” he said. And Megadeth? “We don’t see them and I’m very pleased about that,” he replied. Additionally, the Megadeth Daves were freshly on the wagon after battling addictions.

Chuck Billy: “A couple years before, we’d toured with Megadeth and Dave [Mustaine] was smoking, drinking and everything, which meant the guy we toured with a couple years later was a completely different person, telling us not to smoke in the building! We were young, like, ‘That’s your problem not ours’, but it must’ve been tough being on their own. We were too immature to realise what was at stake.”

Kerry King: “It’s difficult sometimes to sift through the years because me and Dave [Mustaine] can be on edge for decades at a time, but then completely cool with each other for decades too. Mustaine and I were on the rocks at that point, but we made it work. It’s funny –when we did The Big 4 shows together later he took me aside and said, ‘You know, you and me are the only guys who have played in two of the Big 4!’ But back around Clash we were all peaking, but we also had a chip on our shoulders about proving ourselves and that made every show special for fans.”

David Ellefson: “Because we were clean, we couldn’t go hang out where the parties were. Ron Laffitte was a terrific manager for us in that regard. His icon was Pat Riley of the Lakers, so he was all about team and focusing on how you could channel all this talent so we’d be marching in the same direction. He pulled us together, got us sobered up and made sure we’d have band meetings, sobriety meetings… everything to keep going the right way and harness the greatness that was developing in the band at the time.”

Chuck Billy: “There was definitely some butting of heads – between Kerry and Dave Mustaine, myself and Dave Mustaine… Dave Mustaine and Dave Mustaine… ha ha! In the end we all worked through it.”

Interpersonal conflict or no, ‘greatness’ was certainly attained. Clash Of The Titans’ initial run ended with an enormous show at Wembley Arena on October 14, 1990 – Slayer would use footage from it for their War Ensemble video. The bands couldn’t rest on their laurels though, and it wasn’t long before a sequel took shape. Anthrax were added as a third headliner and the bands agreed to rotate positions on the bill each night. The opening spot was filled by a wild card: Alice In Chains.

Scott Ian (Anthrax): “Our record had just gone Gold in the States and we were sat in a dressing room playing alongside our heroes, Iron Maiden. But here was an offer to come out and do those same venues just a few months later. Our reaction was, ‘Why do we need this? We can do it ourselves’, so we initially said no. By the time we got offstage that night there was another fax and this one was loooong, explaining all the reasons it made sense for us to do it!”

David Ellefson: “God bless Alice In Chains, they were definitely the odd band out on the bill. [While touring Europe in early 1991] we were at the Volkshaus, Zürich to see The Almighty and Marty [Friedman, guitarist] and I saw Alice In Chains’ name on the day schedule, like, ‘How goofy are these guys?’ figuring they were some local band. All four of us [in Megadeth] decided to go up and see them play, and we were blown away. We phoned Ron and told him this was the band we had to take out with us for the tour.”

Kerry King: “At first I fucking hated it! They were the Man In The Box band and I never needed to hear that song again. It was all I knew because that’s all MTV played. But we’d watch them, hang out and watch the [other bands’] sets. Layne [Staley] was probably the best singer of our generation – a superstar with pipes like nobody you’d ever seen before.”

David Ellefson: “If there’s one thing we know about thrash metal fans it’s if you’re not thrash, YOU’RE OUT! At the same time, after Clash AIC went out to play with Van Halen and became superstars, so that’s their story! I always commend them on their work ethic, for jumping in the trenches and taking their bullets but still going on.”

The US leg began in Dallas on May 16, 1991. On June 28, an MTV Headbanger’s Ball special was set up to celebrate the arrival of metal’s newest stars when they played New York’s Madison Square Garden. It was a watershed moment for thrash in the US, laced with a sense of anarchy; some of the crowd’s 19,000 fans got unruly and began throwing things towards the stage – as a pissed-off Tom Araya would recount to MTV’s cameras after the band’s set. It even gave hometown heroes Anthrax pause, as they worried about how the crowd would react to a special surprise they had planned for their headline set.

Scott Ian: “We brought out Chuck D and [Flavor] Flav [of Public Enemy] to do Bring The Noise. It was so crazy, because we had no idea how the crowd on that tour was going to react. A fuckin’ Slayer crowd! There was worry as to whether people were going to dig it or scream, ‘Fuck you, don’t mix your rap with our metal!’ But the moment Chuck and Flavor stepped out onto that stage, there was an energy I’d never felt until that point; it was fucking insane!”

David Ellefson: “It was Anthrax’s hometown and I felt very proud for them as it was their day. Playing Madison Square Garden is huge and a lot of those amphitheatres were great. We did this thing with Riki Rachtman of Headbanger’s Ball. We were MTV darlings, all because we were a thrash band, not a hair metal band. By that point hair metal was moving out, so bands like Metallica and Queensrÿche were holding the top spots. We could see Seattle coming up behind us. It was a world in transition, for sure.”

Scott Ian: “Some of these places had never done shows without seats on the floor – Madison Square Garden was a big one for that. Straight away I could see that being a big problem, because promoters and venues didn’t know about mosh pits yet. About half the venues didn’t want to remove their seating. They had this attitude of, ‘We’ve been doing shows for 40 years, don’t tell us how to do our job’, only to see 10,000 seats get destroyed in one show. After that tour, all venues would do festival seating for metal shows.”

Much of the interpersonal drama that had popped up in the press during the European run had fizzled out, and the bands were having a good time. They were young and conquering arenas, in what David Ellefson refers to as “the summer of heavy metal love”.

David Ellefson: “There was actually a little feud starting between Megadeth and Slayer at the time, especially because our lifestyles had become very different. I think that’s how the food fight started – a flick of bread suddenly turned into a whole turkey flying across the room. Fuckin’ Anthrax always had the best catering. A full Thanksgiving turkey spread, and we’re there asking for raisins as a treat! Ha ha ha!”

Scott Ian: “We all had the same rider! As for the food fight… I don’t think it’s true! I think Tom [Araya] was fucking around, but Charlie [Benante] did end up with fish on his shoulder. I remember something like Tom shouting ‘SWORDFISH AGAIN’ and flinging his plate over his shoulder, and the fish flew and landed squarely on Charlie’s shoulder. Nobody was upset, though – we laughed so hard.”

Kerry King: “[My favourite thing was] probably getting the groups together – it’s not easy co-ordinating with other bands, especially ones with any kind of fame or career. Being able to do that any time is great – it felt great to all come together and show everybody that thrash is rad.”

David Ellefson: “It was the summer of heavy metal love. There were people throwing beer, chicks pulling their shirts up… all the rock’n’roll cliches you’d never usually get at a thrash show. I remember having a great conversation with [Slayer guitarist] Jeff Hanneman in a hotel bar. He was there having a few beers and we chatted for ages. That was my real takeaway fond memory of Jeff; despite these hellish songs he could write, he was a kind, sweet guy and I had great admiration for his integrity. There he was, kicking back alone and just making his own entertainment.”

Scott Ian: “Jeff and Kerry managed to get paintball guns, so their crew guys got paintball guns too. They thought it was hilarious to shoot at us by bursting out of a room as we were walking down a hallway. We all went out to buy paintball guns, and so it’d turn into a daily war where we’d be blasting each other. At a Hilton in Indiana, somebody’s room opened up onto the roof, so we made the adult decision to go out and shoot the giant, giant Hilton sign outside the hotel until it was repainted in 40 different colours! There was a $10,000 cleaning cost! Luckily, we all pitched in to cover it.”

The Stateside dates of Clash Of The Titans did more for Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax than make them into rock stars. It was an apotheosis that led to the idea of the Big 4. When someone asks, ‘Why aren’t ‘x’ in the Big 4?’ the answer is simple: who else has played a tour so important to the metal landscape – a tour that changed the model for bands and made the mainstream take notice?

John Jackson: “Clash Of The Titans helped set us up for future package tours too, not least the Unholy Alliance runs Slayer did [first with Slipknot/Mastodon/Hatebreed in 2004, then Lamb Of God/Children Of Bodom/Mastodon/Thine Eyes Bleed in 2006 and finally Trivium/Mastodon/Amon Amarth in 2008].”

Kerry King: “Each of those tours was just us moving forwards – even when moving forwards wasn’t going to be
a thing for us anymore. But the end of the 80s was thrash’s peak, because afterwards grunge came in and kicked the shit out of everything. Music changed and we basically had to wait before we could really become big again around God Hates Us All.”

Scott Ian: “I don’t remember people calling us the Big 4 at that point – I don’t think it was used yet. Metallica were a giant band in their own right, so it makes sense that this term to describe us would originate from this giant, sold-out tour of the States.”

David Ellefson: “It’s kinda rumoured that [music journalist and longtime Hammer scribe] Malcolm Dome came up with the idea of the Big 4. I don’t know if even he knows for sure, but it definitely started to be talked about after the Clash Of The Titans. It’s
a pretty special thing that we started
it and lived to tell the tale.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 349 (May 2021)

On January 22, 1989, there was a rude awakening for an American audience tuned in to MTV. It was a time when all the rock music videos on heavy rotation featured pretty boys with big hair. Bon Jovi, Poison, Def Leppard, even Guns N’ Roses, with Axl Rose dolled up in Welcome The Jungle.

The video for Metallica’s new single, One – premiered that night – was something else entirely. For an anti-war protest song, a heavy subject with music to match, the first video of the band’s career was dark and deeply disturbing, with stark, black-and-white performance footage intercut with grim scenes from the 1971 movie Johnny Got His Gun, portraying a soldier, ripped apart by a landmine blast, his limbs amputated, blind and unable to hear or speak, imprisoned in his mind and praying for death to release him.

As Metallica’s drummer Lars Ulrich said at the time: “Obviously it’s not the most jolly and uplifting video you’ll see. It definitely gets a reaction that is somewhat emotional. I haven’t seen a video of that nature before.”

It was, for Metallica, a defining artistic statement, as powerful, groundbreaking and uncompromising as the music that had made them, by the end of the 80s, the biggest cult band in the world.

One was a landmark song for Metallica – the standout track on their fourth album, …And Justice For All, and their first US Top 40 hit. As Flemming Rasmussen, the producer of …And Justice For All, says now: “One is amazing. In terms of performance, writing, lyrics, it is one of Metallica’s greatest songs.” And in the creation of both the song and the video, the band’s co-manager, Cliff Burnstein, played a key role.

When vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield began sketching out an idea for the song in 1987 – the concept of a human entity as, in his words, “a brain and nothing else” – it was Burnstein who urged James to read the 1939 novel Johnny Got His Gun, written by Dalton Trumbo, who went on to direct the movie adaptation. The book made a deep impression on James. As Lars said, “James got a lot of input from that.”

An inspiration for the music, written by James and Lars, came from a more familiar source. Venom, originators of black metal, and the most extreme band to emerge from NWOBHM in the early 80s, had been a major influence on Metallica in their younger days – as illustrated in Whiplash, from their 1983 debut album Kill ’Em All, in which they recycled the riff to Venom’s occult classic Witching Hour.

For the darkly atmospheric intro to One, James tuned into Buried Alive, from Venom’s seminal 1982 album Black Metal. And while Metallica, the first and definitive thrash metal band, felt that they’d outgrown the genre they had done so much to create – as Lars joked to this writer in 1987, “Delete word beginning with T and ending in H!” – the heavy drama of One built to an explosive climax. The slow, sombre beginning was the calm before the storm, the prelude to a high-speed, all-out attack on the senses.

When the song was recorded, at One On One Studios in LA in early 1988, there was heavy tension within the band. It had been 18 months since the death of bassist Cliff Burton, killed when the band’s tourbus crashed in Sweden on September 27, 1986.

And while Cliff’s replacement, Jason Newsted, formerly of Flotsam And Jetsam, had proven himself on his recording debut with Metallica – The $5.98 E.P. - Garage Days Re-Revisited, a collection of metal and punk covers, released in 1987 – James, Lars and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett were still struggling to adjust to life without Cliff.

In addition, with expectations high after the previous album, Master Of Puppets, had sold a million worldwide, the first sessions for …And Justice For All had been disastrous. Lars – “blown away”, he said, by the raw rock’n’roll of Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction – had chosen that album’s producer, Mike Clink, to work with Metallica.

But within just a few days, Lars and James had concluded that Clink lacked the right feel for their most complex material to date. With Mike dismissed, they turned to the producer who knew them best, Flemming Rasmussen, who’d worked on Master Of Puppets and its predecessor, Ride The Lightning.

“They’d been fucking around for three weeks and had nothing on tape,” Flemming recalls. “So we started over.” He says the mood in the camp was businesslike, intensely focused. “In hindsight, I know there was the loss of Cliff roaming around in their heads, but I never gave it a thought then. It was work, work, work…”

The songs for the album were all fully formed. “Metallica always did elaborate demos,” he explains. “The final demos were how the album is.”

What Flemming heard in One – “the depth and the scope of it” – was a classic in the making. And in the recording of the track, he sensed that both Lars and Kirk were reaching a peak.

“When the song really gets going, with the machine-gun bass drum thing, that was a first take,” he says. “That’s the kind of shit that Lars can pull off. And I think Kirk’s solo at the end is one of the 10 best solos ever played, by anybody.”

…And Justice For All, released on August 25, 1988, proved controversial. Jason’s bass was mixed so low as to be barely audible, the result, as Lars later admitted, of he and James “running everything with an iron fist”. But the album was a huge hit, No.6 in the US and No.4 in the UK. It was another victory for a band who’d always played by their own rules. As Lars put it to this writer in 1987: “Fuck the business! We did the whole thing our own way.” And so it was with the video for One.

“The reason we waited so long,” Lars said, “was that we didn’t want to be in
a position where we’d be forced to make a video, or pander to the set ways of the industry. It just seemed that when it was time to do something we had to try and come up with something radically different – as opposed to just us running around with lights and ramps and shit.”

According to Lars, it was in September 1988, during the first phase of a world tour, that the band watched the movie Johnny Got His Gun for the first time. When the concept for the video was decided, Metallica’s management bought the rights to the film.

In December, as the tour reached LA, video director Bill Pope shot the band performing One in a disused warehouse. A second director, Michael Salomon, was tasked with combining this footage with scenes from the movie.

“I was scared shitless meeting the band for the first time,” Salomon recalls. “The record company had talked them up so much as being anti-everything. And they weren’t particularly fond of video as a medium. They already had a huge audience, so it didn’t matter whether this was a hit or if it wasn’t.”

Michael’s first cut, with movie dialogue laid over the music, was not to Lars’s liking. “He called and said, ‘What the fuck did you do to our song? You covered up all the solos, you covered up all the drum parts, you filled every fucking moment with dialogue!’ I had to explain that I was trying to incorporate the story of the movie as well as the inner speech of the main character.”

In the end, after judicious editing, the dialogue still prominent, a final cut was approved. And as Lars concluded: “We felt we had something special on our hands. It meant something. I see it as something that accompanies the song and furthers what it’s all about.”

In the early days of February 1989, One was the most requested video on MTV. Later that month, Metallica performed the song at the 31st Grammy Awards ceremony in LA, at which …And Justice For All was nominated for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance (Vocal Or Instrumental). And although they lost out that night – implausibly, to veteran progressive rock group Jethro Tull – Metallica triumphed at the following year’s Grammys, winning with One in a new and more specific category, Best Metal Performance.

At the end of a decade in which Metallica had revolutionised heavy music, they had broken the mould again with a video unlike any other. As Flemming Rasmussen says, One stands tall among the band’s greatest songs. It also represented the end of an era for Metallica. The biggest cult band in the world were about to get even bigger.

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 332 (February 2020)

Alex Skolnick was a timid 16-year-old when he joined Testament in 1985, but his highly skilled melodic guitar playing would prove hugely influential throughout the Bay Area thrash scene and beyond. When he left Testament in the early 90s, he pursued diverse musical projects, including stints in Savatage and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He also went back to school to study jazz and formed his own jazz outfit, The Alex Skolnick Trio.

Alex rejoined Testament in 2005, and they’ve since gone from strength to strength. He’s kept his fingers in numerous other pies, too, from teaching to ambitious world music projects. He’s the muso’s thrasher with a list of accomplishments longer than an extendedscale fretboard, but remains as humble and down-to-earth as they come.

PARENTS DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING

“My parents were academics and not thrilled about me joining a thrash metal band. They were older than most of my friends’ parents so didn’t even have that rock’n’roll background. Their wishes for me were to get a PhD, just like them. There were a few points that convinced them I hadn’t made a terrible choice, though. The first was when Testament supported Judas Priest at the Oakland Coliseum [in 1990], which showed that this was more than just a neighbourhood band. They were also happy when I started writing columns for guitar magazines, because they always respected writing.”

YOU CAN OVERCOME FIRST NIGHT NERVES

“I was painfully shy and socially awkward when I was younger and going onstage was a trial. At the first gig, when there was a clean intro or a part where the band wasn’t playing full-on, my hands would shake so much I could barely hit the notes. If you’re lucky enough to get to the point where you’re on tour, playing night after night, there’s nothing like that to help you get over it, but it was still very scary.”

DON’T PARTY FOR THE SAKE OF IT

“That Bay Area scene could be chaos, but because I was so shy and also because I was the youngest member of Testament, I’d sit in the corner practising scales and trying to learn. There’s a place for cutting loose, but even back then for me it always made sense to celebrate when there was something to celebrate. If you’re just letting loose every night, which is what was happening in the band at that point, it’s just drinking for its own sake. I could never keep up anyway so I didn’t try!”

FIFTH PLACE IS FINE BY ME

“People talk about the Big 4 of thrash and I genuinely never had a problem with that, because I was listening to all those bands when I was still in high school. I remember Master Of Puppets coming out right around the time I was doing my first gigs. Megadeth and Anthrax had albums out and I saw Slayer the first time they came through. They still had the facepaint on, like a dark carnival! It was a question of seniority, and it made perfect sense to me that they would be the Big 4.”

THE EARLY YEARS OF THRASH WERE A SPECIAL TIME

“Our early club tours were like a cauldron bubbling up, and then opportunities started coming. I remember our first European festival [Dynamo Open Air in the Netherlands, 1987]. It was the biggest crowd we’d ever played for, then Monsters Of Rock came up in Germany [in 1988] when Megadeth dropped out, and that was massive. Iron Maiden headlined, with Kiss and David Lee Roth – all absolute legends. People look at the Clash Of The Titans tour now [Megadeth, Slayer, Testament and Suicidal Tendencies in 1990] and say it was pretty legendary. At the time it just seemed logical to put these bands together who were all on the faster side of the equation.”

SOMETIMES YOU GOTTA MOVE ON

“The drama within Testament [before I left] was difficult. It was a bit of a toxic environment andno coincidence that the drummer, Louie Clemente, left soon after I did. But I was also expanding my musical horizons. I’d done a tour with [virtuoso bassist] Stu Hamm, had an offer to tour with [virtuoso instrumentalist] Michael Manring. I still loved metal, but I wanted to find a voice outside that and work with other musicians. Either of these things would have caused me to leave Testament eventually, but they came together in a perfect storm.”

WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES, ANOTHER OPENS

“I don’t know why their separation happened, but I guess Zakk [Wylde] was doing other stuff and there was this search for a new Ozzy Osbourne guitarist. I was just honoured to be in the running because I’d heard about some pretty well-known players that never got past the audition phase. I actually got to the point of doing a show and Ozzy hired me – he said he wanted me to do the gig. It was an unannounced show at Nottingham Rock City and it was great. I didn’t get the role full-time, which I think was a management decision, but it was a great motivation at a time when I didn’t really know what to do next. That was when I enrolled in the university called The New School in New York, and studied with these greats like [jazz musicians] Cecil McBee and Reggie Workman.”

DON’T LISTEN TO THE CRITICS

“There was a bit of resistance, because it was a very odd thing to have somebody from a metal band suddenly enrolling in a music programme and studying with heavyweight jazz players. There was also a lot of support though, and I chose to focus on that. I was used to it anyway, because when I first joined Testament, I’d hear comments saying I sounded more like I’d fit in a glam band and I should move to LA. I took that as a compliment, because I really liked the guitar players from the glam bands. I liked George Lynch [Dokken], Warren DeMartini [Ratt], the whole post-Van Halen period of guitar playing. I wanted to bring that into heavy music, because a lot of it had more of a garage rock aesthetic and I wanted to bring this polish."

KEEP FINDING INSPIRATION

“I made an appearance on Lamb Of God’s [2004 album] Ashes Of The Wake, because I was very excited about what they were doing. I went to an Ozzfest they played at and I met Slipknot for the first time … Hatebreed were there … all these bands that ’d come after Testament. They were clearly inspired by that period, but they were taking it somewhere new. I think that whole experience made me want to have some metal outlet again , and then I get the call from the Testament guys wanting to do some occasional shows. I thought, ‘Okay , let’s see how it goes.’ It was better because everybody was a little bit older and wiser.”

GRAB YOUR OPPORTUNITIES

“We were only talking about doing the odd show, but then out of the blue we got the offer to do this dream Masters Of Metal tour, which was Heaven & Hell, Judas Priest and Motörhead. They were looking for a fourth band. We were told, ‘OK, you guys can do this, but you have to have a record.’ That was the big incentive and the record we made was [2008’s] The Formation Of Damnation. Suddenly we were off to the races and the offers have been coming in ever since.”

MUSIC BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER

“I put together a project called Planetary Coalition that brought together some amazing musicians from around the world. There’s nothing that can compare to the power of music. The last concert I went to before leaving for the Anthrax tour was David Gilmour. I happened to catch it on election night in the United States , and hearing everybody sing Wish You Were Here and Comfortably Numb, you would never know that the US was divided and thereTest was this very high stakes election happening. It was a way for everybody just to gather and focus on something positive.”

EXPERIMENT CREATIVELY

“I’m just as excited as ever to be working on new Testament music, but it helps that it’s not my only outlet. That was something I wrestled with in the early part of the band’s career. It was all I was doing – that adds a lot of pressure because it’s the only thing you’re known for. Now I have my Trio, I have over half a dozen instrumental albums , and I have other metal outlets like [supergroup ] Metal Allegiance where I can work with vocalists like Troy [Sanders] from Mastodon or Johan [Hegg] from Amon Amarth. It’s a great position to be in and I feel very lucky with my life and career.”

Testament play Sonic Temple on May 9 and Welcome To Rockville on May 18.

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has revealed what he deems “brilliant” about the 80s thrash metal revolution.

In a new conversation with Guitar World, the 76-year-old was asked what he thought of his band’s influence on the thrash movement, which was populated by such stars as Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax.

“It was nice to hear those thrash bands paying tribute to us,” he answers. “It’s great how they were able to push it forward into something new and turn it into their own thing. I was just coming up with things I liked.”

The guitarist continues, saying it was “brilliant” how younger musicians took Iommi’s foundational approach to metal and made it their own. He then singles out Metallica, who become international superstars following the release of their self-titled album (“The Black Album”) in 1991.

“What they did with the metal sound, turning it into thrash, was fantastic!” Iommi says. “They’ve always been respectful toward us and they’re lovely guys. I love their attitude toward things, the way they write and everything. It reminds us a lot of how we were – everyone in one room rehearsing together and taking it seriously.”

Iommi later casts his eye to the present day, where guitar playing in metal is arguably more technical than it’s ever been. He expresses mixed thoughts on modern virtuosos, also deeming current shredders to be “brilliant” even if their approach to the instrument doesn’t quite align with his.

“Even really young kids in their bedrooms are doing incredible things,” he says. “But I always go back to the roots of the blues, looking deep inside myself and telling the truth. I don’t think about what can impress people or break speed limits. The only thing that matters in my mind is how it sounds to me.”

Iommi elaborates elsewhere in the interview: “Some of the guitar playing I hear these days is too technical. You have to be precise on this note or that note. I can’t do that – if I do a solo on a record, it’s never the same live. I can’t reproduce what I did in the studio. I’ll do something similar but not exact.”

Iommi co-founded Black Sabbath with singer Ozzy Osbourne, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward in 1968. The band retired in 2017, but all four of the original members have recently expressed interest in getting onstage together one last time.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times over the summer, Slayer co-founder and guitarist Kerry King conceded that his band’s 2019 retirement was indeed premature. “I wasn’t ready to hang it up,” he stated, while adding that Slayer had exited on a high note. “We won the Super Bowl and we left. That’s pretty cool.” Fast forward five years and Slayer’s retirement proved to be only a hiatus. After their highly-anticipated reunion at Chicago’s Riot Fest last month, tonight they headline the first night of the Aftershock Festival, in Sacramento, California. It would have been their third and final show — for the foreseeable future — but the aftereffects of Hurricane Helene forced them to cancel their headlining slot at Kentucky’s Louder Than Life Festival. But tonight there’s no stopping this juggernaut. The weather is perfect, and it feels like every living soul at Aftershock has converged on the festival’s main stage to witness history. From the sprawling grass pitch in front of the Jack Daniels stage, to the grassy knolls stretching out to the festival gates, the sheer volume of bodies is staggering.

A montage of archival footage plays on the colossal screens flanking the Aftershock stage, until finally the iconic array of white crosses slowly inverts and then Slayer’s infamous logo blazes into view. The raging horde of over 30,000 erupts into raw, unfiltered chaos. It’s as if no time has passed since their 2019 farewell. But tonight is different. This isn’t just a return; it’s a resurrection.

Slayer waste zero time storming into South of Heaven, every note dripping with venomous intent. Tom Araya sounds utterly terrific; his piercing howl cuts through the night like a sharpened blade, while the scything precision of King, guitarist Gary Holt and drummer Paul Bostaph is terrifying. There’s no easing into this. Slayer have come to reclaim their throne, and the crowd is ravenous for it.

There’s a reverence in the air that goes beyond fandom—this is worship. A gobsmacked legion of artists look on from the side as pyro, smoke, and flame cannons erupt across the stage; but none of it holds a candle to the music itself. Slayer don’t need gimmicks. They are the spectacle.

The setlist is pure carnage: Payback, Jihad, Seasons In The Abyss and Disciple incite primal frenzies from the masses. Dead Skin Mask echoes through the night, its sinister lullaby hypnotizing the sea of black shirts. With each song, the momentum builds, the intensity never dipping for a second.

When they finally close with a thunderous trifecta — Raining Blood, Black Magic and Angel of Death, the atmosphere becomes almost surreal. This goes beyond nostalgia or legacy. Slayer are back and they’re as devastating as ever. Over four decades in, they haven’t just reclaimed their place atop metal’s pantheon—they’ve reminded us why they will forever be its reigning gods. This was spiritual. This was war. Three full days of Aftershock lay before us, and every single band has now been put on notice.

Slayer Aftershock 2024 setlist

1. South of Heaven
2. Reborn
3. Blood Red
4. Postmortem
5. Repentless
6. Payback
7. Temptation
8. Jihad
9. Seasons in the Abyss
10. Born of Fire
11. War Ensemble
12. Hate Worldwide
13. Disciple
14. Dead Skin Mask
15. Hell Awaits
16. 213
17. Mandatory Suicide
18. Raining Blood
19. Black Magic
20. Angel of Death

Like a bawling baby found on the steps of some godforsaken orphanage, it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact date of thrash metal’s birth. But the indisputable fact is that by 1983, this feral movement was starting to make its presence known on the underground metal scene. 

That year, Metallica relocated from their native LA to San Francisco’s Bay Area and released debut album Kill ’Em All in July. Fellow Bay Area demons Exodus – who actually predated Metallica, and whose guitarist, Kirk Hammett, the latter had recently poached – were causing chaos in the clubs. Down the Pacific coast in LA, Dave Mustaine, the man whom Kirk replaced in Metallica, was getting Megadeth off the ground and plotting his revenge on his ex-bandmates, while Satanic stormtroopers Slayer released their debut album, Show No Mercy, at the end of the year. Over in New York, the nascent Anthrax got in on the action, releasing their debut single, Soldiers Of Metal. 

If 1983 marked thrash’s infancy, then 1984 saw it accelerating through adolescence. It was 12 months of carnage and chaos in the clubs; of such landmark releases as Anthrax’s debut album Fistful Of Metal and Slayer’s Haunting The Chapel EP; of the rise of bands such as Dark Angel, Hirax, Megadeth and more. And towering above everything was Metallica’s Ride The Lightning, the album that would change the game for everyone.

In January 1984, Anthrax became the third of thrash’s future kings to release an album, with their debut Fistful Of Metal. Like Kill ’Em All six months earlier, it came out on Megaforce Records, the label owned by New Jersey businessman Jon Zazula – aka Jonny Z – and his wife Marsha. Together with Metal Blade owner Brian Slagel, who included Metallica on 1982’s Metal Massacre compilation and released Slayer’s Show No Mercy in December 1983, the Zazulas were instrumental in shaping the thrash scene. 

Scott Ian (Anthrax guitarist): “Jonny was a big guy, he had the beard, he was very brash. And he didn’t give a fuck what anybody thought about him. That was what we needed back then.” 

Maria Ferrero (Megaforce employee): “Jonny and Marsha were so important to what was happening. They were hysterical people - too much fun, but serious at the same time. No bullshit… well, some bullshit! Ha ha!” 

Scott Ian: “We went up to Ithaca, New York, in the fall of ’83. We had two weeks to make Fistful Of Metal. The fact that we were recording an album in a professional studio… it was all just so unbelievable. We were following the paths of our heroes, of Motörhead and Iron Maiden.” 

Maria Ferrero: “Anthrax were thirsty, thirsty, thirsty: ‘We want that.’ They didn’t even have to say it, that’s what it was.” 

Gary Holt (Exodus guitarist): “Anthrax were still in the [original singer] Neil Turbin era - zebra-striped guitars and no shirts. They weren’t really in thrash territory then. Thrashy, but not really thrash.” 

Scott Ian: “Fistful Of Metal came out in January of ’84 with little or no marketing behind it. There was no money to take out ads in magazines. It was word of mouth, Jonny banging on the doors of magazines, calling radio stations: ‘You need to listen to these guys.’”

Spearheaded by Metallica and Exodus in the Bay Area, Slayer, Hirax, Dark Angel and Megadeth in Los Angeles, and Anthrax in New York, this burgeoning movement – christened ‘thrash metal’ by UK journalist Malcolm Dome in a review of Fistful Of Metal – was snowballing. A scene was taking shape. 

Gary Holt: “Before 1984, there wasn’t a thrash scene, there was a metal scene. In ’84, there was a fucking thrash scene.” 

Scott Ian: “We’d been hanging out with the Metallica guys for almost a year by that point. We’d played shows together in clubs in New York and New Jersey in 1983. We hadn’t met Slayer or Exodus yet, but it definitely felt like a scene.” 

Gary Holt: “The first time we met Metallica was when we played together at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco [in November 1982]. It kind of felt like someone was holding a musical mirror up. We became friends immediately, and they moved up to the Bay Area [in early 1983], because LA sucked.” 

Maria Ferrero: “Was there rivalry between the bands? Oh god, yes. Of course.” 

Katon W. De Pena (Hirax frontman): “It was really competitive, and a lot of bands didn’t like each other back in the day. Slayer were pretty hard-ass – they didn’t even get along with Metallica.” 

Brian Slagel (Metal Blade owner): “Metallica and Slayer were never very close. I was friends with both bands, and Metallica would ask me, ‘What are Slayer doing? What are they writing?’ And the Slayer guys would ask me, ‘What are Metallica doing?’ It was, ‘Who’s faster? Who’s heavier?’” 

Lars Ulrich (Metallica): “We were competing, but not in a negative way. We wanted to be the best, we wanted to be the heaviest, the fastest. So our rivals were any band that’d open up for us – we’d be like, ‘Let’s blow ’em out the water!’ I can’t think of a single band we had a real negative relationship with.” 

Dave Mustaine (Megadeth frontman): “It wasn’t enough for Megadeth to do well. I wanted Metallica to fail.” 

Katon W. De Pena: “The competition made the scene stronger. The bands were trying to be better than each other and better themselves as musicians.” Gary Holt: “For Exodus, we didn’t give a shit about anybody else. We just wanted to play our shows and do our thing. We were just gonna drink it and snort it and fucking crush it no matter what. We were out of our minds.”

The emerging thrash scene had three key epicentres: Los Angeles, New York and, most importantly, the Bay Area. Clubs such as Brooklyn’s L’Amour, The Country Club in LA, and Berkeley sweatbox Ruthie’s Inn became the playground of the likes of Anthrax, Exodus and Slayer. 

Gary Holt: “Ruthie’s was an old blues bar, but [owner] Wes Robinson, rest in peace, decided to book Exodus. We were the first metal band to play there. It was taken over in every possible way by bands like us and Metallica. Exodus became Ruthie’s unofficial house band.” 

Katon W. De Pena: “'Ruthie’s was carnage. It was the wild, wild west. People would drink underage, but they got away with it. It would be packed out, really hot, really sweaty, everybody showing how metal they were by keeping on their denim and leather.” 

Gary Holt: “We had our Slay Team - our entourage of fucking maniacs who provided stage security/entertainment. People like Toby Rage, who was a Bay Area legend. I have photos of that dude looking right at the camera, jumping off the top of the PA. All these unsuspecting people below him who were about to get a six-foot-four dude landing on them…” 

Scott Ian: “We heard stories from the Metallica guys about how intense the crowds there were.” 

Gary Holt: “Animal behaviour, people beating each other, PA-top stagedives. Often there were fights onstage, with one guy on one side of me and another guy on the other side, punches flying in front of me and behind me, and I’m bobbing and weaving, just keeping playing.” 

Brian Slagel: “Slayer went up there the first time [in January 1984]. The reaction was really good – they fitted in with that whole scene up there, Exodus, Metallica, all that early thrash stuff.” 

Gary Holt: “They played three nights [in San Francisco]. We played the second one with them. The first one was at the Keystone, Berkeley. After the [Keystone] show, we went to the hotel and told them there was no way they could wear that make-up at Ruthie’s, which is where they were playing the second night. It would not have gone down well. And then we destroyed their hotel. With their permission, of course.” 

Scott Ian: “Our first time in the Bay Area, we played the Kabuki Theatre [on July 7, 1984], supporting Raven, with Exodus opening. Did it feel like we were in enemy territory? Never. We were just super-excited to be there.” 

Gary Holt: “We’d sold that place out as headliners. We were like, ‘Fuck, sure, we’ll play anywhere.’ But our Slay Team did not appreciate the fact that Anthrax were playing after us. We had to call them off. We were, like, ‘Nah, these dudes are fucking cool, they’re our new friends, they’re on our protected list.’ It could have been ugly.”

Scott Ian: “Exodus are playing, and I’m watching this with my fucking jaw on the floor. There were dudes who were head-walking. I was used to slam-dancing and stagediving, but you had guys who would jump into the crowd and then walk across people’s heads as long as they could keep their balance, then fall to the ground. I’m thinking, ‘Holy shit, we have to follow this?’ Exodus should have been headlining. Bow to the kings.” 

Katon W. De Pena: “Don’t get me wrong, I love the Bay Area. I have nothing but mad respect for it. But LA was really going on.” 

Gary Holt: “To us, LA was just this land of Hollywood and posers. And Slayer.”

Katon W. De Pena: “Think about it: three of the Big 4 started in LA – Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, then you got bands like Hirax and Dark Angel. I love my Bay Area brothers, but they gotta be honest - LA had a lot to do with it. It’s like Heaven and Hell - you can’t have one without the other. You gotta have both.”

Scott Ian: “All the thrash stuff in LA would happen at the Country Club in Reseda. We played two nights there with Raven [in July 1984] and the crowd was fucking rabid. One of the nights, Stryper opened the show. We had no idea they were Christian metal until they started throwing Bibles out into the crowd. Our fans just started throwing these Bibles back at Stryper 10 times as hard.”

Maria Ferrero: “The West Coast was a little more concerned with their hair than the East Coast. The East Coast was just, ‘Let’s tear it up!’ It was partly down to the punk influence, the hardcore matinees at [punk dive] CBGBs.”

Scott Ian: “You could say that the Bay Area got more attention, and we were overlooked in New York. But come on, name the major bands who came from the West Coast, not just the Bay Area, but the whole region. You had Metallica leading the way, with Megadeth, Slayer, Testament, Exodus… And New York? There was Anthrax, Overkill and… well, not to be unfair, was there anyone else? I’d say not.”

Gary Holt: “Yeah, there were those other places, but the Bay Area was where it was happening.”

By mid-1984, the thrash scene was really starting to cook. Metallica had already toured Europe in the spring, including a two-night stand at London’s hallowed Marquee Club. Back home, running mates Slayer released the Haunting The Chapel EP in June 1984, showcasing a faster and more vicious sound, while Exodus were recording their debut album, originally titled A Lesson In Violence, but eventually renamed Bonded By Blood. 

Scott Ian: “By the summer of 1984, Metallica were off doing their own thing. Exodus were the kings of the Bay Area.” 

Gary Holt: “Exodus were fucking wild, but we were serious when it was time to record the first album. We recorded in Prairie Sun Studio in Northern California. It was this ranch and they had cabins, so the Slay Team would come up in the evenings. We’d record in the day and fucking partied at night. Some of our friends would get too drunk and get in fights, shit would get broke. The owner later told us we caused a level of destruction that had to be admired.” 

Brian Slagel: “Slayer had these new songs that sounded amazing. They didn’t have enough time to put a full record together, and budgets were challenging at that point, so I was like, ‘We can go in and record them, and you can put them out as a three-track EP [Haunting The Chapel].’” 

Gary Holt: “Our album was everywhere a year before it ever came out [the album was delayed until spring 1985 due to issues with Exodus’s label, Torrid]. This was years before digital downloads, so people were listening to third-or fourth-generation cassettes dubbed on some guy’s boombox. It was frustrating, but I guess it built the myth.” 

Katon W. De Pena: “The tape-trading thing was fever pitch, it was the internet of the time. That’s how you got your stuff around. Mailing your cassette tapes in regular, letter-sized envelopes. We’d send out 50 cassettes a week, no problem.” 

Gary Holt: “I’ve never been a collector. People would send me a list and they had this shit categorised: every show, with a date, rating, quality. Nah, that’s not me.”

Katon W. De Pena: “I got tapes from Chuck Schuldiner in Florida, back when Death were called Mantas. I got Hellhammer tapes from Tom G Warrior, I remember getting the advance tape for the first Bathory record. We were all trading with each other, helping each other out.” 

Gary Holt: “I got a call one day from this kid in Brazil named Max Cavalera. He’d gotten our tape with my mom’s address and phone number on the back. He barely spoke any English at the time, but he wanted to call and talk to me. This was a million years before we ever met.” 

Katon W. De Pena: “It really felt like something was happening. We just didn’t know how big it was going to be.”

While the rest of thrash’s young bucks were establishing themselves, Metallica were already pulling ahead. In February 1984, they flew to Lars Ulrich’s native Denmark to record their second album, Ride The Lightning, with producer Flemming Rasmussen in Sweet Silence Studios, on the outskirts of Copenhagen. 

Released on July 27, 1984, Ride The Lightning was a huge step on from Kill ’Em All, and an evolutionary leap forward for thrash. It refined its predecessor’s heads-down noise, but featured an acoustic guitar intro to opening song Fight Fire With Fire, and even included a thrash metal power ballad in the shape of the bleak Fade To Black, written by a disconsolate James Hetfield after some of the band’s gear was stolen from outside a gig in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Maria Ferrero: “We’d heard a lot of those songs before they recorded the album. They’d stay in our area for months at a time, rehearsing in people’s basements, and they’d play stuff for us. It sounded great.” 

Katon W. De Pena: “Everybody was waiting to see what they were gonna do, where they were gonna go. There were a lot of great bands, but Metallica were leading this whole thing.” 

Flemming Rasmussen (producer): “Lars called me and asked if I wanted to record Ride The Lightning. I had never heard of them, and I didn’t know Kill ’Em All existed.”

Lars Ulrich: “We were really broke. We had to live day by day. A friend literally gave us his apartment to stay in while we were recording. James and I slept in the bedroom, Kirk and Cliff shared his couch.” 

Flemming Rasmussen: “I really loved their energy and passion and ambition. They had a totally different attitude to the Danish bands that I had worked with, and were really enthusiastic about picking my brain and learning new things. We sparked up a great friendship immediately.” 

Lars Ulrich: “Obviously, listening to songs like Fight Fire [With Fire] and Trapped Under Ice, we were obviously still into the thrash type of stuff. But we were realising you had to be careful that it didn’t become too limiting or one-dimensional.” 

Scott Ian: “Cliff [Burton, Metallica bassist] was the one who really taught them about melody. Cliff was the maestro. He was really accomplished and was thinking beyond thrash and metal.” 

James Hetfield: “If we’d been told when we were recording Kill ’Em All that we were gonna record a ballad [Fade To Black] on the next record, I’d have said, ‘Fuck off!’”

Flemming Rasmussen: “When we listened back to what we had done, they were blown away, and were so proud. I had never heard that kind of power come through the studio speakers.” 

Maria Ferrero: “There was such anticipation. But they really took us by surprise with what they delivered. We all expected Kill ’Em All Pt 2. Instead, we had Kirk Hammett’s writing, his musicality.” 

Gary Holt: “I loved it. Everybody loved it. Come on, it starts with Fight Fire With Fire. How do you not love that? Ride The Lightning’s one of my favourite songs of theirs. Trapped Under Ice… It’s killer.” 

Lars Ulrich: “There was an odd reaction to Fade To Black and to the variety of the record. It did surprise us a little bit, I guess. People started calling us sell-outs and all that type of stuff.” 

Katon W. De Pena: “I thought it was great. I still think it’s great! The thing about the thrash metal scene was it was always us against the world. Some of the hardcore thrash metal people were getting mad that people who weren’t, quote-unquote, ‘hardcore’ were getting into it. There was a little bit of pushback.” 

Maria Ferrero: “Jonny and Marsha put out 70,000 copies of that record. It just flew. They made some money out of it, and they fucking should have, because they really put the work into that band and that album to get them to that level.”

Ride The Lightning didn’t trouble the album charts on either side of the Atlantic at the time, but Metallica’s ambitions were clear. The band signed with hotshot management company Q Prime and major labels were sniffing around them. A week after Ride The Lightning’s release, Metallica left Megaforce to sign with Elektra Records, who immediately reissued the album. 

Lars Ulrich [speaking in 1984]: “[Q Prime co-founder] Cliff Burnstein has this big belief that what we are doing will be the next big thing in heavy metal… Metallica could be the frontrunners of a new branch of heavy metal.” 

Michael Alago [Elektra Records A&R man]: “I got to see them at L’Amour in Brooklyn in 1983 with my friend [future Monster Magnet guitarist] Phil Caivano. Their insane, kickass performance completely blew me away.” 

Maria Ferrero: “We had a concert at [New York venue] the Roseland Ballroom [on August 3, 1984] that had Metallica, Anthrax and Raven. The night was legendary.” 

Scott Ian: “I still remember walking onstage, we opened with Deathrider and 3,500 kids had their fists in the air – every single one. We’ve never seen anything like it before. Not even a year before that, you had us and Metallica playing shithole dive bars in New Jersey to 100 people.” 

Michael Alago: “I knew there were other A&R people there. So basically I bolted the door shut, and wound up being the only one backstage early in the evening. I said: ‘Look, I’m freaking out. I love you guys and you have to come to my office tomorrow.’ I had them come to the Elektra conference room where we had Chinese food and beer. I also gave them a bunch of vinyl and cassettes, specifically the MC5, The Doors and The Stooges. It was a very exciting and joyous time.” 

Maria Ferrero: “The night of that Roseland gig, Metallica signed to Elektra, Anthrax signed to Island and Raven signed to Atlantic. We had arrived. Everybody had arrived.” 

Scott Ian: “It was literally the point of this new wave coming in, and that night at Roseland, certainly for us and Metallica, that wave broke.” 

Katon W. De Pena: “It opened the floodgates. It was like grunge before grunge.”

Lars Ulrich’s statement that his band “could be the frontrunners of a new branch of heavy metal” proved to be accurate. Other bands were following the path cleared by Metallica, Slayer, Exodus, Anthrax et al: the likes of the Bay Area’s Possessed, Death Angel and Legacy (later to change their name to Testament); New Jersey’s Overkill; Voivod from Canada. 

By 1985, Exodus, Megadeth, Hirax and Dark Angel had dropped their debut albums, while Slayer and Anthrax delivered classic followups with Hell Awaits and Spreading The Disease respectively. It would take a couple more years for the thrash scene to bubble into to the mainstream, but this groundswell of snarling, drunken malcontents had to be taken seriously. 

Gary Holt: “’83, ’84, ’85 were all pivotal. We were learning, we were growing, we were creating this thing.” 

Maria Ferrero: “We were all kids. None of us thought, ‘This is what we’re gonna do for a job.’ This is what we’re doing instead of working.” 

Gary Holt: “Did I think, ‘We’re changing the world here?’ No. I just knew I was having a good time. I know a fucking good time when I see it, and we were having it.” 

Scott Ian: “Did it feel like a changing of the guard? No. Even Metallica – and in 1984, they were ahead of everybody else – it still wasn’t Maiden or Judas Priest or Ozzy. But we were confident and strong and we thought the whole world had to hear it. Give us a stage where this bull can rage!” 

Gary Holt: “What other music scenes rivalled it? The Tampa death metal scene? The black metal scene? The New England melodic hardcore scene? They wouldn’t have existed without thrash. Fuck no.” 

Katon W. De Pena: “1984 was the most important year. That was the year it really started to explode. ’84 was the spark that set off the whole thing. By 1985, it was on fire.”

Metallica have bigger songs. They have better songs. But no Metallica song has had the same impact as the one that opened their game-changing debut album, Kill ’Em All. Four minutes and 17 seconds of suburban fury, Hit The Lights fired the starting pistol on the career of the most successful metal band in history and, by extension, invented modern metal as we know it.

If anyone can take credit for inadvertently galvanising both Hit The Lights and Metallica themselves into existence, it’s Brian Slagel. An LA fanzine writer and aspiring record label mogul with an ardent love of heavy metal, he’d met an exuberant, ambitious 17-year-old Danish ex-pat named Lars Ulrich in the parking lot of a Michael Schenker Group gig in Los Angeles in 1980. Lars hadn’t been in LA long, arriving there after abandoning his hopes of becoming a professional tennis player like his dad to pursue his rock’n’roll dreams.

“I remember being at his house one day, and he had a drum set in the corner – not put together, just the pieces,” Brian told Metal Hammer in 2021. “He goes, ‘I’m gonna start a band.’ ‘Yeah, sure, Lars, whatever…’”

Lars had been jamming with a bunch of musicians, including a lanky kid he’d met named James Hetfield. Nothing had come of any of it, but Lars wasn’t ready to give up. When Brian Slagel told his friend in the autumn of 1981 that he was putting together a compilation album titled Metal Massacre to showcase the underground LA metal scene, Lars wanted in. “He called me up and said, ‘Hey, if I put together a band, can I be on your compilation album?’” said Brian. 

That band would be the earliest incarnation of Metallica: essentially Lars and his new buddy James jamming in a bedroom. The song they wrote for the Metal Massacre compilation – the very first song they ever wrote together – was Hit The Lights, an enthusiastic slice of early 80s heavy metal cannibalised from an existing song James had from a previous group.

“Hetfield brought in the verses and the chorus, which came from something he had done in a band called Leather Charm, and I brought in the whole back half of it, which was from something I had done before,” Lars told Metal Hammer in 2016. “After three verses and three choruses, it goes into this whole other universe, with a new riff and a fucking half-hour-long jam out.”

The pair enlisted the help of Lloyd Grant, a hotshot guitarist Lars had been jamming with who could play the solos James couldn’t (though the latter did play bass). “They’d got a tape and it was an early instrumental version of Hit The Lights,” Lloyd told Metal Hammer in 2016. “I liked it – I wish we’d written it! It was probably a bit faster than I was trying to write at the time, but it was right up my alley.”

The band didn’t even have a name at this point. After cycling through some fairly unpromising options, Lars settled on a name he had pilfered from a friend who was considering it for the title of a fanzine: Metallica.

Hit The Lights may have been written and recorded for the Metal Massacre compilation, eventually released in August 1982, but it made its debut five months earlier as the opening track on Metallica’s first proper demo, recorded in March 1982. This version had been redone by the first solid Metallica line-up assembled by James and Lars, featuring the singer’s schoolfriend ex-Leather Charm bandmate Ron McGovney on bass and a wild, charismatic kid named Dave Mustaine on second guitar.

“The song wasn’t bad,” wrote Dave Mustaine in his 2010 autobiography Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir of the first time he heard Hit The Lights. “The playing was uniformly sloppy, the sound quality even worse, and the singer had little pitch control or charisma. But there was energy. And style. When it ended, Lars smiled. ‘What do you think?’ ‘You need more guitar solos, that’s for sure.'” 

Despite his criticisms, the prototype version is easily recognisable as the one that would eventually open Kill ’Em All. James Hetfield’s singing is a more indebted to the trad-metal of the time than his later feral snap, but the jagged chug and air of malicious intent are both evident. 

The band knew the value of the song from the start. It was the opening number at their first ever gig, at Radio City, Anaheim, on March 14, 1982 (a spot setlist it would hold in the Metallica until early 1984). By the time it re-appeared on their landmark No Life ’Til Leather demo, released in July 1982, it had become the closest thing they had to a signature song. It certainly provided Metallica with their mission statement. “No life ’til leather/We’re gonna kick some ass tonight,” howled James, a promise those early Metallica shows delivered on.

Spearheaded by Hit The Lights, the No Life ’Til Leather demo became Metallica’s calling card. A network of grassroots tape traders began circulating it, its speed and aggression setting it apart from most other metal songs at the time. One person who heard No Life ’Til Leather was Jon Zazula, aka Jonny Z, who owned and ran the record shop Rock’N’Roll Heaven from his house in New Jersey with his wife Marsha. 

“We sold demo tapes at the time, but we didn’t play them cos they sounded so crappy,” Jon told Metal Hammer in 2016. “But we happened to play this one and it was, ‘Wow, this is amazing!’ It just had this energy and speed to it that other bands didn’t.” So impressed was he that he offered to manage the band, subsequently founding his own record label, Megaforce, to release Metallica’s debut album when no other labels were interested (Jon passed away in 2022; Marsha, died in 2021).

Metallica didn’t exist in isolation. Other bands were making equally forward-looking rackets: Slayer in LA, Anthrax in New York, Exodus up the coast in the Bay Area. But Metallica had gotten there first with Hit The Lights, and they were perpetually half a length ahead of the competition.

Metal Massacre, the compilation that prompted Lars Ulrich to form his band, was finally released in August 1982. Hit The Lights, still featuring one of Lloyd Grant’s original solos (to Dave Mustaine’s annoyance), was its closing track. The song was erroneously credited to ‘Mettallica.’ “Yeah, we got it wrong,” Brian Slagel told Metal Hammer. “I don’t think it did them any harm in the long run.”

It certainly didn’t. When Metallica released Kill ’Em All in July 1983 via Johnny and Marsha Z’s Megaforce label, Hit The Lights took its rightful place as the record’s opening track. It was one part self-mythologising flex, one part tribute to the small but growing battalion of followers. “You know our fans are insane/We're gonna blow this place away,” sang James. “With volume higher/Than anything today.”

Kill ’Em All, and Hit The Lights, didn’t turn Metallica into overnight stars - the album was either ignored or mocked by the metal press at the time. Yet those who were paying attention knew that it signified a change, one that would come to fruition sooner than anyone could ever anticipate with the advent of the thrash scene. With that came a baseline shift in metal itself – it got harder, faster, more vicious, more real. 

But just as Metallica themselves had planted the seeds for thrash with Hit The Lights, so they were the first to outgrow it. Within 10 years, they’d gone from scrappy underdogs to the biggest metal band on the planet, and one of the most successful bands in any genre. And once again, where Metallica led, so many other bands followed.

“James and I had some ideas,” said Lars in 2016 of Hit The Lights, the song that started it all. “We took those ideas and glued them together, heavied it up and made it fast, put some energy and some youthful punkish enthusiasm behind it, and out came this Metallica thing.”

On November 29 and 30, 2019, Slayer brought the curtain down on their 38-year career with the second of two consecutive shows at the 17,500- capacity LA Forum. It was a momentous occasion, but Kerry King, guitarist and co-lyricist since the very beginning of the band, shed no tears before, during or after the show. “I don’t think I had time,” he says today, casting his mind back. “I was busy. Was it overwhelming? Yeah, probably. But tears? No, I don’t think one came out.” 

The managers of the Forum had extended the curfew until 3am to facilitate a fabulously messy after-party, but even as family members, friends and VIP guests including Kirk Hammett, Scott Ian, King Diamond, rapper Post Malone and actor Jason Momoa offered their congratulations and best wishes on the night, Kerry had already mentally clocked off, eager to make his next move. 

Not only had he already discreetly assembled a new band, and earmarked which unreleased songs from sessions for Slayer’s 2015 Repentless album this as-yet-unnamed group would re-record for his debut solo album, he had even thrown out a handful of bespoke plectrums at the end of each gig on Slayer’s 19-date Final Campaign victory lap. 

These picks, collectors’ items today, displayed a silhouette of King playing guitar in front of a wall of flames on one side and the words ‘Reborn 2020’ on the other. With this simple declaration of independence, Kerry King made it clear that, post-Slayer, he would still be taking care of business on his own terms. “I knew what my future was, and I knew what that future would sound like,” he says now. “I just hadn’t envisaged a pandemic putting the future on hold for so long.” 

The global shutdown did at least afford Kerry additional space in which to perfect his plans. He was rarely idle. In fact, the lyrics for two songs on his album were completed during one 36-hour quarantine period spent in a hotel room after testing positive for Covid-19. All the while, he kept details of his new project locked down. “I’m dragging my feet on letting the world know what I’m doing because there’s no rush,” he told Hammer back in October 2021. “But you will see me in the future. It will be fucking good.” 

As of May 17, you can decide for yourself whether his debut solo album, From Hell I Rise, lives up to that promise. But trust us, if you’re a Slayer fan, you will not be disappointed. Having previously described it as “an extension of Slayer”, the guitarist is fully aware that From Hell I Rise will be judged against one of the most formidable catalogues in the history of metal. 

“I feel this record is some of the best stuff I’ve ever done,” he says with the quiet confidence of a man who knows that the work needs no hype. Elevated by career-best performances from his new all-star band - Death Angel vocalist Mark Osegueda, former Vio-lence/Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel, ex-Hellyeah bassist Kyle Sanders and long-time Slayer drummer Paul Bostaph - the album’s 13 songs are all thrillingly intense, unrelentingly aggressive and fearlessly uncompromising.

That ferocity is enhanced by scathing lyrics that rage against intolerance, bigotry, hypocrisy, corruption, feckless politicians, brutish warmongers, the church and the state. Two songs – the title track and apoplectic state-of-the-nation address Rage – are holdovers from the Repentless sessions. Everything else sounds like it could be, albeit with Phil Demmel’s classic metal melodicism and Mark Osegueda’s expansive range adding texture and dynamics.

Is it Reign In Blood good? Don’t be ridiculous, no metal album will ever be Reign In Blood good again. But, song-for-song, From Hell I Rise effortlessly crushes almost everything Slayer have released since Seasons In The Abyss in 1990. 

“Did I feel like I had something to prove?” Kerry considers. “I think I felt that more on the last Slayer album, because it was the first album without Jeff [Hanneman, King’s fellow guitarist and songwriter in Slayer, who passed away in 2013, aged 49]. I think I had a chip on my shoulder because I knew people were saying, ‘Ah, Hanneman isn’t there, it’s not going to be that good.’ But then Repentless came out and they were like, ‘Huh, King can do it on his own.’

“This is completely on me, so I knew that I had to come up with some great stuff. I think of myself as a fan first, so if I’m into it and I think it’s something really special, I think my fans are going to think it’s awesome.”

The guitarist’s beautiful Manhattan home, located in the hip, upscale Tribeca neighbourhood, is the type of apartment for which the expression ‘property porn’ could have been coined. Purchased in 2022 by Kerry and his wife Ayesha for a reported $3.65 million, its minimalist decor – all white walls and gleaming surfaces – is a world removed from the chaotic, blood-soaked hellscapes his music evokes. 

“The white walls mean you can put out any kind of painting or sculpture,” he explains politely when this contrast is mentioned. “And while we’re certainly not fine art collectors, it’s nice to be able to create your own vibe.” 

While the Los Angeles-born Kerry never expected to end up living on the East Coast, he concedes that New York has “a different but super-cool vibe”. He credits Anthrax bassist Frank Bello and Skid Row guitarist Dave ‘Snake’ Sabo as easing his relocation to the Big Apple, and talks up the area’s restaurants.

“My main worry here is knowing what to eat without sitting around and getting fat, because I gotta get back to work soon,” he says, referring to his debut solo shows later this year. 

In conversation, the 59-year-old is relaxed and good-humoured, much less brusque than he sometimes comes across as. But you won’t get that impression from reading his furious lyrics throughout From Hell I Rise. He singles out a line from the song Toxic - ‘Too many people spend too much time forcing their opinion on other people’s lives’ - as pivotal, admitting that much of his disgust throughout the album comes from his anger at seeing how America has become more polarised in the wake of Donald Trump’s rise to power midway through the last decade. 

“Of course there are places in the world that are far worse off than America,” he says, “but since 2016 it’s gone bad here, it’s been… [long pause] a nutty ride, how’s that?” 

Before Slayer split, Kerry made no secret of his opposition to Tom Araya’s vocal support of Trump, and while it wasn’t the pair’s divergent political views that led the band to break up, he acknowledges that the opportunity to call out shit exactly as he sees it in his lyrics now is liberating. “I knew that I wasn’t going to get any backlash saying what I felt,” he says. 

By his own admission, he was totally blindsided, and not a little irritated, by Tom’s decision to call time on Slayer. “We quit too early,” he stated bluntly in 2021. “Fuck us.” 

In an interview with Rolling Stone on February 5 this year, the same day as the album’s first single, Idle Hands, was released, Kerry admitted that he hadn’t spoken to his ex-bandmate since the post-gig party at the Forum. 

“Not even a text. Not even an email,” he said, then casually added: “But I don’t wish him dead at this moment”. Which made what happened next even more surprising. Just over two weeks later, it was announced that Slayer would be reforming to play a headline show at the Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky on September 27 (more festival date announcements followed). 

It’s difficult not to view the timing of the Slayer reunion announcement as weird at best and damaging at worst. Media attention switched in an instant from one of 2024’s most eagerly anticipated metal albums to the most unexpected reformation of the year. Days before our scheduled interview with the guitarist took place, an instruction was received from the guitarist’s camp that the subject of Slayer’s return would be off-limits in this conversation, with his UK publicist monitoring the interview to ensure this directive is followed. 

It’s odd, given the guitarist has never been one to duck a difficult question. He cheerfully admits today to being “a little bit surprised” that he didn’t receive a single approach to join another band after rumours of Slayer’s planned retirement were confirmed, expressing mock indignation at this industry-wide snub. “I got a reputation! I don’t suck!” he protests. “I thought maybe Mercyful Fate might come knocking, but no. I was like, ‘What the hell is going on here?’” 

More seriously, he confirms the rumours that he entertained the possibility of collaborating with Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo. “He heard some material, but honestly that was about it. We talked, emailed, texted, off and on, he’s a hard guy to get on the phone, a hard guy to get responses from,” he says, insisting that he harboured no regrets when those discussions petered out. 

Read between the lines here, and there’s a distinct sense that while an alliance with Anselmo would have delighted some industry big-hitters, Mark Osegueda was always the man Kerry wanted fronting his band. “I knew, at the end of the day, what the right decision was,” he says tactfully of his final choice of singer. “I was just waiting for it to fall into my lap.”

The first person Kerry played his new album to was Brian Slagel, the founder and CEO of Metal Blade Records, a neat full circle moment ahead of his second act. It was Brian who introduced Slayer to the world in 1983 when he included their song Aggressive Perfector on his label’s Metal Massacre III compilation, and Metal Blade released the band’s first two albums, Show No Mercy and Hell Awaits, as well as the Haunting The Chapel and Live Undead EPs. 

He remains one of only a handful of people whose opinions Kerry values, and the guitarist makes no effort to temper his delight with the feedback Brian offered when he heard an early playback of From Hell I Rise. “I don’t even think we got past the third song before he told me that the hair was standing up on his arms,” says Kerry with a chuckle. “I said, ‘Well, I guess it’s a hit!’” 

The prospect of being involved with hit records was far from either man’s thoughts when Brian offered Slayer that slot on the Metal Massacre III album after watching them opening for the Metal Blade band Bitch in Anaheim, California. Which is not to say that the teenage Kerry King or his bandmates lacked ambition, focus or drive.

After the guitarist purchased the first Metal Massacre compilation, which featured Hit The Lights by ‘Mettallica’ [sic] as the closing track on side two, his own band’s collective opinion was, “We can come up with something better than this shit.” 

Today, he recalls that even when they were filling out their setlist with Iron Maiden and Judas Priest covers, Slayer never doubted their own potential. “We’re talking about teenagers,” he says, “and teenagers think they can do anything. We knew we had something good. We hoped and believed that the world would come around to heavier music, and so it proved.”

Such was Kerry’s commitment to the cause that when his father, employed as an aircraft parts inspector, offered to find his musician son a position at the same company, the proposition was met with the enquiry: “Will I be able to go on tour?” Told “Probably not”, the guitarist responded: “Then thanks, but no thanks.” 

“Back then I never had a job that I’d have been upset to lose,” he recalls. “I worked at a jewellery store, and a minigolf place, and a pet store, but I always said that if a gig came up, and I couldn’t get the time off, then it was, ‘See ya!’” 

To their credit, Kerry’s parents remained supportive of their youngest child’s ambitions. After Brian Slagel informed Slayer that he didn’t have the money to release a full-length album on Metal Blade, it was Mr and Mrs King who, along with Tom Araya, chipped in to finance the recording, pressing and releasing of Show No Mercy. 

Today, Kerry admits that it wasn’t until the release of Reign In Blood, at which point Slayer got to tour in a bus, that he felt the band’s future was secure. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t consider us rock stars,” he says, “but if I look back, I think I probably thought, ‘Well, at least we’re in the brotherhood now.’” 

He singles out Slayer’s first appearance at the Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington Park in 1992 as highlight of the band’s storied career. “That was really big for me, a dream come true, because we’d always read about these incredible bills featuring incredible bands, and it took us a long time to get there. Plus I got to meet Venom that day!” 

Despite the bullish persona, he says it took him far longer than it should have to be able to talk to his heavy metal heroes without feeling like a total fanboy. “Tony Iommi is a total idol to me, so to be able to talk with him like a normal person would blow my mind,” he says. 

It’s here that you get a glimpse of the sweet, polite and rather nerdy Kerry King that existed before the discovery of a) Van Halen and b) girls derailed his studies, and before an obsessive love affair with heavy metal led to the formation of Slayer and the 38-year journey that brought him to this point. It seems like an opportune moment to address the elephant in the room. 

When the realisation hit that Slayer would not last forever, what was his first thought? “That I wasn’t done.” 

Timing-wise, is it not odd now to be doing promo for your record, when literally weeks ago it was announced that Slayer are coming back to do these shows? There is the briefest of pauses before he answers. 

“Yes, it was not my favourite timing. In Kerry King world, would I have wished that that announcement had taken place a few months later? Absolutely. But that was out of my hands. The announcement came, and people got all excited or all pained about it, but hopefully when I release another song, the attention will switch back to my record.” 

So are you looking at these shows as basically a good promo opportunity for your record? “I think that’s my manager’s idea, and my promoter’s idea, that’s how they look at it,” he says. “[The Slayer reunion] is not going to translate into recording and it’s not going to translate into touring. For me, it’s three shows marking five years since our final shows, a fun, ‘Hey, remember us from before the pandemic?’ celebration.” 

Have you spoken to Tom since the news broke? “No.” 

Is that not a bit unusual? “What’s usual? There’s no textbook for this stuff. It’s not like I’m angry with him or anything, we’re very different people, and we evolved into business partners at the end of the day. He has very different interests from me, and very different outlooks. Does that make me hate him? No. But I don’t need to talk to him every day.” 

We’re not trying to stir up shit here… “Oh, I know.” 

…but how is this going to work, practically? Will you wait for management to force you into a room together to rehearse? “It’s not weird. We just don’t have much in common. When it comes time to rehearse, I’ll have no problem showing up. We’re professionals, and that’s what we do.” 

At this point, a muffled interjection from another voice on the call indicates discussion of this particular topic is now closed.

Before our conversation closes, Kerry mentions that today he’s dressed “in camo, my zip-up boots, and a band t-shirt”, same as ever. It’s a neat visual reminder of just how little he has changed after four decades, even if the world around him is almost unrecognisable from the one in which he and his teenage buddies set out to form the darkest, fastest, heaviest and nastiest metal band the world had ever seen. 

“There is no Kerry King ‘character’,” he says at one point. “What you see is what you get. You all know me. I have no reason to lie.” 

From Hell I Rise was never intended to change that. Whatever ‘So begins my revolution’, the teasing opening lyric of Idle Hands, may imply, Kerry King isn’t seeking to break free from his own history. 

“If I had any craving to deviate from the path - trying out some sensitive singer/songwriter shit or showing off a new-found interest in jazz - this would be the time to do it, right?” he says, chuckling once more. “But that’s not who I am. I’ve been playing the kind of music I love for most of my life, and while I think what I’ve done on this record has a mildly different spin on it, there’s no question when you turn it on who you’re listening to. 

“Is that enough for everyone? It’s enough for me. I still write riffs that make me lift my guitar over my head and do a little victory dance because I’m so stoked with how they sound. There’s a whole new energy to this record, and a whole new excitement, but it’s not a whole new me, because I’m not finished being me. And if you like what Kerry King does as much as I like what Kerry King does, you won’t be disappointed.”

From Hell I Rise is out now via Reigning Phoenix. Kerry King plays Download Festival this weekend. 

A lawsuit by a metal drummer has cost Tesla and X (formerly Twitter) CEO Elon Musk $56 billion.

Richard Tornetta, a drummer who’s previously played in a thrash band called Dawn Of Correction, sued Musk in 2018, after the Tesla board of directors granted the billionaire the incredibly hefty sum as a pay package. The lawsuit was widely reported in 2022.

Tornetta held nine shares in the electric car company when he filed the suit, and believed the vast handout was unfair to him and his fellow shareholders.

The case went to trial in late 2022 and, on Tuesday (January 30), Chancellor Of The Delaware Court Of Chancery Kathaleen McCormick sided with Tornetta. The multi-billion-dollar payment deal was voided in the process.

Musk responded on X: “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware.”

Eric Talley, a teacher of corporate law at Columbia Law School, has told The Guardian: “[Tornetta’s] name is now etched in the annals of corporate law. My students will be reading Tornetta v Musk for the next 10 years.”

According to Metal Archives, Dawn Of Correction were founded in 2005 and split in 2009. The band released one album, Dead Hand Control, in 2008 and played a gig at legendary New York punk venue CBGB before its close in 2006.

Dawn Of Correction described their music as “a swift kick to the face with a steel-toed work boot”, according to Reuters.

As reported by The New York Post, Tornetta has gone on to work in the marketing department of online real estate marketing service Homecast.

The new ruling marks Musk’s second costly legal defeat in the state of Delaware. In 2022, the businessman tried to back out of his acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion, until the company sued him in The Delaware Court Of Chancery for breaching a binding legal agreement.

Before this, Musk had won a string of lawsuits, which had accused him of defamation, of breaching his duty to shareholders and of violating securities laws.

Thrash metal has always been a culture unto itself. It has its own movements (see San Francisco and Teutonic thrash for proof), its own fashion (snapbacks and patched-up denim) and even its own pantheon of gods: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. But, when members of this extreme metal cult look beyond their borders, things can get incredibly interesting. From legendary veterans to young guns, these are the best cover songs ever released by thrash metal artists.

Metallica – Turn The Page (Bob Seger cover; Garage Inc., 1998)

Not content solely with such game-changing originals as Master Of Puppets and Fade To Black, Metallica are also arguably the greatest cover act in popular music. The show-offs. The height of The Four Horsemen’s transformative powers was flaunted when they took a classic by one of America’s seminal songwriters, Bob Seger’s Turn The Page, and somehow made it better. They retained the original’s tragedy and vagrant twang while upping the rock ’n’ roll urgency, and it’s just immaculate. 

Megadeth – No More Mr Nice Guy (Alice Cooper cover; Shocker soundtrack, 1989)

Megadeth were thrash metal’s biggest outlaws. Wildmen onstage and hedonistic off of it, who else in the scene could more believably readapt No More Mr Nice Guy? Dave Mustaine snarls his way through Alice Cooper’s signature track, his grit behind such lines as “My cat clawed my eyes” making them feel far realer than before. The band thankfully cleaned themselves up in the 1990s, but this cover will always be laced with a dangerous bad boy streak.

Slayer – Dissident Aggressor (Judas Priest cover; South Of Heaven, 1988)

By 1988, Slayer’s reputation as thrash’s most malevolent force was sealed, Reign In Blood having blasted the bullet belt off even the most ardent speed metal freak. The Hollywood hellraisers had nothing left to prove in the game of lightning-fast brutality, so they wisely slowed to a groove metal hammering on South Of Heaven. Dissident Aggressor fit this new approach seamlessly, bulking up the percussion and rhythm riffs of Judas Priest’s original while threading in Tom Araya’s characteristically anguished wails.

Anthrax – Got The Time (Joe Jackson cover; Persistence Of Time, 1990)

We see you, person about to rush into our comment section and moan, “But what about Antisocial?!” While Anthrax’s redo of Trust’s gang-vocalled hit is iconic, Got The Time’s better. No metal band of the New Yorkers’ vintage had the bravery nor vision to reach into post-punk’s deepest pockets, then turn whatever they yanked out into a scrambling standout. Joe Jackson didn’t like it, but this version’s seven times more popular than his (according to Spotify numbers), so who cares?

Sepultura – The Hunt (New Model Army cover; Chaos A.D., 1993)

Sepultura’s beefed-up redo of The Hunt has been somewhat sidelined in their discography, with other covers like Orgasmatron being favoured live. This is still a belter, though. Seps’ most out-of-character reinterpretation (in that the original wasn’t by a fellow metal or Brazilian band) lives in the fascinating juxtaposition between those accessible guitar chords and Iggor Cavalera’s punishing snare sound. It’s a balance between the palatable and the barrel-chested that the band never quite recreated in any of their self-penned anthems.

Machine Head – Hallowed Be Thy Name (Iron Maiden cover; The Blackening bonus track, 2007)

Signing on to cover an Iron Maiden classic? You may as well be signing your own death warrant. The Beast’s back-catalogue is beloved by possibly the biggest cult following in all of metal, and any stab at their stuff is interrogated with ears eager for you to fall short. Machine Head slayed Hallowed Be Thy Name, however, intensifying the song’s slips from ominous verses to bombastic crescendos by throwing the entirety of their groove metal heft on top.

Power Trip – Brainwave (Prong cover; Power Trip, 2011)

Blue-collar thrashers Power Trip found stardom by keeping shit basic. Their modern masterpiece, Nightmare Logic, stayed strictly with single-pedal drumming, ensuring that primal heaviness remained in their repertoire while peers got lost in oceans of over-technicality. The band’s 2011 Prong cover was an early sign that such simplicity yields incredible results, its marching drums and chiselled riff colliding with Riley Gale’s roars to create a bona fide pit-starter. The loss of such prodigious talent still stings.

Celtic Frost – Mexican Radio (Wall Of Voodoo cover; Into The Pandemonium, 1987)

Into The Pandemonium was Celtic Frost’s “fuck it” album. By the time the Swiss masters were recording it, they’d already made their mark, shaping emerging stars from Sepultura to Kreator. So, with their legacy secured, they asked, ‘Should we write classical songs?’ Fuck it! ‘How about an industrial track with an EDM beat?’ Fuck it! ‘And should we open the album with a new wave cover that’s better than it has any right to be?’ … Fuck it!

Overkill – Fuck You (Subhumans cover; Fuck You, 1987)

During their foundational years, Overkill’s disdain for authority was as subtle as a brick through your window. The New Jerseyans were massive fans of NY punk bands like The Ramones, who stunned the establishment just up the road, and they channelled that spirit on a debut album that declared them Rotten To The Core and covered Sonic Reducer. Fuck You, however, was the boldest announcement of Overkill’s punk proclivities, with the Subhumans cover’s eponymous EP getting censored in certain shops.

Sylosis – Zero (The Smashing Pumpkins cover; Dormant Heart bonus track, 2015)

Zero has one of the heaviest guitar parts ever penned by a band outside the metal sphere, so it was only a matter of time before somebody in our genre poached it for themselves. In the end it was UK thrash/death metal mavens Sylosis who stepped up to the plate. The Reading rabble complemented the cutting bravado of The Smashing Pumpkins’ riff with unabashed extreme metal roars, resulting in a mixture that works as magnificently as pumpkin pie.

Any year where Metallica release a new album is automatically a great year to be a thrash fan. However, extreme music’s fastest, scrappiest genre would have still thrived in 2023 even if we didn’t hear a peep from the Four Horsemen.

While Overkill kept the genre’s roots alive with the reliably blistering Scorched, cult beloveds Sylosis blasted out some of the strongest songs of their career and a host of up-and-comers, from Pest Control to Enforced, announced themselves. To celebrate the intense strength of thrash in 2023, Metal Hammer’s compiled the 10 greatest albums it procured in the last 12 months.

Enforced – War Remains

From the rampaging pace and squealing guitars of opener Aggressive Menace, it takes Enforced less than 20 seconds to declare themselves one of thrash metal's most exciting new bands with their third album War Remains. It'd be glib to say Enforced sound like they've been thawed out from a state of stasis from the late-80s, as the fact is hardly anyone in the world of crossover thrash has sounded this infectiously enthusiastic about the style since Municipal Waste offered their own take almost two decades ago, Enforced ignoring the party crown to instead embrace thrash's most apocalyptic visions direct from their Discharge-inspired roots. RICH HOBSON

Gama Bomb – Bats

With songs entitled Living Dead In Beverly Hills, Egyptron and Speed Funeral, Gama Bomb resumed their rambunctious ways in 2023. The Irish thrashers’ eighth album wove 11 endearingly campy horror yarns, singer Philly Byrne howling about zombies and mummies’ curses atop music that sounded as fast as it did flamboyant. The band even reanimated their deceased mascot, Snowy The Gamabombinable Snowman, to hammer home all of their spooky sonic antics. MATT MILLS

Hellripper – Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags

Straddling the line between black metal and all-out thrash, Hellripper drew on the folklore of their native Scotland for their third record, bringing forth a snarling, venomous beast every bit as evil-sounding and menacing as anything Slayer have produced. More than that, James McBain's project is showcasing a sense of theatricality and scale seldom seen before, elevating their songwriting craft whilst never losing sight of their underground roots, each Iron Maiden like gallop and melodic lead guitar counteracted with a double-barrel blast of blackened bile straight from the belly of the beast. RICH HOBSON

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Petrodragonic Apocalypse

 King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard release a lot of albums. To date, they’ve popped out 25 studio albums (last year they released five!) and 16 live albums. For those who struggle to keep up with their ever-increasing load, their first record of 2023, PetroDragonic Apocalypse, makes for the perfect getaway back into their weird and wild world of genre-jumping and rushed release-rates. On this LP, the psychedelic wizards trade in for a thrashier sound, packing to the brim with amphetamine-fuelled, racing riffs and scorching tempos. The cherry on the cake: super smoky vocals that sound remarkably like Sleep’s Al Cisneros for that added doomy touch. LIZ SCARLETT

Metallica – 72 Seasons

With the title of Metallica’s 11th album referencing the first 18 years of life, frontman James Hetfield bore his soul on 72 Seasons. “Lost his way through wicked streets, but he is someone’s little boy,” his lyrics unloaded during Chasing Light. Underscoring the anger and sorrow was some of Metallica’s most full-throttle music to date, eschewing ballads in favour of immense groove and, on single Lux Æterna especially, unabashedly unfettered thrash. MATT MILLS

Mutoid Man – Mutants

It had been six shitty years for Mutoid Man. Between Mutants and 2017 predecessor War Moans, bassist Nick Cageao left, drummer Ben Koller broke his elbow and frontman Stephen Brodsky lost his best friend, Caleb Scofield, in a car accident. The trio’s screams for catharsis during their new album made it a masterpiece of sludgy, primal thrash, and the band’s fortunes have since been reversed thanks to a stacked European tour. MATT MILLS

Nervosa – Jailbreak

Forced to rebuild from the ground up for a second time in as many records, Nervosa's fifth record nonetheless maintains the all-out blitz on the senses that the Brazilian band have become beloved for in the past decade. Bandleader Prika Amaral acquits herself excellently as the chief vocalist in Nervosa 3.0, delivering a decidedly Teutonic-inspired blackened sound that evokes the likes of Sodom and Kreator whilst feeling decidedly fresh and vicious, rising above internal drama to produce another top-tier thrasher. RICH HOBSON

Overkill – Scorched

Overkill might not command the same respect as their contemporaries in the Big Four, but they should. 20 albums in and their brand of trad-metal infused thrash remains a staple of East Coast thrash, Bobby 'Blitz' Ellsworth injecting each shriek and roar with a wild-eyed energy that is electrifying. Released on the same day as Metallica's 72 Seasons, this showed how to thrash into your fifth decade. RICH HOBSON

Pest Control – Don’t Test The Pest

Newcomers from the North of England, Pest Control's debut Don't Test The Pest is an all-out assault on the senses, flying through 11 songs in a little over 20 minutes and riding so hard you can practically hear their bones wearing down. Crossover thrash with an emphasis on short, sharp, shocks, this record is a much-needed lightning bolt that should electrify the competition into streamlining and trying to be half as anarchically brilliant. RICH HOBSON

Sylosis – A Sign Of Things To Come

After 2015 album Dormant Heart, Sylosis felt trapped in a songwriting rut thanks to their ‘no downtuning or breakdowns’ rule. 2020 comeback Cycle Of Suffering saw the Brits push against those constrictions, but it was Sign… that showed their true potential when flying free. Deadwood was a barrage of hyper-catchy death/thrash, while Josh Middleton dabbled in melodic singing for Eye For An Eye and Thorns, opening a new world of possibilities. MATT MILLS

It has become one of the most oft-repeated legends of metal history. At 9am on April 11, 1983, Metallica woke up guitarist Dave Mustaine and told him he was out of the band. They were holed up in a divey live-in rehearsal space in Queens, New York, preparing to record their debut album, Kill ’Em All. With hardly an explanation, they handed him a one-way bus ticket back to Los Angeles, and James Hetfield drove him to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. Without a dime in his pockets, Dave boarded the 10am bus, which was scheduled to arrive in LA four days later.

Broke and hungry, he spent much of the ride looking out the window, stewing in rage. His drinking had become a problem with the rest of the band, though the tipping point came when he attacked James Hetfield after the latter allegedly kicked Dave’s dog. Still, Metallica were about to head into the studio to record their full-length debut without him, after he had written four songs, seven guitar leads and two sets of lyrics for the album. And that stung like hell.

Sitting on the bus, he glanced at a political postcard he had picked up along the way. It was from California Democratic Senator Alan Cranston, and it read in part: ‘The arsenal of megadeath can’t be rid,’ political speak for, ‘Now that the U.S. has ramped up its production of nuclear weapons, the genie is officially out of the bottle.’

It was like a bomb exploding inside Dave’s head. ‘Megadeth: what a cool name for a band.’ Inspired, he started scribbling new song lyrics on the back of a cupcake napkin. This was the basis of the very first Megadeth song, titled Set The World Afire, which would eventually make its way onto the band’s third album, 1988’s So Far, So Good... So What!. But on that bus heading across the middle of America, Dave was determined, driven and hungry. Failure simply wasn’t an option.

It’s 40 years since that fateful bus ride, and Dave Mustaine has lived multiple lives. He’s endured drug addiction, countless line-up changes, the death of close friends and his own throat cancer diagnosis (he got the all-clear in 2020). But the one constant throughout has been Megadeth, the entity he imagined into being while staring out at the passing landscape and seething.

“I was driven by revenge,” recalls Dave of Megadeth’s inception today, speaking to Hammer from his home in Nashville. “I was angry about what happened with Metallica, and all the way home I kept thinking, ‘I’ll just be faster, I’ll be better, and my songs will be heavier.’”

It didn’t take Dave long to get back on his feet once he returned to Los Angeles following his unceremonious dismissal from Metallica. Crashing at friends’ houses in Hollywood, he began looking for bandmembers for his new project. Word soon began to spread – the guy who got kicked out of Metallica for being too fucked-up was back. And he was pissed off.

“Somehow everything turned into this thing where we had a band ready called Fallen Angels,” says Dave. “I thought, ‘Uh, no we don’t.’ I didn’t even have a full band yet.”

Trading under the name Megadeth – after the phrase he’d seen on that political postcard - he began trying to piece together a stable line-up, something that proved easier said than done. A churn of guitarists and drummers came and went throughout the rest of 1983 and into 1984, none sticking around permanently.

Some interesting characters passed through their ranks. One drummer, Dijon Carruthers, was the son of Hollywood actor Ben Carruthers (best known for his role in the 1967 war movie The Dirty Dozen). Another drummer, Lee Rausch, claimed he’d sold his soul to Satan, something that even Dave, who had performed occult rituals, found too bizarre (Lee, who died earlier this year, later became a committed

Christian). And then there was a young guitarist named Kerry King, who briefly pulled double duty in Megadeth and his own band Slayer.

“When Kerry sat in with us [for five gigs in early 1984], he was doing us a huge favour,” Dave says. “He didn’t have any plans on being in Megadeth because he loved Slayer, and that was his band. I really didn’t want to take him away from another band. Poaching bandmembers has never been something I’ve been into.”

Finding a bassist was easier. Recently transplanted Minnesota native David Ellefson had moved into the apartment below Mustaine, and paid his new neighbour a visit to ask where he could buy cigarettes and beer. The two men got talking, and Mustaine played the AC/DC- and Judas Priest-loving Ellefson some of the music he’d written for his new band. The bassist liked it and threw in his lot with the guy living upstairs.

That just left the task of recruiting a singer. Dave didn’t see himself as a vocalist, so they tried out a few other people. They either looked wrong (one guy turned up to rehearsal in make-up) or sounded wrong. It didn’t help that the music he was writing was faster, angrier and more complex that any mainstream metal of the time. Eventually, someone suggested he do it himself.

“I was reluctant right up to the last minute,” he says. “And then I finally said, ‘OK, fuck it, I can’t be worse than some of these other dudes.’”

Even while the line-up was solidifying, Dave kept writing. He was determined not to produce songs that sounded like his old band, which wasn’t easy given his input into Metallica’s early material.

“When I was in Metallica, I was kind of playing at Lars’s level, because Lars was still learning to play drums back then,” he says. “But watching James play guitar for the first time was kind of shocking, because I didn’t know

he knew how to play guitar. We just got fed up one day of auditioning guitar players, just like I did with singers. And he picked up this guitar and started playing, and inside I’m going, ‘Get the fuck out of here. How can you possibly be satisfied being a singer when you play like that? Why not be both?’ I’ve always thought he was a really talented guitarist.”

The first ‘proper’ Megadeth line-up began to take shape in mid-1984. “There was a guy, Jay Jones, who managed another band and was a very scandalous person,” says Dave. “He came into the rehearsal studio when he heard me in the room playing and said, ‘Have I got a drummer for you!’” That drummer was Gar Samuelson, who had formerly been a member of a jazz/ fusion group named The New Yorkers. Dave agreed to meet Gar in his studio and, right from the start, was impressed by his jazz swing, crushing hits and jarring mannerisms.

“Gar sat down on a couch in Mars Studios, and he was smoking a cigarette,” says Dave. “He fell asleep and his cigarette burned through his hand and burned his fingers. I thought, ‘Shit, this guy is crazy. I wonder what he’s into?’”

What he was into was heroin, the reason he nodded off mid-cigarette – something Dave himself would find out soon enough. Today, the singer speaks highly of Gar’s abilities (the drummer died in 1999, reportedly of liver failure).

“We became great friends, and his jazz style complemented my riffing,” says the singer. “I gotta give credit where credit is due. He had a lot to do with the sound of that first Megadeth record. He had taste and technique for days.”

Megadeth entered Hollywood’s Hitman Studios in 1984 and recorded a three-song demo, Last Rites, which featured Last Rites/ Loved To Deth, The Skull Beneath The Skin and Mechanix, the latter a gas station sex fantasy that Dave had written when he was in his earlier band, Panic, and brought into Metallica (who would subsequently change the lyrics and rename it The Four Horsemen). Desperate for someone to help promote them and bring them dope, Megadeth hired Jay Jones as their manager/ pharmaceutical supplier.

It was Jay who helped find the final piece of the jigsaw. Guitarist Chris Poland had been a member of The New Yorkers with Gar Samuelson, and, more recently, a group named No Questions. Like Gar, he was a jazz guy – and, also like Gar, he was a heroin user. He had little interest in playing metal, but he was interested in a pay cheque to fund his own drug habit. Despite that, Chris and Dave hit it off musically, the spontaneity of the former’s playing meshing with the growing complexity of the songs the latter was writing.

Mustaine and Ellefson weren’t strangers to drugs, though they initially favoured weed and beer, but they soon gave in to temptation and started dabbling in smack as well. With time, dabbling became binging. For Mustaine, narcotics were a coping mechanism, a temporary respite from hunger and homelessness.

“I liked getting high, but it was more about escape than anything,” he says. “If there was a moment we were awake, we were looking for drugs because that’s how horrible our existence was. We were scratching and clawing to get someone to take notice of us and thank God, no matter how fucked-up I was, my first priority was making music and playing good shows.”

After sending Last Rites to various LA-area indie labels, Megadeth caught the attention of New York’s Combat Records, who gave them $8,000 to record their debut album, Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good! They stumbled into Indigo Ranch Studios in Malibu, plugged in and got by on a combination of ambition and muscle memory. One day, when Dave asked Jay where his bandmates were, his manager told him they had just spent $4,000 (half the budget for the album) on blow, smack and frozen hamburgers. Dave promptly sacked Jay, cajoled another $4,000 from Combat,hired engineer Karat Faye, and paid him $50 a day to finish co-producing the album with him.

“We did the takes quickly, with Dave, Gar and I in one room, playing together, with no click tracks,” Ellefson told Metal Hammer in the mid-2010s. “You can hear the tempos shifting around, depending on whether it was a ‘heroin take’ or a ‘cocaine take’. It’s funny now, but I wouldn’t recommend that approach.”

Since three of the songs were from the Last Rites demo, Megadeth only had to finesse another four tracks and a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s 1966 hit These Boots Are Made For Walkin’. Once the album was finished, Megadeth hit the road, though the severity of his addiction meant Chris had to sit out the first two weeks of the tour. “He was a real Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde because of his personal issues,” Dave says. “As much as I loved Chris and tried to get close to him, what he was doing just took precedence over anybody and anything. What they say is true. You become powerless over that stuff. So, when you came down to it, I didn’t mean anything to Chris, Megadeth didn’t mean anything to Chris. All he cared about was what he was doing on the side.”

On the road, Megadeth spent many nights crashing at fans’ houses, preferably apartments owned by nurturing women turned on by bad boy rockers. They spent other nights in Motel 6s and when nothing else was available they would sleep in
the van.

“The shows were out of control because hardly anyone knew what moshing was,” Dave says. “They weren’t familiar with crowdsurfing. Kids would just jump up on the stage and there was no stagediving protocol. Some of them would run over to you and grab your mic stand to get some picks off. They’d bang into your guitar or try to scream into the mic. Then someone would shove them off the stage. It was pure balls-to-the-wall metal insanity.”

The band environment was no more relaxing offstage, especially when Chris and Gar needed to score. "They’d sell a whole bunch of gear to buy drugs,” Dave says. “We’d have to drive around town to all the pawn shops and instrument shops looking for all the drum pieces, or other pieces of equipment.”

The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that their label didn’t seem to care about the band. A particularly demoralising moment came when the band ran out of money and didn’t have enough gas to get to the next gig.

“I called up the vice president of Combat and he was a real piece of work,” Dave recalls. “I told him I was at the hotel, and I needed gas money to get to the next town so we could get paid. And the guy says, ‘Get a day job.’”

Other, more weak-willed musicians probably would have quit there and then, but not Dave Mustaine. Every obstacle, every element of adversity, provided extra determination not to let getting kicked out of Metallica mark the beginning of his downfall.

Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good! caught the attention of the thrash scene when it was released in June 1985, not least thanks to their frontman’s connection with Metallica. It was a subject was brought up in every interview, usually resulting in shit-talking from a still-bitter Dave. The vengeful drive that had given Megadeth their initial impetus hadn’t abated. Dave found time between gigs, fixes and after-show debauchery to write a bunch of new songs on the road to add to the ones he’d been stockpiling since the beginning of the band.

One day Mustaine and Ellefson were at Killing Is My Business... producer Karat Faye’s house when the frontman picked up his bandmate’s bass and began playing a rolling, strident riff. Ellesfon was blown away. It took them two hours in the rehearsal room to turn it into a song. On the car ride to that rehearsal, Mustaine had turned to the bassist and asked: “What do you think of Peace Sells... But Who’s Buying?’” Megadeth had the name of both their second album and – in the truncated form of Peace Sells – its iconic near-title track.

Lyrically, Peace Sells was a world away from metal’s traditional fascination with swords’n’sorcery and the occult, injecting a dose of politics into the Megadeth’s melodic thrash attack. ‘What do you mean, “I don’t support your system”?’ sneered the singer. ‘I go to court when I have to.’

“I tried to keep up with what was going on in the world and I still do,” Dave says. “I mean, it’s not especially deep or anything. It’s kind of like the credo of Al Bundy from the [late 80s/early 90s] TV show Married... With Children if he was a metal fan. That’s a silly comparison, but it’s what was in my head at the time. And I wrote all the lyrics on the wall of the practice room. When you’re writing on a wall there’s not much room to come back with an eraser. I don’t know if they painted over the wall, but they probably should have excavated it and sent it to some kind of museum.”

Despite their tensions with Combat, the label stumped up a budget of $25,000 for Megadeth to enter Malibu’s Indigo Ranch studio with producer Randy Burns to record their second album. Even before the album was released, major labels had begun sniffing around the band. One person who was interested was Michael Alago, the A&R hotshot who had recently signed Metallica, but Dave had no interest in being on the same label as his former bandmates-turned-antagonists: “I didn’t want to play second fiddle to them,” he says. 

In the end, they signed with Capitol, who opted to buy Megadeth out of their contract with Combat and bring in producer Paul Lani to remix it and give it a slicker sound. Along with the deal came a noticeable improvement in the band’s financial situation – as Capitol’s shiny new thrash metal band, Megadeth received more tour support and bigger royalty cheques than they’d ever got on Combat. But much of the money they were now making went into their expensive pharmaceutical habits. Even though he was deep in his own addiction, Dave knew that providing some sense of leadership was important, now more than ever before.

“I quickly realised that when stuff goes wrong – and it does go wrong – that if you’re the leader, you need to take responsibility for shit even when it’s not your fault,” he says. “You need to step up and make it right. I look at stuff and say, ‘I’ve got to do whatever I can to make this right. We’ve come too far for everything to go sideways.’”

For Dave Mustaine, righting the ship has also meant knowing when it’s time to make changes. In June 1987, Megadeth wrapped up the tour in support of Peace Sells... But Who’s Buying? with two shows in Honolulu, Hawaii. When the band got back to LA, Gar Samuelson and Chris Poland were jonesing for a fix. According to the frontman, they ended up selling band equipment again to buy more drugs. It was the final straw.

“I was totally fed up,” Mustaine says. “I guess it was just one too many times driving around Los Angeles trying to find everybody’s band gear. I told Ellefson, ‘Well, that’s it. I’m breaking up the band and I’m getting rid of those guys. If you want to stay with me that’s fine.’”

David Ellefson did stay, though Chris and Gar were history. They’d eventually be replaced by guitarist Jeff Young and drummer Chuck Behler, whose one-album tenure – they appeared on 1988’s chaotic So Far, So Good... So What! – proved to be no less volatile.

Forty years after Dave Mustaine formed Megadeth in the wake of his firing from Metallica, much has changed about both the band and their leader. Today, he’s the sole remaining original member and the only one who has played on every album (after leaving and rejoining the band in the 2000s, David Ellefson was ousted for a second and seemingly final time in 2021 following an online sex scandal). The singer himself cleaned up long ago, embracing his Christian faith in the process.

But at the same time, the single-mindedness and stubborn streak that saw him pick himself up post-Metallica and build an entirely new band remains intact. Lesser musicians would have folded a long time ago, but not Dave Mustaine. And it all dates back to those early years when he had so much to prove and nothing to lose.

“We went through everything, man, from what happened on the road, to homelessness, to starvation,” he says. “The panhandling, the sleeping on people’s floors. The destitution, the desperation and poverty. We survived it all.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer #379

Dave Mustaine knows a thing or two about thrash: the man was there for the beloved metal subgenre's ground zero as an early member of Metallica, before leaving the band under infamously acrimonious circumstances and forming his own band that'd go onto similar levels of greatness: Megadeth.

In a new interview with Metal Hammer celebrating 40 years since the formation of Megadeth, Mustaine reveals that his band's earliest shows were completely chaotic - not least because most of the 'etiquettes' that we know and love around metal concerts today were yet to be properly polished.

“The shows were out of control because hardly anyone knew what moshing was,” says the guitarist and frontman. “They weren’t familiar with crowdsurfing. Kids would just jump up on the stage and there was no stagediving protocol. Some of them would run over to you and grab your mic stand to get some picks off. They’d bang into your guitar or try to scream into the mic. Then someone would shove them off the stage. It was pure balls-to-the-wall metal insanity.”

Things were similarly explosive off-stage for the band at that time, with its members effectively living in poverty and some of Mustaines bandmates at the time nursing growing drug habits.

“They’d sell a whole bunch of gear to buy drugs,” Mustaine explains today. “We’d have to drive around town to all the pawn shops and instrument shops looking for all the drum pieces, or other pieces of equipment.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Mustaine marvels at he and his bandmates' ability to not only survive those turbulent early days, but go on to become one of the most important and acclaimed acts in heavy metal history.

“We went through everything, man, from what happened on the road, to homelessness, to starvation,” he says in bewilderment. “The panhandling, the sleeping on people’s floors. The destitution, the desperation and poverty. We survived it all.”

Read more from Mustaine in the latest issue of Metal Hammer, out now.

In early-’80s USA, the arrival of glam meant that metal was growing too polished and safe for many diehards. Then thrash put the savagery back in extreme music’s black heart. And – while giants like Metallica, Slayer, Kreator and Megadeth garnered deserved acclaim for pushing metal to new, primal places – in their collective shadow were a legion of obscure and unsung heroes. Here are 10 lesser-known ’80s thrash outfits who deserve a share of the limelight:

Paradox (1986–1991, 1998–present)

Formed in the mid-’80s, these brawling Germans seemed poised for the big time after the release of their 1987 debut, Product Of Imagination. Though owing a clear debt to early Metallica, Paradox cranked out old-school thrash with a raw, furious edge, courtesy of their double lead guitar attack. 1989’s Heresy is a bare-knuckled beatdown of intricate riffing and pure power that belongs in any Best Of German Thrash playlist.

Acid Reign (1985–1991, 2015–present)

These cheeky Brits played rampaging crossover thrash with a flinty-eyed sneer and a hefty dose of humour. Their 1989 debut, The Fear, led some in the UK press to hail them as the country’s answer to Anthrax. It was a fair cop but, some similarities notwithstanding, Acid Reign backed up their snotty irreverence with top-flight musicianship and a live show that boasted more urgency than a cannon attack.

Mekong Delta (1985–1997, 2006–present)

When these Berlin-based progressive thrashers formed in 1985, they assumed that German names wouldn’t look cool in the wider metal scene. So, they played anonymously long before Ghost and Sleep Token made it the in thing. The band also sought to musically outshine their speed metal peers by specialising in a distinctly classical-inspired and complex style. Considering that Mekong Delta haven’t released a duff album in 30-plus years, we’d say it was mission accomplished.

Holy Terror (1986–1989, 2017–2018)

Though the mid-’80s thrash explosion was well underway when Holy Terror arrived on the scene, their 1987 debut, Terror And Submission, revealed enough versatility to set them apart from the growing list of Exodus imitators. While never sacrificing the coarse brutality of the music, these L.A. aggressors experimented with dazzling tempo shifts and proggy fretwork. They were also nods to Priest and Maiden, alongside a keen penchant for fist-pumping choruses. 

Xentrix (1984–1997, 2005–2006, 2013–present)

The most dominant thrash bands seemed to pop up in either the US or Germany, but among the UK’s more excellent contributions were Lancashire’s Xentrix. Boasting elite technical proficiency, their hammering style of thrash wove intricate melodies into taut, savage riffs. While they earned 15 minutes of fame for their cover of the Ghostbusters theme, their early output stands easily on its own merits.

Sacrifice (1983–1993, 2006–present)

These Canadian thrashers rivalled countrymen Annihilator and Exciter on every front, yet somehow they never found the recognition they most certainly deserved. A paragon of brutal efficiency, Apocalypse Inside saw the band infuse their high-velocity tempos with flashes of goth rock, prog and late-’70s metal. Packed with razor-wire riffs and raging speed metal tempos, the Sacrifice catalogue sounds every bit as vital today as it did 30 years ago.

Toranaga (1983–1992, 2001–2006, 2010–present)

These Yorkshire heavies made a seismic splash when they debuted at the end of the ’80s, snagging highly-coveted airplay on the BBC Rock Show. Although thrash was entering a period of petrification, with real innovation often ignored or rejected, Toranaga were unconcerned with genre conventions. They instead dispensed a thrilling amalgam of thrash and melodrama that appealed to both the beer-sodden speed metal crowd and Ronnie James Dio diehards. 

Slammer (1987–1992, 2023–present)

After forming in 1987, Slammer were less concerned with celebrating the roots of thrash than with predicting where the genre could go next. Their experiments were, ultimately, all for naught, what with grunge and later nu metal seizing the heavy music landscape. Nonetheless, on 1989 debut album The Work Of Idle Hands, the Bradford boys interspersed scorching thrash anthems with utterly exhilarating forays into groove metal and classic rock.

Anacrusis (1986–1993, 2009–2013)

Hailing from the American midwest, Anacrusis developed a sound untainted by the thrash movements gathering on either coast – however, that lack of a supportive scene also contributed to their fast breakup. Their 1991 debut, Manic Impressions, synthesised jackhammer tempos and squalls of distortion with lofty forays into prog and goth rock. They pushed the boundaries even further on 1993’s Screams And Whispers. In a thrash scene bursting with copycats, Anacrusis were a dazzling antidote.

Holosade (1985–1991, 1994, 2011–present)

Holosade formed in the UK while the dust of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was still settling. As a result, these Durham prospects announced themselves as a powerfully melodic, heroic-sounding option in the global thrash scene on their 1988 debut, Hell House. The band have broken up multiple times though, which – together with pop-culture’s pendulum swing towards grunge and alt-rock – obliterated their momentum during the 1990s.

Judging by the evidence thus far, we can confidently predict that thrash metal will never die. It helps that there are new and enjoyably ferocious new bands emerging all the time, each one of them fully infected with the spirit of Kill ’Em All and Reign In Blood. From blackened speed metal to pulverising crossover thrash, the following 10 bands are at the forefront of a resurgent genre that will always make otherwise sensible people want to run through a brick wall.

Enforced

The unofficial daddies of the genre’s latest wave, Enforced are simply one of the most brutal thrash metal bands of all time. Latest album War Remains is absurdly exciting and will make you break stuff. Hard as nails and resolutely fast as fuck, the Virginia quintet have the unstoppable energy of Slayer, Razor and Demolition Hammer, but with the militant hardcore sensibilities of Ringworm and Hatebreed. The result? Total, pit-starting carnage.

Hellripper

Over the last decade, Aberdeen’s James McBain has risen from the humblest of DIY origins to become one of the most revered exponents of face-ripping thrash on the planet. Early releases like 2017 debut album Coagulating Darkness were rooted squarely in filthy, blackened speed metal, but Hellripper are still evolving. This year’s Warlocks Grim And Withered Hags is a fast, furious and fervently Scottish record that resounds with ferocious intent. 

Grove Street

With a sound that incorporates everything from old-school crossover hardcore to the arena-levelling riffs of the Big Four, Grove Street are UK thrash metal’s grittiest exponents. Exposure to debut album The Path Of Righteousness, which comes out on September 29, will almost certainly result in a desire to wreck whichever room you happen to be in. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.  

Tortured Demon

A lot has been made about how young Tortured Demon are (sorry for bringing it up again, chaps). However, the real story with this box-fresh UK quartet is that they rip as hard as any scabby-knuckled veterans out there. Recently-released second album Rise Of The Lifeless is a riot of old-meets-new-school thrash action, delivered with levels of energy that may be illegal in some countries. The future is safe in their hands.

Iron Voltage

Thrash gets everywhere, largely because it’s fucking great. Hailing from Bandung, Indonesia, Iron Voltage prove that great ideas travel well. As they demonstrated on last year’s Devastation, the young five-piece have already mastered the art of thrashing like maniacs. Dark and gritty, songs like Immortal Crush and Explosion are rich with the spirit of the old school, but more than pissed-off and gnarly enough for the madness of today’s world. 

Pest Control

Quite conceivably the single most exciting band in the UK right now, Pest Control are the crossover thrash band your mum warned you about – principally to protect the furniture. Renowned for inciting limb-threatening mayhem at live shows, Leeds’ finest released their  debut album, Don’t Test The Pest, earlier this year. It’s extremely hard to listen to it without smashing something, but listen to it we do anyway. Circle pit! 

Fugitive

The death of Riley Gale in 2020 put an abrupt halt to Power Trip’s seemingly inevitable rise to thrash metal glory. As we wait to discover the Dallas band’s next move, guitarist Blake Ibanez can be found whipping up a storm in Fugitive, and the Fort Worth fivesome will cheerfully remove your face in much the same way as Power Trip did. Last year’s Maniac EP is as raw and nasty as it gets, with echoes of Discharge and Obituary lurking in the jagged maelstrom. 

Cryptosis

In a previous life, Cryptosis were known as Distillator and played vintage thrash the vintage way. These days, they are one of the genre’s most unique propositions. Debut album Bionic Swarm was a wild opening statement, with mind-bending sci-fi themes and a fearlessly progressive approach to songwriting. With an obvious debt to mavericks like Voivod and Coroner, Cryptosis are making thrash for our inevitably dystopian future.

Inhuman Nature

This London-based quintet have built a formidable reputation upon a uniquely filthy strain of classic thrash. With vocals that come from the Venom school of gruff bellowing and riffs that seldom miss an opportunity to chug, the band’s 2019 eponymous debut was an instant underground hit. Check out the two new tracks on Inhuman Nature’s recent split EP with crossover crew Ninth Realm for a jolting dose of thrash barbarism.

Graveripper

Thrash metal has always had an evil streak, and Graveripper are exploiting it with murderous grins on their faces. Coming straight out of Indianapolis, Indiana, these speed-obsessed ghouls play blackened thrash as if they’re whacking nails into a coffin while howling at the moon. Suggestion: listen to the morbid onslaught of debut album Seasons Dreaming Death and do have nightmares.

Thrash has been one of the key movements in the metal world. Arguably the subgenre most responsible for the growth of extremity and technicality in heavy music since its ’80s glory period, it’s amazing to see how much it has endured over the years. It’s not all good, though.

Thrash comes with a somewhat rigid set of sonic confines, making innovation difficult and repetition inevitable. This means that there are a lot of bang-average albums in its oeuvre. On the flipside, thanks to the fact that it’s such a thrilling genre, there’s always one or two moments of quality. Here are 10 occasions where one cracking thrash banger saved an album.

Metallica – Frantic (St Anger, 2003)

You’ve heard all the talking points before: snare drum, “stock”, “delete that”, so on and so on. There really is no point trying to add anything else to the endless St Anger discourse here. So, let’s just say this: it’s not a great album. It’s got some good ideas that are smothered through sheer endless repetition but, dodgy lyrics aside, Frantic is a Metallica banger. Let’s move on.

Slayer – Stain Of Mind (Diabolus In Musica, 1998)

Diabolus In Musica is the only time that Slayer, surely the most reliably committed of the big thrash bands, ever had their heads in a different place. Even Kerry King himself has spoken on many occasions about how much he hates the band’s 1998 nu metal detour of an album. The one song that did seem to work, though, was the groovy Stain Of Mind – even if it is far from Slayer at their best.

Megadeth – Kingmaker (Super Collider, 2013)

After the risk of repeating, well… Risk 14 years prior, you’d think that Dave Mustaine would have realised that Megadeth are not a glammy rock band. Evidently not, as he went back to that well for Super Collider, possibly the worst album under that band’s banner. The sole song that sounds even a bit like it could have been lifted from their finest days is Kingmaker. At least it has a bit of classic ’Deth ferocity without being clunky about it.

Kreator – Phobia (Outcast, 1997)

Kreator’s experimental ’90s era has its staunch defenders and, to be fair, Outcast is far from the worst album. Its main problem is that it sees a band who rose by making timelessly rabid thrash release something that’s blatantly of-its-day, with a dated and awkward industrial focus. Thankfully, Phobia is a snarling anthem that’s aged rather gracefully and still persists in the band’s setlists.

Testament – Electric Crown (The Ritual, 1992)

Testament themselves admit that they were burnt out by 1992. The change in musical climate, with grunge and alt-rock taking the zeitgeist from metal, clearly played a part in why The Ritual sounds like a confused flip of the coin. Saying that, the first single from the album, Electric Crown, is actually a pretty nice piece of post-Black Album groove.

Exodus – Thorn In My Side (Force Of Nature, 1992)

The fact that Exodus didn’t make another album for 12 years in the aftermath of 1992’s more groove- and glammy-influenced Force Of Nature should give you some idea about how uninspired they were during the 1990s. The lack of pace, the strained “melodic” vocals, the very bad Rolling Stones cover… it’s not great. It’s a shame as well, given that opening song Thorn In My Side is at the very least intriguing and has a great Gary Holt solo midway through.

Overkill – What I’m Missin’ (Bloodletting, 2000)

Here’s another classic thrash band becoming casualties of the nu metal years. After guitarists Joe Comeau and Sebastien Marino left, Overkill decided to try and make a more contemporary-sounding album, with mixed results. Sadly, it’s just not the right soundscape for a band originally rooted in ’80s punk- and glam-inspired adrenaline – and when you hear them with their foot to the floor on the crushing What I’m Missin’, it just hammers that fact home.

Annihilator – Human Remains (Remains, 1997)

Remains is one of the most bizarre and disastrous albums ever made by a thrash band. Hearing Annihilator try to go grunge, groove and industrial all at once is likely to give you a migraine if you listen to it all in one sitting. Being generous, you could give Human Remains a pass just because it’s got a great riff, it gets close to the band’s then-goal of trying to sound like Ministry, and it’s mercifully short.

Destruction – Brother Of Cain (The Least Successful Human Cannonball, 1998)

Destruction are fully deserving of their place in the Big Four of the German thrash metal scene. But even they know they dropped a stinker with 1998’s looser The Least Successful Human Cannonball, since the band themselves have completely disowned it. In all truth, the album isn’t woeful, just a bit of an odd fit for them. The one time they get to full thrash pace, on Brother Of Cain, is the one time they really sound comfortable here.

Tankard – Queen Of Hearts (Disco Destroyer, 1998)

1998 wasn’t a vintage year for thrash. Another legendary German band, this time Tankard, released an album that was blunter, sloppier and way less intense than we’re used to. This lot were always fun, so there’s still a charm to Disco Destroyer, but only on Queen Of Hearts do they really ever rev up to the speed and intensity we’d become used to.

Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and Tankard, collectively known as the 'Big Four' of German thrash metal, have booked their first ever show together. 

The four bands will share the bill at the Klash Of The Ruhrpott festival, scheduled for July 20, 2024 at Amphitheater Gelsenkirchen in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. 

Mille Petrozza, frontman of headliners Kreator, says "I'm so happy we have an opportunity to present this package in the best way possible! It's going to be a really special day, full of love and respect…and the most extensive Kreator set ever…prepare for some DEEP CUTS!"

His enthusiasm for the one-off festival is echoed by the frontmen of Sodom, Destruction and Tankard.

Sodom's Tom Angelripper (aka Thomas Such) says, "I am very happy to finally be able to share the stage with my old companions and friends again. A meeting with these four fantastic bands cannot be surpassed in terms of cult status. It will be a very special event for us and our fans. Until then, please stay healthy and confident. See ya soon..."

Destruction's Marcel 'Schmier' Schirmer adds, "Oh YES — we all have been waiting for this to happen, I am excited that it finally worked out! Hopefully this is the beginning of some more to come! We are super thrilled to be a part of this. Thanks for the invitation, Mille!"

"Good things take time!," says Tankard's Andreas 'Gerre' Geremia. "Finally the big four will clash and thrash together. We feel very proud to be a part of this historical event!"

Tickets for the festival will go on sale on August 2.

Formed in 2017 in Lithuania and featuring band members with backgrounds in heavy metal, jazz and EDM, Shvininiai Sharvai have quickly but firmly become one of the most exciting young names in thrash metal. Known by their acronym ‘SHSH’, these unique and eccentric thrashers not only have a startling image (the band all dress in suits and personalised welding masks, because why not?), but have melded one of the most fascinating takes on thrash metal you’ll hear anywhere this year.

Merging thunderous riffs with galloping drums, propulsive basslines and even a splash of woozy saxophone, Shvininiai Sharvai have historically dealt with themes of political satire and comedy, but are honing their music and taking on more serious matters for explosive new album The Great Paradise Of Tomorrow. Littered with lyrical takes on dystopian dictatorships, the dangers of modern technology and the hellish landscape that is the digital corporate world in 2023, the album is also a dizzying, full-throttle blast of modern metal. 

From the imperious stomp of the title track to the chugging brutality of Morgen and the relentless, frenetic assault of Homeopsychopathy, fans of everyone from Kreator to Carcass will find something to love, and it’s all sprinkled with Shvininiai Sharvai’s own uniquely mischievous tone. The Great Paradise Of Tomorrow is also the band’s first English language album, proving that the five-piece have their sights set on conquering as many territories as possible.

Interested? Of course you are: cast your eyes below to find out more about one of the most intense musical experiences you’ll hear this or any other year.

linktr.ee/sharvai
shsh.lt

For diehards of the subgenre, “pizza thrash” is a derogatory term aimed at new speed metal bands that lean just a tiny bit too heavily on such ’80s idols as Metallica, Exodus and Kreator. Pizza Death clearly didn’t get the memo, and seem to be a band that have taken the term far too literally.

Pizza Death write songs about pizza. You never asked for it, but it’s happened – and it’s surprisingly fucking excellent. Their second album, Reign Of The Anticrust (yes, seriously), comes packaged with a big demonic margarita slice on the cover and sample The Simpsons and South Park. However, it’s also fucking nasty.

With 20 tracks that clock in at a svelte 27 minutes, Reign Of The Anticrust is party-time thrash that parties hard. Opener Pepperabies (again, seriously) sounds like Power Trip have guzzled all the coffee in America, adding more and more guitar heft and imposing gang vocals on top of a scurrying drum beat. Reclaim The Hut is a hardcore chant-along, while Frankenslice briefly deadens to a crawl with some burly groove metal. For anybody enamoured with Municipal Waste and Toxic Holocaust, it’ll surely prove a beastly discovery.

As for the band behind this brilliantly violent ridiculousness, they’re a four-piece of longtime thrash players hailing from Melbourne, Australia, known only as Kane, Tim, Pat and Plonk. “When writing songs, our general approach is to come up with a funny pizza-related pun and then write a song around that,” Pat once told blog InEffectHardCore of Pizza Death’s creative process. Considering their discography includes tracks called Pasta Of Muppets, Eaten O-live By Zomb-olives and Tsunami Of Salami, we believe him.

Obviously, nobody expects Pizza Death to be the next Iron Maiden, but the band’s brand of deep-dish-heavy thrash is so batshit and high-octane that it demands to be heard. Next time you and your mates are having a night of beers, music and the greasiest food available, stick Reign Of The Anticrust on for a rager you’ll never forget (hangover permitting).

Testament’s Chuck Billy was there at the birth of thrash. Born and raised in Northern California, he watched the scene spring up in the bars and dives of San Francisco’s Bay Area. “It was wild,” he told us when we spoke to the formidable frontman in spring 2020. “We were wild.”

Metal Hammer was interviewing Billy a few weeks after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 following a European tour. “I’m back to a hundred per cent, I believe,” he says. “But we're all good now.”

Billy’s been a survivor throughout his career. He joined Testament in the mid-80s, just after they'd changed their name from Legacy following the loss of singer – and Chuck’s childhood friend – Steve ‘Zetro’ Sousa to rival Bay Area ’bangers Exodus.

Testament's first few albums saw them knocking on the door of the Big Four, but changing musical trends in the 1990s knocked them off course. By the end of that decade they’d got back on track with 1999’s The Gathering album, only for Billy to be diagnosed with cancer.

His recovery with the help of Native American healers is a remarkable story within itself (the singer is of Native American descent). As he returned to full power so did the band, restarting their career with 2008’s Formation Of Damnation. With most recent album, 2020's Titans Of Creation, keeping the fire burning, Billy said he couldn't see they day where he'd think of jacking it all in.

“Not yet," he explained. "We all still feel 18, though the body doesn't agree sometimes. We still feel like we did at the beginning, but we've matured and learned how to get along with each other as human beings better. And that's a big part of staying together so long.”

Here's what else he had to say on his storied life in (and out of) heavy metal.

When and where were you born?

"I was born in Oakland, California, on June 23 1962. I lived in El Cerrito for the first or four years of my life, before we moved to Dublin, California."

Was it a working class family?

"Yeah, my mom worked in a hospital delivering babies - she was a nurse. My father worked in the banking system, repairing their office machines. There were five boys in the family. I was the middle child. You pretty much pass the bullying down the line."

You started riding motorbikes in your teens. Where did the love of bikes come from?

"We were always crazy, rambunctious kids to start with. The only time we were at home was to sleep and eat. We rode all kinds of dirt bikes around the hills of Dublin. A friend who was a little older had a Honda, and of course I wanted a motorcycle as well. So I got a Honda and kept it at their house, so my parents so my parents wouldn't know. Same with cars - I bought a car at 15 and kept it around the corner for years."

Were you mixing with proper bikers gangs back then?

"Not in the 70s. We were riding Hondas, we weren't riding Harley Davidsons, so we weren't associated with the Hells Angels and all the club people. I did buy a Harley eventually. Just after we did the first Testament record [1987’s The Legacy] I got a little money and went and bought one."

When was the first time you sang onstage?

"It had to be 1982. I was in a band called Rampage. It was in Danville, California, at a club called The Stage. It was called ‘Rage With The 'Page At the Stage', haha."

Were you the guy that had to be shoved onto the stage, or did you want to be in the limelight from the start?

"Oh no, we were all hams. We were big rock stars in our heads. We were kids and we were still wearing striped Spandex and leather jackets. We were listening to bands like [cult early 80s metallers] Riot and Thin Lizzy and UFO. We were more hard rock than metal. The metal scene didn’t really exist back then."

Were you any good back then?

"I've actually got a video of that first gig at The Stage. I have it on an 8mm reel-to-reel video. I was a maniac from the first show. I was jumping off the stage, getting out in the crowd."

When did you first become aware of the thrash scene?

"We were in Dublin, which was about 45 minutes over the hill from San Francisco and the Bay Area. One of my friends, Willy, from Rampage ended up in Lȧȧz Rockit, which was a popular metal band in the Bay. That exposed us to a lot of stuff that was happening at that point."

"We used to drink and party and go and hang out, so we were amongst it all. It was all house parties and club parties and studio parties after gigs. Then Exodus put their demo out and everybody was digging it: 'Wow, what the hell is this? Holy shit.' And of course Metallica and Slayer would come up and play, and it all started happening quick. Ruthie's Inn was the spawning ground for that scene. The owner Wes would let a bunch of younger kids in. We’d drink under-age, steal bottles from the bar. The same people would go from there up the street to Keystone Berkeley, and then go out over the bridge to the Stone. It was exciting."

Testament were called Legacy before you joined. What did you think of them the first time you saw them? Did you think, ‘They need me in this band’?

"There were good. Zet was my younger brother's best friend, so I went to see their gig in Alameda. It was Eric and his brother Derek on guitar, and they all wore priest collars. It was very entertaining. Like, 'Wow, these guys are pretty good.' Shortly after that, Alex [Skolnick, guitarist] joined the band and did the demo, and that's when Zet played me the demo with three songs. I was, like, 'Wow, these are really mature songs for those kids I saw playing not too long ago.'

"When Zet decided to leave to join Exodus, he kind of handed me the baton: ‘Call Alex, they need a singer now.’ At that point, I was, like, [determinedly] 'OK, I'm gonna find a band that I'm gonna join and be a part of it.' And I walked right into that band. The timing was perfect."

It sounds like you didn't take much convincing to join them. But were they convinced by you?

"Those guys were wearing leather jackets and into Slayer and Mercyful Fate. They were, like, ‘I don't know about this guy, he wears Spandex and he’s got a streak in his hair.’ They were so against me not being the singer. But I got the audition. I went down there but the room was so small that all of us couldn't fit in the room. I just put my PA speakers in the room and I stood in the hallway looking in the door, and I did the three songs that they'd done on the demo, and I thought I killed it. They said, 'OK, you've got it but you've got to dress different. You've gotta wear Levis and a leather jacket and a T-shirt. No more Spandex.’ That was a turning point in my life."

Testament released five records in five years between 1987 and 1992. What was it like being in the eye of the hurricane?

"It was crazy, but then we were just kids dying to get out on the road and get out of mom and dad's house. There was no time to relax and think about what was happening. We'd seen it growing. By our third album [1989's Practice What You Preach] we were on Atlantic, the same label as AC/DC, and it's like, ‘Holy shit, we got a six record deal, we're doing it.’"

Those early albums were all great, but they never really took you to the level of Metallica or Slayer. Be honest: were you jealous?

"Well, we were right on that ledge, Those first three records going into the fourth record, we were selling 250-300,000 units in Europe and America. We were moving up to Gold record status. I think if the scene would have continued we might have hit it, but the rug was just pulled out right then."

People say grunge killed hair metal, but it pretty much did the same to the original thrash scene too. Did you think, ‘We're screwed now’?

"The 90s was tough for us. The scene was changing. The Low record in 1995 was the end of our deal with Atlantic and Alex had left the band the record before, so that record was a little more angry. Then with the Demonic record [from 1997], we were pissed off at the world, pissed off at the industry. It was a weird period: we were just so angry. But then ’99 came and we got together with Dave Lombardo and James Murphy and did The Gathering, and that really brought us back. It was such a different Testament record, but it really set the bar for us: ‘This is what we've accomplished, we can't do less than this.’"

Did things ever get so bad in the 90s that you came close to quitting?

"Well, yeah. In 1997, I auditioned for Sepultura. It was right at that point where the record deal's over, we didn’t have a band, it was just really tough. I thought, ‘Maybe I should just look for another band that's established out there.' But I came in too late to the party with Sepultura. I turned in my demo too late. They said, 'Oh, we loved it but we already told Derrick [Green, Max Cavalera's replacement] he got the gig.' But things happen for a reason."

You put out The Gathering, and things got back on a more even keel. And then in 2001 you get diagnosed with cancer. That must have been a huge blow?

"Yeah, we did The Gathering, we were excited with Lombardo and Murphy in the band, we're touring, and then the craziest thing in the world happens. A lady knocks on my door and asks if I'm interested in selling my house, cos she has a client that wants to buy this house. Long story short, I sold my house and moved to another place, which was just far enough where we had to get new dentists and new doctors and everything. So I went and got a physical. 

"And they called me that night and said, 'Hey, come back in, we see a mass in your chest, we need to do further X-rays.’ So we did that and the doctor said, 'Don't do anything else, that mass in there could erupt.' I probably would have died if that person hadn't knocked on my door. I probably would have just kept on going on and it would have eventually erupted and I world have been gone."

Did you ever think, ‘I'm going to die?’

"The first day when the doctor told me I had cancer, it went in one ear and out the other almost. I came home and my wife's, like, ‘Hey, how did it go, what did the doctor say?’ I go, ‘Oh, he said I have cancer.’ And when I said it, it hit me like a ton of bricks and I broke down. I was destroyed that whole day.

"That's when it crosses your mind: ‘I got it, I'm gonna die.’ But then I woke up the next day and I was, like, ‘This is bullshit, I'm fighting, I'm gonna have at it, fuck this.’ I thought about what I wanted to do, and I knew that I was going to do the chemo and whatever I had to do. But I wanted to explore my Native American heritage spiritually to help me get through mentally and stay focussed on getting better. So that's what I did. I made contact with a Native American healer."

Would you have been sceptical about that before you got your cancer diagnosis?

"I was raised Catholic – my mother's very religious and I learned all the stories. But I'm Native American, and I have this culture and heritage and spirituality that I never explored. Because I was thinking, ‘Am I going to die? Is this is?’, I want to explore that. Even if it was to have something to get my mind off what I was doing. Going into, I'm sceptical, not knowing what these guys are going to do, whether they’re to chant and beat the drum and nothing's going to happen.

"The first guy, Charlie, had a feather and did the healing dance and ceremony, he told me that the wind was going to be my spirit guide after all this. I didn't understand what he was saying until used the toilet and got rid of the cancer in the toilet one very windy night."

What do you mean?

"We’d had a party and there was a bunch of beer cans on the side of my house. That night I couldn't sleep – I'd been having stomach issues that week and my stomach was bothering me. So I went downstairs in the guest bathroom, and sat on the toilet. As I was sitting there, I heard those beer cans in a little funnel cloud outside my window. And I went actually did what I was doing, and whatever I released out of me I had this overwhelming sensation that I'd just got rid of that illness. And at that same exact point the wind stopped and the beer cans hit the ground and stopped.

"I was just was, like, ‘Wow, I just got rid of the cancer.’ I went and woke up my wife and said: 'Hey, you're not gonna believe this, but I just basically shit out the cancer downstairs, it’s gone.’ She’s, like, ‘What? Shut up’, and went back to bed. And that week, when the doctor said the tumour was cancer-free, I was looking at him and I went, ‘Shut up. Fuck off. Holy shit.’ And I really felt it. In that moment when I was sitting on the toilet and the wind stopped, that sensation was there. I experienced something."

Have you carried on exploring your Native America heritage since?

"There's a reservation about two-and-a-half hours away, and my grandparents and cousins are up there up there. I’ve started volunteering as the MC at the annual Fried Bread competition they have. They get the community in the centre of town and they have a bunch of tribal dancers from different communities come down and dance, there's basket-weaving and jewellery and food. They have a band playing and I'm the MC giving away the gifts. And now I'm elected to the Cannabis Council for our tribe - they're thinking about going into the weed-growing business."

Are you a bit of a smoker yourself?

"I am. Unfortunately I’m a very good smoker."

On a scale of zero to Cheech & Chong, where do you sit?

"I'm Cheech and Chong, haha. I don't smoke weed on tour any more, so before i go out I'll stop for a week or two and go through my withdrawals and just be a dickhead for a week. And then I get home and I smoke my first joint for six weeks and it's like going back and being in eighth grade again. I'm high as hell. Now I've been home, locked up, I'm smoking probably an ounce-and-a-half a week. That's just by myself."

Were you ever into anything stronger than weed?

"I tried cocaine and I never liked it. When we were young, crank [methamphetamine] was a big thing. I have no idea where to even find that stuff now. It's just weed now. I even quit drinking over five years ago."

The first album since you got the all-clear from cancer was Formation Of Damnation in 2008. It seems to have been full steam ahead since then. Have there been any bumps in the road?

"That record was interesting. We had our reunion in '05 and '06, with Alex and Greg [Christian, bassist] and Louie [Clemente, drummer], the original guys. We just got asked to do five shows and it turned into three months and then into three years. We never really talked about it, we let it happen. And then we kind of looked at each other and said, ‘We made it and survived and didn't break up or argue, what do you think about making a record?' And we all said, ‘Sure, let's try it.’"

There were some money-related problems between you and your ex-bassist Greg Christian after he left the band a few years ago…

"[Interrupting] There's never been any problems with me and Greg. I just don't think me and Greg see eye to eye. I've done the business since they beginning, and he's never been involved in that, and I think he just sees it different. We argue about that, but I don't have anything against him. We just did the Metal Allegiance show in NAMM last year, and they [Christian’s new band Trauma] asked to be the opening act. I'm like, 'Let 'em come down and jam.' Me and Alex saw Greg that night. We caught up: ‘Hey, how you doing?’"

You used to be into bikes, but now you’re into boats. What's the longest you've been out at sea for any one time?

"Well, I go shark diving off Ensenada in Mexico. We go out for seven days to the Guadeloupe Islands and dive with the sharks in cages."

That always sounds terrifying.

"It is. Sometimes the sharks will hit the cages and try to get in it.  But it's an 18-20 hour boat ride to get out there and an 18-20 hour boat ride to get back. You're way out there."

Testament’s 2016 album Brotherhood Of The Snake was partly inspired by the idea of the aliens planted the seeds for civilisations here on earth. Do you really believe that?

"My mind is open to the possibility. When I watch shows like [alien-themed documentary series] Ancient Aliens and you have these guys showing drawing in caves from thousands of years ago and from different cultures that have similar beings and things flying through the sky, it just opened my mind to thinking, 'How the hell?' There's got to be some sort of connection. There's got to be something they've seen in common. It made me think, 'Are we just in this small window of time now, repeating a cycle that's happened before? Global warming - are we back doing it again in another cycle? These epidemics , will they start again in another time?’ So it opened my mind to the possibilities that we aren’t only ones here."

On a completely different subject, what would a Chuck Billy solo album sound like?

"I want to do one, and do it different. I would actually do a couple of different records, As a solo artist, I would want to do more death metal stuff vocally. But also I'm interested in doing more bluesy stuff. I think I got that slow rasp and tone. I listen to a lot of that stuff when I'm on the golf course. I really enjoy it. I think, 'Man, this would be a good challenge, to do some blues.' I need to hook up with Joe Bonamassa.

What do you miss about the old days?

"Well, I'm pretty straight right now, but I miss a good party. I miss the scene that we had. The scene won't ever be like that ever again. That's what I miss."

What's best: being in Testament now or being in Testament in 1987?

"Being in Testament now. There's two eras of the band - before The Gathering and after The Gathering. Totally different bands, totally different eras. I think we've accomplished some great stuff in the new era. Where the old eras, we were partying like rock stars – sex, drugs, rock'n'roll. We couldn’t have continued at that pace. We’d have died."

Throughout heavy metal's dizzying evolution and splicing into countless subgenres (and subgrenres of subgenres), thrash metal's core DNA of high-tempo riffage, ripping solos and full-throttle, double-bass drumming has remained largely intact. Be it Bay Area originators, German trailblazers or modern, hi-topped upstarts, the purity of what makes a truly great thrash metal anthem is what has helped it survive as one of metal's most enduring offspring.

Still, that's not to say that thrash hasn't had a fascinating journey. Born in the shadow of Reaganomics and in stark contrast to the pretty-boy glam metal scene that had swamped the US, thrash ultimately gave us heavy metal's biggest band, Metallica, who controversially left the scene behind in the 90s only to embrace it once again in the 21st century. It's also provided some of metal's most controversial moments, most notable feuds and a host of iron-clad classic albums along the way. With the latter in mind, here are five essential albums that document thrash metal's evolution across the last four decades.

Metallica - Kill 'Em All (1983)

The likes of Venom, Black Sabbath and even Queen had produced songs that'd prove hugely influential to thrash metal, but truthfully, the real ground zero for thrash as we know and love it today came courtesy of a band of four horsemen putting out their debut album on July 25, 1983. Metallica would go on to create better albums, and few could argue against Master Of Puppets being thrash metal's definitive artistic statement, but Kill 'Em All's searing speed metal assault marked a sea change in heavy music, sparking an arms race of bands playing faster, harder and more aggressively than ever.

Four decades on, it still holds up magnificently. Hit The Lights remains Metallica's most delightfully off-the-rails album opener, the likes of Motorbreath and Whiplash seethe with righteous punk fury and The Four Horsemen packs a riff so good that Dave Mustaine made sure he got to keep some credit for it by reinventing it as Mechanix a few years later. Seek & Destroy, meanwhile, remains one of Metallica's most popular set-closers, forty years after its release. Given their back catalogue to this point, that's a hell of a legacy.

Kreator - Pleasure To Kill (1986)

While the Bay Area scene was busily putting thrash metal on the map in the States, a fearsome group of German bands were doing exactly the same in Europe. Indeed, through Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and Tankard, Germany had its very own Big Four of thrash, with some of the genre's finest entries coming in a whirlwind five-year period courtesy of that imperious quartet. Of all those Teutonic thrash records to have emerged around that time, however, few were as influential or as deserving of instant-classic status as Kreator's timeless Pleasure To Kill. 

The Essen crew's second studio album was a ferocious, relentless barrage of razor-sharp riffs, fretboard-eviscerating solos and pummelling drums, anchored by the gravely, unmistakable bark of Mille Petrozza. Its songs and production would influence everything from three generations of thrash to death and black metal, elevating Kreator as one of the single most important European metal bands of all time. Well over three decades on, Pleasure To Kill still sounds potent and essential. 

Slayer - Reign In Blood (1986)

Has any genre of music ever enjoyed a year like thrash metal did in 1986? The list of great albums to emerge in that twelve month period is dizzying: Master Of Puppets, Pleasure To Kill, Peace Sellls..., Darkness Descends, Possessed By Fire, Eternal Devastation...we really could go on and on. No other album from that year, though, managed to encapsulate thrash's ability to sound like music made by the devil himself like Reign In Blood.

Arguably metal's most perfectly concise statement of intent, Tom Araya, Kerry King, Jeff Hanneman and Dave Lombardo delivered a flawless, 35-minute blitz of heavy-as-sin, intricate riffing, snarling, controversy-courting lyrics and kit-battering drumwork. Bookended by two stone-cold classics in the infamous Angel Of Death and legendary Raining Blood, Slayer's third album sounds every bit as edgy, furious and straight-up terrifying now as it did all those years ago. Reign In Blood is thrash metal incarnate. It's as simple as that.

Sepultura - Beneath The Remains (1989)

A vitally important band not just in terms of heavy metal's evolution, but in people's perception of metal's vitality outside of Europe and North America, Sepultura's progression from extreme metal underdogs to thrash heavyweights to proto-nu metal groovers in the space of ten years was awe-inspiring. Few of their albums, however, have been as essential to their standing in the metal scene as Beneath The Remains. 

The Brazilians' Roadrunner debut saw a significant upgrade in their sound, layering the death metal underbelly of their previous work with sharpened thrash metal and a beefy production job courtesy of Scott Burns that made them sound colossal. Packing lyrics that matched thrash's historic flirtations with war and dystopia with the kind of self-empowerment philosophies that underpinned much of US punk and hardcore, Sepultura not only created a thrash metal classic, but an album that'd appeal to countless corners of the heavy music world. 

Power Trip - Nightmare Logic (2017)

While the likes of Gama Bomb, Municipal Waste and Toxic Holocaust did a fine job of bringing thrash to a new generation, the truth is that the scene itself was in need of a real shot in the arm come the 2010s. Enter Texans Power Trip, who with 2017's Nightmare Logic gave us not only the first truly essential thrash metal album in years, but a modern metal classic full-stop. 

Underpinning thrash's scything riffs with a hardcore backbone and lashings of punk rock attitude, Power Trip both honoured thrash's legacy while giving it a true 21st century upgrade that felt vital, thrilling and cutting edge. The album's Grammy-nominated lead single, Swing Of The Axe, an irresistible, chugging, heavy metal banger, provided thrash's first breakout anthem for a generation, positioning the Dallas five-piece as the band to take the scene into a new era. Sadly, with the death of beloved and charismatic frontman Riley Gale in 2020, that destiny was never fulfilled. 

Overkill frontman Bobby ‘Blitz’ Ellsworth’s signature lunatic yelp is one of metal’s most recognizable, a fearsome howl of derision and defiance from the urine-soaked gutters of NYC. 

Nearly forty years since their inception as the underground’s number one “blood metal” band, Blitz still sounds like a slasher villain hacking his way through the front row, and Overkill’s 20th album is just the kind of gorgeously tawdry affair you’d hope for. 

Scorched is another in a very long list of pandemic albums – both in theme and production – and while the band will tell you it’s a more melodic approach to their patented thrash ’n’ potatoes sound, it still sounds like a wild night in the mosh pot, full of snarling rippers like Going Home, Twist Of The Wick and the maniacal Surgeon. 

No ballads, no compromises, just pure, vicious thrash metal with all the energy and vitality of a band half their age.

The 95th Academy Awards ceremony, aka The Oscars, will take place at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood tomorrow, March 12, and thrash metal will be represented, thanks to the inclusion of [now-defunct] Houston, Texas quintet dead horse's Murder Song on the soundtrack of animated short film My Year Of Dicks.

Based on author/screenwriter Pamela Ribon's 2014 memoir Notes To Boys (And Other Things I Shouldn't Share In Public), and directed by Icelandic filmmaker/artist/ animator Sara Gunnarsdóttir, My Year Of Dicks is described as a 'female-forward look at sexual awakening'. The synopsis for the 25-minute animation reads:

'It’s 1991, and Pam is trying very hard to lose her virginity, but it sure doesn’t match up to her fantasies.

Always searching for her ultimate paramour, this old soul swimming in new puberty will struggle between the real world and her grandiose fantasies by exploring a relatable variety of boys of yore - goths, skaters, indie film snobs, straight edge poseurs - all while trying her best to avoid being grounded. Luckily she has her best friends by her side, who’d like to keep her from cementing a mistake.'

The film, which has already picked by awards at the SXSW film festival, the Raindance film festival and the Brooklyn film festival, sees 15-year-old Pam attract the attention of, among others, a misogynist skateboarder/wannabe-vampire and a Neo-Nazi straight-edge punk, and can be viewed - for a limited in time - in full at myyearofdicks.com.

dead horse, who were active from 1988 to 1996, and toured North America with Entombed and Exhorder as well as opening shows for Pantera, Mr. Bungle and more, were approached by producer Jeanette Jeanenne to have Murder Song from their debut album Horsecore: An Unrelated Story That's Time Consuming (originally released in 1989 by Death Ride Records, and given a re-release 10 years later by Relapse) included in the film. By their own admission, the group were "slightly skeptical" upon leaning the name of the film, but were assured that they would not be embarrassed by the association: the band members are now reportedly thrilled to be part of this moment in film history.

Band manager Randy Haaga, a producer of the Horsecore... album, tells Louder, "It's a great honour to help take thrash to the Oscars. I don't know all the history, but I'm pretty sure it's rare for the genre to get near this award show."

"dead horse is still worthy of a listen, Murder Song is still ferocious and exciting. The band was unique and remains an oddity of the genre, but holds a place deep in the heart of Texas. I'd love to think that place is somewhere near where the Buthole Suffers, Scratch Acid, and Rocky Erickson live. It's a kinda messed up place, kinda dark and confusing, but comforting to those who dared to spend some time with it."

You can listen to Murder Song, and watch the trailer for My Year Of Dicks, below:

Update: Tonight, March 12, the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film was awarded to The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, which features the voices of Jude Coward Nicoll (The Boy), Tom Hollander (The Mole), Idris Elba (The Fox) and Gabriel Byrne (The Horse), but no thrash metal whatsoever.

Soulfly and former Sepultura frontman Max Cavalera has named his top three thrash metal albums of all time.

The Brazilian singer and guitarist revealed his picks during an interview with Sobre La Dosis.

Cavalera says: "I went a little bit old school. The first one is from Canada – Sacrifice, Forward To Termination. Amazing record. I played it so much when I was a teenager in Brazil.

"Also, Nuclear Assault, Survive. Danny Lilker, the man. Yes. Danny on the bass. Nuclear Assault was amazing. They played with us in Brazil. It was great. The singer, John Connelly, had to borrow my guitar, and he played and it was full of blood. And he gave it back to me. And the whole guitar was full of blood.

"But I loved the show. And it was cool to have his blood on my guitar.

"And the last one is Dark Angel with Darkness Descends. It's the perfect death/thrash record, but it's more on the thrash side of things. Very, very amazing drums from Gene Hoglan. And I love Dark Angel – I love the power and the brutality of the riffs.

"Those are three inspirational thrash records that helped shape all my stuff I did from that era."

Forward To Termination was the second album from Toronto-based Sacrifice, released in 1987. They have released a further three albums and were said to be working on new material as recently as 2020.

Survive is the second album by American band Nuclear Assault, released in 1988. After four further albums, they called it a day last year.

Dark Angel's second album Darkness Descends was released in 1986. Two further albums followed, with the most recent coming in 1991, though the band are still active.

“I decided to start a record label because I could see the future of punk.” Doug Moody, still laser-sharp well into his 80s, is the founder of Mystic Records, a California-based label that released early albums, singles and compilation tracks from many of the bands that would become synonymous with the skate-punk movement of the 1980s – bands like JFA, Suicidal Tendencies, Ill Repute, RKL, DRI and Dr. Know.

“I decided to record 500 bands, and they came from all over, everywhere, even Holland,” he says. “The trick for Mystic was to give a voice to people who wanted to tell the world how they felt. You can only capture that before you have the responsibilities of bills and children. 

"Most of the bands were between the ages of 16 and 18. That’s when you have the vehemence, the drive to tell the world what you really think. I saw myself in these kids, and that’s why I started Mystic.”

Moody made his fortune in the 50s and 60s, recording soul and R&B acts on his Philadelphia-based labels Herald and Ember, including some early work with influential country and blues guitarist Lightnin’ Hopkins.

“When I moved to the US from England,” he says, “the only people that would accept me were black. So that’s the kind of music I recorded. The people that played this music were dirt poor, they’d come in with holes in their trousers, and with hand-me-down instruments. 

"Fast forward to the 1970s, when I started recording punk bands for Better Youth Organization in California, and I saw the same things – kids with holes in their clothes, and with hand-me-down instruments. They were poor. It was like the 50s all over again. And I knew they were all skateboarders, because they would come into the studio with their skateboards.”

One of these early skate bands was Dr. Know. Brandon Cruz was their first singer, although he left the band before their more well-known ‘crossover’ era, and the frontman recounts how a bunch of scruffy, angry skateboarders started an entire musical movement.

“We were all skaters before we were punkers,” he says. Cruz was from a Los Angeles suburb called Oxnard, which quickly became ground zero for skate-punk. “In Oxnard, where Aggression, Ill Repute, Dr. Know and Stalag 13 all came from, we surfed year round and skated in empty pools when it didn’t rain. 

In 1975 or 1976, this was before punk rock, they built a skate park in Oxnard, and all the guys from Venice would come up to skate there. Some of the guys from Venice included Jim Muir and his little, little brother, [future Suicidal Tendencies frontman] Mike Muir. We all skated, and we all skated to heavy metal and southern-fried rock back then.”

The following year, however, the musical landscape changed radically. “The summer of ’77 I came back from England, and there was a band from Moor Park called the Rotters. They started playing, and by 1978 they were playing high school parties, and we would go and crash the parties. 

We heard those guys playing, and we said, ‘Oh, we can do that.’ The guys in Aggression were a few years older, so all us guys that would later be in Ill Repute and Dr. Know, we just sat and watched to see how they did it. Then we all sorta came together at my mom’s house. That’s where our guitar player Ismael coined the term “Nardcore”, and it all sorta got going from there. The band started in late ’79, and it really got going by 1981.”

“The original name for the music we put out was thrash, or skate-thrash,” says Doug Moody. “Punk music was Exploited, Discharge. The bands coming from England, and the bands that copied them were punk bands. The stuff we were producing was an original form of Californian music, thrash, or skateboard punk. It originated here.”

The movement was aided by the emergence of LA hardcore bands like Black Flag, The Circle Jerks and the Adolescents, bands that were fast and raw, which replicated the feel of skating. Soon, skate-punk bands starting cropping up all over California and, indeed, the rest of the country. Arizona’s JFA (or, as they were more formally known, Jodie Foster’s Army) are one of the longest running. Lead singer Brain Brannon recounts the early days of the scene.

“You had bands in Orange County and LA, you had Oxnard, which is central California, you had skate-punk coming out of San Francisco, like the Drunk Injuns, San Jose had a big scene. They were sprouting like weeds. It was going on all over. It wasn’t really a movement until Thrasher magazine started putting it all together. Thrasher was a really big catalyst in helping everybody join together. With it you can find out what town has what band so you can hook up and tour, go to their spots to skate and hang out.”

At the same time skate-punk began developing as a loosely-knit but far-reaching community, a per nicious influx of gangs crept into the LA skate-punk scene. The most notorious were the Suicidals, known as much for their low-slung bandanas as their propensity for brutality. Venice Beach skate thrashers Suicidal Tendencies were, naturally, at the eye of this particular hurricane. Their shows became so violent that by 1983, they could no longer even play in Los Angeles.

“Suicidal blew up ridiculously huge”, says Brandon Cruz. “A lot of the East LA guys delved really deep into the gang lifestyle, to the point where you couldn’t even refer to them by their real names anymore, they had all these nicknames and stuff. Back in the 80s, punk rock gang fights were, at the worst, somebody with a stick.

 "They were fistfights. But after a while, people were getting jumped for no reason, and it just got stupid. The violence in that scene is legendary, but it was brutal to be a part of. I’m a small guy, but I got punched a bunch of times at gigs by people where I didn’t know who they were or what I’d done. It was like a random thing.”

As if random face-mashings weren’t enough, around 1983-1985, a strange new influence crept into skate-thrash: heavy metal. Seemingly overnight, scores of once-staunchly anti-metal punk bands began to add scorching lead-guitar solos and wailing vocals into their songs. 

It was a like some sort of lead-infused virus, and it claimed an impressive roster of skate-friendly punk bands, including Dr. Know, DRI, Suicidal Tendencies, Corrosion Of Conformity, Septic Death, Agnostic Front, SSD and many others. Brandon Cruz was one of the few purists who refused to ‘go metal’.

“I don’t know how it happened,” he shrugs. “I just remember in 1983 hearing the initial rough versions of songs that were going to be on our Plug-In Jesus record and looking at our guitar player Kyle and realising, ‘Wow, he’s growing his hair out and listening to a lot more Motörhead and Black Sabbath lately,’ and this isn’t what I thought we were going to do.

" And at the time, I didn’t like it. I was like, ‘I don’t sing that high, and there’s too many leads’. You look at it now, and they’re great songs, brilliant songs, and they hold up really well, but back then, metal didn’t have a big spot in punk rock. 

"Sure, it had its roots in metal, but they were so twisted around that they were no longer recognisable. These guys were trying to make it recognisable again. Now, everybody had toured together. Corrosion Of Conformity were one of the bands that we really got along with. DRI, as well. I don’t know if it was an underground, behind the scenes effort, where everybody said, ‘Let’s all do an album at the same time and make it sound like this,’ or if it was just a fluke.”

Whatever the reason was, Brandon Cruz was not having any of it. “I didn’t quit exactly because of the music they were coming up with, but it helped. I just went, ‘Dude, I’m not growing my hair to my butt again, forget it. We’re not Dio.’”

Doug Moody was equally displeased with the crossover movement, and offers his theory as to how it happened.

“There was a distributor in New York called Important,” he explains. “Originally they imported records from England, and then they took notice of the punk stuff we were putting out, and they became distributors for us. Well, what they did was go to all these groups and convince them that they should be heavy metal. 

"They convinced El Duce, Dr. Know, RKL, all these bands. It was just ridiculous. So all these bands tried to become heavy metal because this is what the distributor told them, that punk doesn’t sell. Important destroyed the growth of punk rock by turning it into heavy metal. And then it went belly-up.”

With their propensity for surf riffs and paisley smoking jackets, it was unlikely that JFA would ever go metal, although even they fell under the spell of thrash metal kingpins Metallica.

“Our drummer Bam-Bam was really into Metallica when they came out,” Brannon says, “And he got our guitar player into them. We listened to them on tour a lot, but as far as going full-on metal, nah.”

He does, however, offer a possible explanation why so many bands crossed over into metal: in the 1980s, being a skate-punk was rough work.

“Basically, everybody hated punks in the 80s, which made it kinda cool. It weeded people out, because if you just wanted to be cool, you certainly weren’t going to dress punk, because you’d get your ass kicked. 

"Guys in Camaros would throw bottles at you. Cops and old ladies would chase you out of pools and backyards, and you spent a lot time hiding in the bushes. It was us against the world back then. Now, of course, everybody is punk,” he laughs. “You see old ladies walking around with Social Distortion t-shirts and stuff.”

It is true that in the two decades since the birth of Nardcore, skateboard culture has gone mainstream, and a whole new generation of skate-rock bands have emerged. Newer acts such as NOFX, Pennywise and Strung Out have benefited from this thanks to events such as the Warped Tour and freely cross-pollinate the genres at will.

Yet several of the original skate-thrash bands are still in operation today and the music made by them still inspires the same sort of delirious mayhem from their fans. Dr. Know disbanded in 1991 but were reformed by Brandon Cruz in 1998. Although he’s glad the days of LA hardcore violence are over, Cruz still enjoys the odd burst of skate-punk chaos. 

“When we first got back together,” he says, “our first few gigs were just mayhem. We had a gig in San Francisco that was a riot, literally. We had equipment flying through the air, the drums were upside down, amps were on the ground, people were fighting on stage, and somehow, we kept playing. They weren’t attacking us, they were loving it. That was their reaction. I was like, ‘Wow, this is pretty cool’. So we kept doing it.”

Dr. Know continued to tour right up until 2010, when Cruz called time on his version of the band, signing off with the words, “We really had a blast out there.”

But don’t expect him to disappear quietly into the sunset.

“I’ve seen musicians my whole life, and the only ones that quit are the ones who died,” he says. “If it’s in you, then it’s in you, and you gotta keep doing it. Did I see myself still skating in empty pools at 45? Not then, but now, I don’t know what else to do with an empty pool.”

Brian Brannon shares this positive sentiment. “We’re just still having fun. JFA started in 1981, and the objective was to play music for our friends and to skate as many pools, ditches and pipes as possible, and that’s what we’ve been doing ever since. We said we’d quit when it’s no longer fun to do, and right now, it’s more fun than ever.”

Top Four Skate-Thrash Records

Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies (1983, Frontier)

Suicidal’s breakthrough debut album offers the first glimpse of the punk/metal crossover movement and contains two of the most obnoxious – and infectiously catchy – punk anthems ever: Institutionalized and I Saw Your Mommy….

Gang Green - Another Wasted Night (1986, Taang!)

Boston’s kings of ‘brewtality’, Gang Green took skate-punk’s ragged thrash sound and injected it with a dose of AC/DC-style swagger. Contains the classic blood, beer and boards anthem Skate To Hell.

Dr. Know - Plug-In Jesus (1984, Mystic)

An overwhelming dose of first-generation crossover thrash that sounds not unlike a snotty teenage slayer destroying the neighbourhood. Not surprisingly, Slayer later covered monstrous opener Mr. Freeze.

D.R.I. - Dirty Rotten EP (1983, self-released)

Pre-crossover debut from these Texan nutbags who played with such unhinged velocity that they managed to squeeze an entire 22-song album onto one neck-snapping 7” single.

• Learn to skate with one of the best beginner skateboards

When not making music with Darkthrone, Fenriz hosts his own internet radio show and makes extensive Spotify playlists. We asked him to select his essential Darkthrone playlist. He declined.

Instead, he chose his favourite tracks from 2015 – a particularly good year for undergound promos, by all accounts – and shines the spotlight on some of the unsung heroes of metal. What a gent…

Trial – Through Bewilderment (Sweden)

“I don’t like to write about metal much; my strength is listening and choosing. This Trial album was one of last year’s best releases and most listened to albums. It has most of what I look for in a heavy metal track.”

Sacral Rage - En Cima del Mal (Greece)

“This has wonderful musicianship and great vocals. This wasn’t released on many vinyl copies, so it is kind of a cult album for some of us. If this style of metal becomes too streamlined and professional, to my ears, it loses a lot of its soul. Still, I think it’s as professional as hell.”

Crypt Sermon - Byzantium (USA)

“The only thing I struggle with on this premium doom/metal album are the sound of the bass drums. I actually liked this so much I ended up as a penpal with their guitarist Steve Jansson.”

Europe – Days Of Rock n’ Roll (Sweden)

“I’ve been dragging this vinyl around for a lot of the photos for Radio Fenriz, just because it’s a damn good outing. I mean, the whole soundscape is ravishing, damn it! It’s often reminiscent of Deep Purple.”

Nachash – Crimson Monarch (Norway)

“Nachash have been one of the hottest Norwegian bands for the last couple of years. There is something transcendental about their perfect underground 80s sound.”

Vorum – Current Mouth (Sweden)

“Everyone who’s in the know reckons that this was probably the best and rawest death metal album from last year.”

Demon Lung – Behold The Daughter (USA)

“One of the biggest scandals is that this release is the only one out of 47 from 2015 that I need – but it’s not on vinyl. I have 45. I’m still missing the Imperial State Electric album, but I can buy that easily. Can someone release this Demon Lung album on vinyl soon please?”

Lethal Steel - Sirius (Sweden)

“This is easily one of my favourite heavy metal tracks from 2015. I had this promo for at least half a year before it came out, because Steffen from High Roller records was so eager for me to hear it. The vocals remind me a little of Jonah Quizz, who also sang on the first Candlemass album.”

Sammal – Muuruhaisen Päiväuni (Finland)

“For me, Sammal’s Myrskyvaroitus was album of 2015.”

Steelwing – Ozymandias (Sweden)

“This song is such a spectacle. I love hearing it every single time. They have a breathtaking understanding of metal.”

Black Trip – Shadowline (Sweden)

“The final track I’ve chosen is my favourite track from 2015. It’s the title track from their album Shadowline. It gives me goosebumps every time.”

Darkthrone’s new album Old Star is out now through Peaceville.

This feature was compiled by Saint Agnes’s Jon Tufnell and Kitty Arabella Austen. The band are currently on tour in The UK (dates below). Tickets are on sale now.

Jon: Narrowing down Metallica’s catalogue to a top 10 (or even 11) is not easy, but luckily this is something Kitty and I discuss on a fairly regular basis. We are huge fans. We love them like a best friend, someone you care deeply about. At times you can take them deadly seriously, and other times you laugh them. But it’s all done with affection.

They’re a true musical colossus, and we salute them. There’s some notable exceptions from this list, but we’ve tried to shine a light on at least a few of the less admired songs from their career. It goes without saying that nearly anywhere the needle drops on their records, you’re in for a treat.

The Outlaw Torn (Load)

Jon: Load is a great album. Far from being a sell-out, in my mind it was the most authentic thing Metallica could do. They needed to spread their wings, and with the huge commercial success they’d had on the last record they could easily have just done another Black album. But this was a brave move, and the songs feel genuine and the playing free and loose.

The Outlaw Torn is the perfect album closer, a slow burner that has hints of their love for Ennio Morricone shining through. The chorus makes me feel like I’m stood on top of a mountain like a fucking god, and Lars’s drum build-up to the guitar solo is just vibing brilliance. That guitar solo is my favourite of Kirk’s, and pretty much matches with my own approach to guitar. It’s totally different from his normal style (well, there’s still wah, but you get the point) and gives me goosebumps every time.

The Call of Ktulu (S&M)

Jon: The album version of this track is so fiery and again has elements of Ennio Morricone. However, the live version from S&M is just incredible, with the added power of the orchestra. The fact they open the show with it – going from James’s finger-picked intro to full on fuzz bass wah riffing with the whole orchestra at full tilt behind them – is awe inspiring. You can see on the live performance the absolute passion and conviction they have as they suddenly realise that this experiment is working and it’s going to be a near religious experience. Hats off to Michael Kamen (RIP) for the obvious love and care he put into the project. I cannot fault it. and it is one of my favourite ever live albums.

Creeping Death (Ride The Lighting)

Jon: A top 10 for the ‘Talli boys could easily just be all the tracks from Ride’ with the first two played a second time, but in the interests of the article we’ve had to cherry-pick some classic moments. Creeping Death is the perfect stadium thrash metal banger. It delivers on every level in terms of riffs, hooks and the best ever crowd-pleasing chant with the ‘DIE DIE DIE’ bit in the mid section.

Kitty: I miss seeing Jason’s veins burst out his head when he used to sing this part, but regardless, the album version added the majestic part of Metallica’s sound that wasn’t quite there on Kill ‘Em All.

Disposable Heroes (Master of Puppets)

Jon: A song about the folly of war and the sacrifice of young men to futile causes that sounds like a machine gun at close range. It allows you to perfectly picture laying in mud terrified of the chaos around you. James’s passion feels totally genuine and the riffing relentless, but the song still has an incredible hook. I also love the way James says “You blindman” in the chorus. It’s a great moment for mouthing the words and making a black metal grimace at each other. If you’ve not done this I recommend it.

St. Anger (St. Anger)

Jon: Such a controversial album, but, whilst flawed, I think there is a lot to love about it. Just as everyone else was making precise, quantised, edited-to-submission metal, Metallica took a chance and made the rawest and arguably bravest album of their career. To me the record is totally tied to the Some Kind of Monster film, which is fascinating, hilarious, cringeworthy and inspiring in equal measure. That film confirmed my long held belief that Lars is my favourite member. Why? That’d be a whole other essay, as that guy seems to need a lot of defending, but Kitty and I are willing to go on record saying we love him.

Kitty: It is true, I love him. I have a t-shirt with just his face on it. It does look a little like Phil Collins, but I wear it with pride nonetheless. For anyone who needs convincing, watch Mission to Lars. The production on St Anger is so heavy, so untidy, with every buzz and rattle in the room being left in the recording. This is an approach too often ignored in metal in favour of sterile mixes, only bands like Down, The Dead Weather or The White Stripes seem to harness the power of this style, but it is something we feel strongly about as it makes the music feel real. It is how we approach our own recordings. The production on record feels weighty, aggressive and from the heart, and contains some of the band’s best riffs. St. Anger, the song, gets me fired up every time and I think James’s vocal is incredible.

Jon: People applaud Bowie for his ‘cut-up’ method of creating, and I feel this was how (maybe unwittingly) this album was made. Raw jams thrown together and spliced to create something unique and refreshing. I even like the snare sound.

Whiplash (Kill ‘em All)

Jon: So much youthful energy coming through on this song. A song about getting neckache from head banging. Something we can all relate to, right?

Kitty: I call it ‘rock neck’, and have to build up a tolerance for the first few days on tour. This song is any touring rocker’s anthem.

Jon: A close contender from this album might have been Anesthesia, Cliff’s solo. It was just so audacious and against the grain. Cliff is such a hero and an inspiration that I cry a little inside every time I think about the guy. By all accounts he was a true one-off, and it’s heartbreaking he was taken from us so soon.

• Watch Metallica play Orion in honour of Cliff Burton
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• Saint Agnes premiere Sister Electric single

For Whom The Bell Tolls (Ride The Lighting)

Jon: When everyone else was just trying to be faster and faster, Metallica had no fear of slowing down and adding some grind. Such a simple song, but so powerful. The lead hook being played on bass and then waiting that long to build the atmosphere before singing works so well, and is the reason why it is such a live anthem. Lars has a great groove on this song and Cliff’s contributions elevate the song to another level. A perfect Metallica gem and the stereo panning “on, on, on” in the chorus is such a simple and cool moment.

Special mention goes to the live version seen on Cliff ‘em All where Cliff Burton is captured in full flight in his prime. The band’s punk attitude to metal, playing hard and with fire, without concern for slight errors and slips, is again something I find inspiring and is how we approach live shows.

Kitty: In most of our rehearsals someone will sneakily start playing bells and we all kick in to it. It’s glorious.

Bleeding Me (Load)

Jon: Another brilliant slow-burner from Load with possibly my favourite vocal from James. The way his voice slightly breaks in the choruses is perfect. Kirk’s slide playing is really tasteful and Lars’s style of playing around the vocal really comes to the fore on this song.

Kitty: Kirk’s solo is great, especially halfway through when the chorus chords come in and he plays a variation of the vocal line. So simple, so powerful, just beautiful!

Sad But True (Metallica)

Kitty: So much heavy grind! Slower is heavier and this song is proof. The part near the end when they go to the main riff as James sings “I’m youuuuu-ahhhh” and the riff slows down a few bpm is just perfect. In the words of Lars himself, “Now that’s the shit that gets my dick hard.”

Don’t Tread On Me (Metallica)

Kitty: Like a lumbering cave-troll of a song. That swung swagger has elements of Sabbath and Zeppelin and is just so chunky sounding. I think this song could have fit well on …And Justice For All, but I’m glad it appeared on this album as the low end is thick enough to chew.

Jon: I agree with Kitty, this song just rolls along with no regard for anything in its path. The West Side Story riff at the start sets a great tone too.

Murder One (Hardwired)

Kitty: There’s a few songs on the new album that do it for me – Hardwired, Moth Into Flame, Spit Out The Bone – but this one has a Sad But True kind of feel and I love the unselfconscious tribute paid to one of the bands greatest heroes, Lemmy. It gives me goosebumps.

Jon: Imagine how good it’d have been if it’d had the St. Anger production! I like the new album too, I just hope they move to a more natural sound, or surprise us with a whole new one on the next record.

Saint Agnes: The Witching Tour Dates

Tickets are available now.

10 Songs Metallica Should Cover

“We came from the New York punk scene meets the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Somewhere in there the bastard son of that is Overkill!” says Bobby ‘Blitz’ Ellsworth, vocal dynamo with the New Jersey metal institution since 1980.

Overkill – who came to worldwide prominence with their 1988 single Hello From The Gutter –have been the hard-working heart and soul of the American metal scene for 35 years.

“It really shouldn’t be a problem for the guy who has 17 records!” he cackles when we asked him to choose his favourite Overkill songs without listing their classic single. The hard part, though, is narrowing them down: “It gets kind of fuzzy here and there because there are so many really cool moments!”

NECROSHINE (Necroshine, 1999)

Bobby: “It was written in 1999, I was going through a health issue, a carcinoma on my nose. It was one of those things, you know, ‘What the hell’s going on, why’s this happening to me?’ Well I’ve been partnered with DD Verni since 1980, and he rang me up and said, ‘Is there anything you need?’ And I said, ‘You got a song? Something to take my mind off this?’ So three days later the song Necroshine turned up on a cassette tape, without any vocals or melody lines, so while I was waiting for my results that took my headspace to a more positive direction.”

PLAYING WITH SPIDERS/SKULLKRUSHER (Years Of Decay, 1989)

“That was something I always thought Overkill had in us, but had failed to show until that point, which was that sledgehammer type groove. It was really unique to us, and the opposite of what we were with regard to being speedy thrash metal. We came from a different era, But really we had Black Sabbath roots, we were into that dirty Tony Iommi guitar sound, that bludgeoning, ‘I got your attention with four notes’ type of approach, and Skullkrusher showed that. It’s the id versus the ego kind of thing, but I think it carried its own weight.”

GASOLINE DREAM (W.F.O., 1994)

“We were writing the W.F.O. record. I’d gone down to my little 8-track studio, and the room was covered in beer cans and full ashtrays. I thought ‘this is totally rock ‘n’ roll, but how the hell can you ever get a song done?’ I was having trouble with one song, I couldn’t get through it, and I ended up falling asleep with the TV on. Then I woke up and wrote the song in seven minutes. I had nothing when I fell asleep and when I woke up, it was done! That was Gasoline Dream. Then I got a sweat on and was like ‘I gotta clean this fucking room!’ That was a really unique experience that always stayed with me.”

COMA (Horrorscope, 1991)

“I always loved the Horrorscope record, but it was a pain in the ass, because the record label were like ‘we don’t know if we like this move you guys have made.’ It pissed us off, we were like ‘how dare you come in here and start fucking with what we love!’ That attitude translated itself into much of that record. But when I hear that record start, and Coma comes out of the cage like an unfed lion, that’s what made that record special. Overkill always had a principle: when they open the door, punch ‘em in the face. When they’re leaving, kick ‘em in the ass. And Coma was the quintessential punch in the face.”

LONG TIME DYIN’ (The Underground And Below, 1997)

“It was another great step out of context for us. It showed that bludgeoning side of Overkill but it had a bluesy feel to it, and it gave me wide open spaces to show my abilities – or limitations, for that matter – with regard to singing. We brought Colin Richardson in to mix the record, and he made our Black Sabbath Vol 4, you know, the thing I’d always put the needle on and have to hear both sides of that LP, not just one song at a time. But that’s a song that always gets me, and stayed in our set forever.”

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ROTTEN TO THE CORE (Feel The Fire, 1985)

“When we first started saying, ‘To hell with the covers, let’s go all original’, I remember the riff from Rotten To The Core showing up in a basement in Staten Island. We used to record our rehearsals on one of those boom-boxes, so we had them on cassette tape. I remember going home - I still lived with my parents at the time – and listening to a very early version of that and thinking, ‘Man, this is special’. It’s honest and forthright, and it was its own animal; it sounded like us. And I think when that identity first shows itself, that always becomes a special moment.”

IRONBOUND (Ironbound, 2010)

“Another great phase in Overkill’s history is the current one, and I should give it to Ron Lipnicki. Him joining in 2005 gave us the opportunity to push the envelope, to use the tools we’ve acquired over the years to their fullest. He plays drums with a huge positive approach. By the time of Ironbound he’d been with us for two full tours and two records, so when this song got to Ron, I said ‘This is something special.’ I really attribute that to the addition of Ron’s process, his approach to playing the drums. Also it’s just a well-written fuckin’ song. When a six minute song feels like three minutes, you did something right!”

ELECTRIC RATTLESNAKE (The Electric Age, 2012)

“One of the songs I love playing every time we do it live. There’s something about that tune, to me. It’s got the right the blend of thrash metal and rock ‘n’ roll. One of my things is I love having that feeling that the train is about to come off the fuckin’ track, y’know – ‘Oh my god, it’s going round the last curve and it’s gonna come off the rails!’ – and I always get that feeling with that song. It feels like it’s just hanging on, but we always pull it right in and it sucks in tight like a vacuum. I still look forward to it in the set.”

DRUNKEN WISDOM (Under The Influence, Atlantic 1988)

“It didn’t quite reach that Skullkrusher pinnacle of hammering sludge, but there were elements there that showed that we’d started getting a little groove into our sound, that we weren’t just the train coming off the tracks. I remember Bobby Gustafson recording that acoustic guitar in a bathroom – this was the old days, we couldn’t just get a computer programme and say, ‘Give me a bathroom type sound!’ This was a dude sitting on a toilet playing an acoustic set with a microphone in the sink! This was our first experience with that acoustic approach, and I suppose of broadening our horizons, and saying ‘There’s no fucking rules, we can do anything we want to do’.”

BITTER PILL (White Devil Armory, 2014)

“I’m second generation American; I had nine Irish sisters who used to stand in front of the fireplace and harmonise. So when I get to stretch my vocal chords, or turn a note, or actually sing – and I had that opportunity on Bitter Pill – I always feel somewhere in there is my roots. I remember my mother singing to me before I remember her speaking to me, that’s a great memory for me, and Bitter Pill has an element of that, of what was, what is and what will be. It was cool to say, ‘This is where I come from,’ and sing a nice melody over these bludgeoning riffs.”

Overkill will release their new album, The Grinding Wheel in February 2017 through Nuclear Blast.

The Thrash Quiz

Silly surfer shorts. Nonsensical placards. And a ludicrous sense of humour. One could easily be forgiven for thinking that the Anthrax legacy to the story of thrash metal is nothing more than a few chuckles. But the reality is a little different, nothing represents this more than their stunning 1987 album Among The Living; hyper riffs, cranked vocals and songs that snarl and sparkle with a timeless zeal.

This, it could be argued, was as good as things got, not just for the New York crew, but also for thrash metal itself.

“It is a classic,” enthuses guitarist Scott Ian. “Of course, I know what it meant to the scene – but more importantly, I appreciate what it did for us. We still play six songs from the record live. That says a lot about the impact.”

Despite the fact that this was the band’s third album [following 1984’s Fistful Of Metal and 85’s Spreading The Disease] at the time Anthrax were under little pressure to make any big commercial breakthrough.

“We were under no pressure at all,” recalls Ian. “We had no time limit for writing or recording. The way we worked back then, when there were enough songs for an album, then we’d go in and do it. We never wrote more than was necessary. In a way, I now regret that situation. We were on such a roll that perhaps someone should have persuaded us to carry on writing. Who knows what else may have come out? When you’re in that zone, there’s a lot to be said for staying in. I’m not criticising what’s on Among The Living, but we may have benefited from being a little less hasty in finishing up the writing side.”

Two of the songs had already been played live by the band. Indians and I Am The Law – the latter based on the seminal comic book character Judge Dredd – were familiar territory to band and fans long before this album was released.

“We were doing them on the Spreading The Disease tour. Charlie [Benante, drums] had written the riffs really early on, and we put them in the set straight away. Actually, I Am The Law used some old musical ideas that came from our original bassist Dan Lilker, who also had a hand in one other song from the record, Imitation Of Life.

“The way we worked on Among The Living, Charlie wrote most of the music and I did the lyrics. It was the process we’d used on the first two albums, so why change it?”

Indians, in particular, captured the imagination of ‘Thrax fans. Unquestionably, one of their greatest ever moments, it was also something of a departure for them, taking a public stand over the treatment of Native Americans. Anthrax making a political statement?

“At school over here, you get a warped view of history,” says the guitarist. “You’re taught that there was a mutual respect between the white man and Indians. That we learnt from each other; wars were fought reluctantly and the Indians were always treated with dignity. Then you find out the truth. How the Spanish and English invaders had been attempting to wipe out the indigenous Indian population since the 15th century, and how we’d tortured, raped and pillaged. That’s kept from you in the education system. And that angered me.”

So, was Scott Ian inspired lyrically by Iron Maiden’s similarly themed masterpiece Run To The Hills, as has often been suggested?

“No way. I mean no disrespect to Maiden, but why would I need an English band to teach me about my country’s heritage? Musically, of course, Anthrax owe a lot to Maiden. But lyrically… never. They wrote in a way that I could never imitate. What really got me going on this song was an article I read in Time magazine about Indian reservations. How there was a huge drink and drugs problem, and how the suicide rate was very high. It truly shocked me.”

Another song with a sense of conscience was Efilnikufesin (NFL). On the surface it seems like a throwaway track, with some clever backwards touches. However, there’s a deeper meaning.

“We had a phrase in the band at the time: Nice Fucking Life. We’d say it without thinking. It was like the Scott ‘Not’ Ian thing back then. I took those words, and wrote the song about [late comedian] John Belushi, and how drug addiction had destroyed him. It did have a serious message. But we always knew that if we’d called the song Nice Fucking Life, then it would never have gotten radio airplay, and we’d always have to use asterisks in the word ‘fucking’. I think it was Charlie who came up with the idea of just reversing the phrase. We always laughed at how dumb people were – a lot of them never knew what we were actually saying in the song title! I still get journalists who ask me why we wrote a song about American Football! Just shows they haven’t bothered to read the lyrics, or understand the whole point of the song.”

When Anthrax recorded Spreading The Disease, they’d effectively produced themselves, although Carl Canedy [better known as drummer with cult New York metal trio The Rods] did help them out. But with a bigger budget for Among The Living, the band were determined to grab one of their heroes.

“We had Eddie Kramer top of our list,” recalls Ian. “We were all huge Kiss fans, and he’d produced so many of their best albums. Eddie had also worked with Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, so he was the man for us. You’ve also gotta remember that, at the time, everyone wanted the sort of sound ‘Mutt’ Lange had given to Def Leppard on their Pyromania album. It was released in 1983, and was still state-of- the-art three years later, when we came to do Among The Living. There was a real mania for over-production. But we didn’t want that at all. That’s why Eddie was the obvious choice. If you listen back to what he did in the 70s, there’s a raw, real live feel to his production. We wanted to keep everything right in your face on this record. We wanted to go against the norm of the time.”

Anthrax and Kramer spent six weeks at Quad Radial Studios, in Miami, recording the album. Then they upped faders and moved across to the seemingly luxurious location of Compass Point, in the Bahamas, to mix the album.

“Why did we go there? We’d seen photos of Iron Maiden mixing records at that studio – and if it was good enough for them…Chris Blackwell, the man who ran our label [Island], also owned the place, so we knew that we’d get it for a reasonable price as well.

“Everyone just assumes that we must have been living it up down there. No way! We stayed in an apartment block across the road from the studio. There was a woman who cleaned our rooms and cooked all our meals, and the local pub was just down the road. So, there was never any need to go into the tourist parts. We concentrated fully on the album. In fact, we were so focused that when we found out U2 were staying nearby, and had been seen in the pub, we were completely disinterested. Our attitude was, ‘We’re here to make an Anthrax album. If we happen to bump into them, then OK. Whatever’.”

Relations with Kramer, though, began to strain when the mixing started.

“At first, working with Eddie was amazing. He’d sit around and tell us these great stories about all the people he’d produced. But then we hit real problems. As I said, we got him because of the classic Eddie Kramer sound. But when we got to hear the first track he mixed, we were all in shock. The vocals had tons of reverb, the guitars were washed out… he’d tried to make us sound like fucking Def Leppard. We were being inspired by his past, and all he wanted to do was follow the trend of the time.

“We had some furious arguments with him. At one point he said to me, ‘Is your opinion God?’. I replied, ‘No, I’m the rhythm guitarist in Anthrax. But this is our album. It isn’t Eddie Kramer with Anthrax, or Anthrax featuring Eddie Kramer. It’s fucking Anthrax. This record has our name!’.

“We came down hard on him. Every time he’d play us a mix, and we’d hear the slightest reverb on the drums, it would be: ‘No, we want the drums to sound dry, dry, dry. Throw the effects pedals into the ocean’.”

Despite the troublesome relationship between band and producer, Ian insists that there was never any talk of sacking Kramer.

“No, in fact if anything it helped. We got so angry with him that all of us were fired up, and I think you can hear it on the record. There’s an edge which came from these disagreements. If anything, we speeded up the songs because of these confrontations, and got more extreme.”

Altogether, Anthrax spent eight weeks working on Among The Living.

“On Fistful Of Metal we’d had three weeks all told, yet took six months for Spreading The Disease. But with the latter we were also looking for a singer [Joey Belladonna, who eventually replaced Neil Turbin]. Now, we take about the same length of time to record as we did on …Living. I can’t understand why bands want to spend any longer. It bleeds the soul and passion from the songs.”

Among The Living – both the album artwork and title were inspired by the Stephen King novel, The Stand – was released in April 1987, peaking at number 18 in the UK charts, and a respectable 62 in America. Eventually, it sold well over half-a-million copies in the States.

“It set us up,” enthuses Ian. “Because of its success, we got to do Donington in 1987; things were really pushed forward. I guess that’s also the time when the phrase ‘The Big Four Of Thrash’ was invented. Ourselves, Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer were all about the same age, and all around the same stage in our careers. It was a time when the whole thrash thing really took off, and I’d like to think that Among The Living helped.

“What did the album mean to Anthrax? Everything. It wasn’t just an important moment in our career. It gave us a career!”

Published in Metal Hammer #150.

It goes without saying but we’ll say it anyway: Slayer rule. But out of a back catalogue stuffed with some of the most exciting, intense and influential tunes in metal’s history, there are a few heavy elephants in the room. We’re not including cover versions (so their massacre of Born To Be Wild escapes to live another day, alas) or collaborations (good news for Atari Teenage Riot), so which Slayer songs aren’t pulling their weight? Here’s ten.

10. Night Rider (1983)

Hardly seems fair to pick on a song Slayer abandoned before their debut, but it’s hard to resist with a name like Night Rider (David Hasselhoff started driving KITT around Slayer’s hometown shortly after the song was written). Musically it’s a ramshackle lash-up of turbo-NWOBHM keg-party juvenilia like hundreds of other American teenagers were attempting at the time.

9. Spill The Blood (1988)

In 1988, many thrashers were aghast at South Of Heaven’s slower, lighter songs and Tom’s laidback ‘singing’ voice. Most now agree it’s a bold Slayer classic, but those early niggles persist with this drab closer, jamming aimless variations on the title track melody under flat, bored vocals, while the acoustic intro was already a well-worn thrash cliche that Slayer had previously avoided.

8. Human Disease (1998)

One of several mediocre sluggish chuggers from Slayer’s millennial catalogue that just seems to churn and stomp without making any impression. This throwaway was good enough for the Bride Of Chucky soundtrack, and to be fair it’s nearly saved by Tom’s creepy, punchy vocals – although not his listless spoken word parts, nor the cringeworthy “sex of the 90s” lyrics.

7. Vices (2015)

Yet another bog-standard, interchangeable mid-paced groove effort from latterday Slayer that tends to blur into immemorable stodge, yet the band seem to think it’s worthy of making the Repentless tour setlist. On the plus side, the band can toss it off during an onstage nap, and the audience gets to go for a piss before Slayer bring out the big guns.

6. Death’s Head (1998)

The idiotically basic riff suggests Jeff Hanneman was essaying the primitive, snotty punk that Slayer had just revisited on Undisputed Attitude, but wilful amateurishness palls from a band this capable. Death’s Head – a name straight out of the Random Slayer Song Title Generator – further confused the issue with a groove-free, hyperactive hippety-hoppety beat and fashionably processed vocal effects.

5. Deviance (2001)

Although it provides respite from God Hates Us All’s predominating tough-guy belligerence, Deviance is a bewildering alt-rock experiment that can’t help falling flat, and not just because Tom sounds like a queasy hippy on the spoken verses. The police radio burbling and half-hearted screams make for a tacky intro, and there’s a lethargic monotony and lack of momentum throughout.

4. Cult (2006)

If you’ve never heard Slayer before Cult will probably blow your mind, otherwise this is self-parodic Slayer-by-numbers bluster, exemplifying their worst traits post-1990: over-familiar to the point of sterility, autopilot riffs, dead-end arrangements and inane adolescent lyrics, with confirmed Catholic Tom Araya screaming pencil-case blasphemies like “There is no fuckin’ Jesus Christ!” with all the bluster of a man who’s had a lovely nap.

3. Love To Hate (1998)

The initial controversy – that Slayer had written a song with the word ‘Love’ in the title – was soon overshadowed by the bigger controversy that the extreme metal pioneers had written a scrappily grooving rap-metal number, absorbing influences from the 90s mainstream that sat uneasily with a generation of embattled headbangers weaned on The Antichrist, Kill Again and Necrophobic.

2. Americon (2009)

More lunkheaded strumming with banal wah-wah accessories on this can’t-be-bothered World Painted Blood duffer. Americon is largely hobbled by its oddly plodding, child-friendly Teach Yourself Slayer tempo, but the phoned-in solos don’t help, nor the hackneyed sloganeering lyrics (“It’s all about the motherfucking oil!”). The title ties with Consfearacy as King’s lamest portmanteau word.

1. Threshold (2001)

Confirming Slayer’s millennial slide into downward dumbing, Threshold’s rudimentary chug riff belongs at some het-up wooly-hatted teenagers’ first youth club gig. The mechanical rhythm’s all stiff, the anger is more teenage temper tantrum than homicidal maniac, and even though it’s only two and a half minutes long, it still manages to be boring and repetitive.

Slayer Quiz: The Reign In Blood Challenge

Disc jockey Alan Partridge has bravely admitted that he feared for his life after a package containing metal albums was delivered to the North Norfolk Digital radio station.

The Norwich-based broadcaster recounts the chilling incident in his new book, Nomad, which documents his one-man walking tour around “certain parts of Britain”.

He writes: “As a major public figure, it pays to be vigilant around suspect packages. This comes from personal experience. When North Norfolk Digital was sent a box of heavy metal CDs, muggins here was about to open it when fellow DJ Rudy Gibson shouted over, ‘Careful, Alan. That contains anthrax.’

“I looked at him, scarcely able to believe what he was suggesting. But he continued in more emphatic tones: ‘The box of heavy metal CDs, Alan. Contains anthrax. You understand? Anthrax?’”

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Of course, anyone else would be overjoyed to receive a big box of metal albums – particularly if it contained releases by one of the Big Four. But Alan Partridge is unlike you or I. The slacks-wearing Level 42 fan didn’t get the obvious joke and assumed that the parcel in fact contained spores of the cow-bothering bacterium Bacillus Anthracis and went into panic mode.

“I ran to the boot of my car, pulling off my jumper and shirt, and then stood at my boot, slathering and rubbing my hands and face, chest and neck with handfuls of Swarfega,” he explains. “My colleagues watched from the upstairs windows, checking I was OK. Of course, I quickly realised that Gibson had been joking and that Anthrax was the name of a heavy metal band or singer whose CD might have been in the box. I looked up at the window and waved and laughed and dressed and mused on how fantastic it was to have colleagues who could share practical jokes like this.

“Sure enough, I got into the spirit and played a practical joke on Gibson by getting my assistant to phone him during one of his shows to tell him his elderly mother had had a fall,” he adds. “He was all over the place! But still, I think twice about opening strange packages.”

We imagine the Norwich celebrity now affords himself a wry chuckle every time he spins his latest thrash discovery.

Alan Partridge: Nomad is out now on hardback via Trapeze.

It’s 36 years since Dave Mustaine gave his former band Metallica the biggest “fuck you” of their lives by flouncing off and forming Megadeth after he was sacked. Since then, our hot-headed, flame-haired hero has created some of America’s most beloved metal albums, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to the gloriously sarcastic art of the meme. Here, then, are some of the very best Megadeth mega-memes…

The title track of Megadeth’s 1986 album Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? has proved to be a springboard for many Mustaine memes. With a little Google detective work, we’ve learned you can put a price on peas – a 1.6kg bag of garden peas will set you back £2.08.

Here’s a mash-up of sorts, featuring a line from Adele’s 2015 hit single Hello and one from Megadeth’s 1992 track Sweating Bullets. Mix them together and you’ve got yourself a tasty meme. The fact they’re both redheads is a mere coincidence.

Here’s a meme known as ‘Butthurt Dweller’ or Gordo Granudo (source: KnowYourMeme.com). We’re not sure why this chap is setting himself such a lofty challenge, but he could be heading for a fall. But good luck to you, sir.

Here’s Confession Bear getting something off his chest. The little cub’s face is etched with sadness because his favourite album came second last in our recent Megadeth album rankings. The worst, according to Hammer’s Dom Lawson, is Super Collider. As popular as a fart in a car, that one.

Kudos to Jules Winnfield for upholding metal standards when it comes to spelling band names correctly. Even the dictionary gets it wrong. Like, duh. But waving a gun around could be seen as a little excessive. Wait, that’s a scene from Pulp Fiction.

We’re 100% sure that Dave Mustaine’s hair isn’t made out of dry ramen noodles – unlike Chad Kroeger’s locks in the 2001 Nickelback video for How You Remind Me.

American actor Jonathan Goldsmith, who appeared in an ad campaign for Dos Equis beer, has been replaced by Holy Wars-era Vic Rattlehead for this slightly creepy meme. How does Vic yawn with all those hooks in his mouth? That’s something that’s always bugged us.

If you were invited to Dave Mustaine’s house for Sunday lunch, what would you take for dessert? Pizzelles, of course. That’s a brilliant joke.

Another Sweating Bullets-inspired classic. We’re assuming whoever crafted this internet diamond took the rest of the day off and ordered a well-deserved pizza.

The likeness between Putin and Mustaine is uncanny. Try spending an hour staring at both of their scowling chops and you’ll start to wonder why the Russian president is fronting Megadeth. That’d be something.

We’re pretty sure these photos have been doctored by experts, but look how happy Dave appears after getting rid of a stubborn stain. Life is about the small victories.

Photoshopped images of guitarists holding slugs were doing the rounds a couple of years ago. If the idea of Dave Mustaine grasping an oversized mollusc turns your stomach, look away now. It was too late for us. Slugs are the worst, aren’t they?

On paper, the concept of ‘having a laugh’ and Slayer should go together like rotten milk and gravel. After all, their stock-in-trade deals almost exclusively in death, war and the darker realms of human behaviour. But somehow, there’s humour to be found in the darkness.

Where else would you find thrash-themed jokes about former Popes, pizza and the President of the United States Of America? Here’s 12 of the very best…

This photo went viral many years ago, perfectly capturing the vague link between Saved By The Bell and Slayer. One internet comment reads: “My buddy has this tatted on his thigh”. That’s commitment to either Slayer or the actor Mario Lopez. Or both. Life doesn’t make sense.

Slayer are a bad influence on the kids. For example, Kerry King can’t walk past a child without them transforming into a bald-headed, tattooed thrash guitarist with an avid interest in herpetology. We’re surprised this hasn’t been mentioned on the news. This meme is the closest we’ll ever get. Pray for Ricky.

We’re pretty certain the bagpipes have been Photoshopped into this picture of Kerry King. We’d remember that unmistakable wheezing sound over the top of War Ensemble. The leather chaps, however, appear genuine.

Every time we hear the title track from the band’s 1988 album South Of Heaven, we can’t help but think of a tray of hot chips.

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There’s a lot of Catholic-themed Slayer memes. Can’t think why. Here’s one featuring erstwhile Pope, Joseph Ratzinger.

This was the perfect Slayer meme, until the creator got the lyrics to Dead Skin Mask wrong. Maybe that’s why Tom Araya looks disappointed.

Weather reports often leave us feeling despondent at the best of times. If Tom Araya was to rock up and predict a 30% chance of crimson precipitation, we wouldn’t be that bothered.

So it’s true, Barack Obama is a fan of Slayer. Look, there’s irrefutable proof below. Favourite song? Seasons In The Abyss.

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The ‘Disaster Girl’ meme originated in Mebane, North Carolina almost 10 years ago. Here she is dishing out a one-liner about those with poor taste in music. The fire? Why, that’s just a coincidence. OK?

So you wanted to make a Satanic pizza. Well played. But what you’ve actually done is made six of the slices crust-free and awkward to eat. Thanks for that.

Well, that’s the rental deposit gone. Nice one. Shall we play God Hates Us All again?

This is your challenge for the week. End every story you tell with this. People won’t have a clue what’s just happened. Unless the story was about answering a question in the quiz below.

Slayer Quiz

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the heaviest thing ever is the Revolving Service Structure of launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It weighs 2423 tonnes. We certainly wouldn’t want to drag that onto a bus.

If Metallica riffs had a tangible weight, the Guinness Book of World Records would have to make an awkward phone call to the boffins in Florida and strip them of their title. Because together, both James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett – the Captains of Crunch – possess a unique power to reduce a building to rubble with the power of riffing.

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One guitarist in Poland – who runs the not-at-all-spooky Paranormal Guitar Facebook page – has experimented with standard D tuning to see how much heavier songs like Wherever I May Roam, Enter Sandman, One, Seek And Destroy and For Whom The Bell Tolls could be. The answer, as you may expect, is epically heavy.

So, do you want heavier? ‘Tallica fan gives you heavier, baby.

Metallica Quiz

When Metallica released their debut album, the world wasn’t quite ready to accede that they were the new Top Guns of metal. The underground scene loved them, but the mainstream still clung to old values – and the band’s determination to distance themselves from the old school wasn’t solely reflected in the music.

“We planned to call it Metal Up Your Ass,” drummer Lars Ulrich said in 1984, just after the album was released. “Seriously, we had the whole thing mapped out – even down to the cover we wanted. We were gonna have a hand coming through a toilet bowl, holding a machete, dripping with blood. And the toilet had barbed wire around it. That would’ve gotten everyone squirming uncomfortably.

Unfortunately – or fortunately – that idea was ditched.

“Our record label [Megaforce] told us that record distributors in America had strongly objected to the title and the planned sleeve. And we ran the real risk of not having our product stocked,” Ulrich explained at the time. “That wouldn’t have helped us at all.”

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So the band decided to modify their sleeve art concept, but while still making sure the new design retained a certain underground edge.

Ulrich: “We wanted something that would shock everyone – except the fans. The title Kill ‘Em All was our way of getting back to the distributors, who were trying to censor us.”

The design itself was again very much down to the band themselves. While making it acceptable enough to ensure the album was freely available, they were also determined to introduce an element of gore and violence into the graphics.

“Once we had the title, it was obvious to have a sleeve that featured a lot of blood. It didn’t take much to think of having a weapon on there as well.”

Being careful to avoid the actual act of blood-letting, the band hinted at what might have happened, with the outline of a hand releasing a hammer.

“There’s a cartoon element to the whole thing that was element,” admitted the drummer. “After all, if you’re not showing any violence, who was gonna object? So we got our own way – and so did the music industry.”

But Metallica have never been once to disregard a great idea, and the band eventually turned the original artwork into a t-shirt design.

Metallica’s new album, Hardwired… To Self-Destruct will be released on November 18.