A fundamental part of Metallica, having fronted the band for the past five decades, James Hetfield entered Metal history alongside Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and all the bass players the Thrash Metal group has had during their career. Although 80s Metal is often overlooked due to the “Hair Metal” movement, many incredible and extremely influential bands were formed during that decade, including those from the Big Four of Thrash Metal and the groups that were part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Over the years, Hetfield has spoken about many of those bands, including Iron Maiden, which today stands as one of the biggest Metal bands still active, alongside Metallica. What is James Hetfield’s opinion on Iron Maiden James Hetfield is a big fan of Iron Maiden and praised the band many times, mainly focusing on their earlier records, the ones with the late Paul Di'Anno on vocals. He was once asked which bands he liked to listen to and he mentioned them. “Early Iron Maiden albums. I love the new wave of British Heavy Metal. That makes me feel good, it reminds me of youth,” James Hetfield told Radioacktiva in 2016. The first Maiden album he bought in his life was their self-titled debut released in 1980. He talked about the experience of buying that record, saying: “I bought this just because of this (The cover). Because look at that, why would you not buy this? That dude (Mascot Eddie) look really menacing and evil. So I bought that, I never even heard of them. So I bought and put it on, I’m glad I did because it’s a big inspiration for me in the early days,” he said on Metallica's Youtube channel in 2017. James Hetfield said Paul Di'Anno was one of the greatest singers of all time His love for that era of the band is so big that when asked by Rolling Stone magazine in 2008 to pick the 20 greatest vocalists of all time, he placed Paul Di'Anno in the position number 6, in front of names like Robert Plant, Steven Tyler, Freddie Mercury and Johnny Cash. In front of Di’Anno, Hetfield only picked names like: Bon Scott, Chris Cornell, Rob Halford, Layne Staley and Ronnie James Dio. Curiously, Bruce Dickinson wasn't mentioned by the Metallica frontman. Back in 1993, he was asked by Rolling Stone magazine which was the last time he had a drinking session with his bandmates and he recalled one that happened in the airplane while they were listening to Maiden's first record. "It’s been a while since we’ve had a real band drinking session. You just missed it. It was two or three days ago. There was a poker session on the plane, we were doing shots and listening to the first Iron Maiden CD. We hadn’t heard that in a long time; it brought back a lot of memories. We started getting out of control, wrestling, messing the plane up a little. Then we landed, and it got really bad. Shit was broken. The pilots were standing there going, “God, what happened to the nice professional young men who are paying us?” He said. James Hetfield also likes the Bruce Dickinson era of the band https://youtu.be/BB7aUMjl7Xo Although he is a bigger fan of the two first albums "Iron Maiden" (1980) and "Killers" (1981) released by the British band, he also likes the albums with Bruce on vocals. During a show in Portugal in 2008, in the middle of their set, Lars Ulrich started to play a part of "Hallowed Be Thy Name". The band followed him for a few seconds, with Hetfield saying on the microphone:"Yeah, I love Iron Maiden". That same year he was interviewed by Dickinson himself on his BBC Friday Rock Show, where they talked about Metallica's album "Death Magnetic", which was released at the time. The Maiden frontman curiously, praised the track "Cyanide" when talking to James. “This is actually a great record. But I do think that management needs their head examined for their choice of first track. ‘Cyanide’, man. That track, that has got legs on it and balls on it and everything else. That’s a great track!” Bruce Dickinson said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). James' fanboy moment with Metallica back in the early 80s In 1981, the year Metallica was formed, Iron Maiden was touring the United States and the young fans James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich saw the band's bassist and leader Steve Harris in the streets of Los Angeles. They had the chance to meet him and in an interview for Metallica official channel back in 2017 Hetfield recalled that fanboy moment. “1981, hanging out in Hollywood, California driving around. It’s Ron McGovney (First Metallica bassist), me and Lars in the back seat and seeing Steve Harris walking towards us and we are like ‘Ahhhh’ (In total shock).” “It was our first brush with somebody kind of cool and famous. So that always stuck with me. Steve Harris, super down to earth and really cool guy, nothing has changed. I mean, he showed up at the show that we did. It’s really cool when other musicians are hanging out watching you do what you do. It takes you to another level, you gotta kind of go to ‘Olympic Metal’, ‘Medal! Whatever (laughs), you got Olympic mode, like you step it up. Our setlist was at least like 5 minutes faster, the set time. Lars was so nervous ‘Oh my god, Steve Harris is watching me! This part sounds too much like Iron Maiden?’ (Laughs). James Hetfield continued: “Usually halfway through the show you figure ‘Okay, he is gone and he moved on to the next thing’. But no, the whole show was standing there. The whole show to the very end and not only he was there the whole time, he got in the vehicles with us (laughs), came to the hotel with us. Like, super cool guy. Then we got to see them a couple days later and likewise, super hospitable there,” James Hetfield said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). Unlike Metallica, Iron Maiden still wasn't inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, despite being one of the biggest Heavy Metal bands of all time. Hetfield's band has been a member of the Hall since 2009. Hetfield defended in an interview with MTV at the time that they should have been inducted before them. “Motörhead, for sure, Deep Purple, Rush, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and even stuff before that … Steppenwolf." "It’s crazy that Ted Nugent is not there; that dude is about as rock and roll as it gets. Alice Cooper, Kiss … that’s a pretty good list. These are bands that represent history and mean a lot to so many people. I think that alone means they should be in there too,” James Hetfield said. Of those ones, only Steppenwolf, Ted Nugent, Iron Maiden and Motörhead were not inducted yet.
