One of the godfathers of Thrash Metal, James Hetfield became over the past decades one of the most important songwriters in the world. Metallica showed that it was possible to be heavy without deviating too much from their essence and still achieve commercial success, becoming an influence to many of their peers. One of those bands was Anthrax, which has a deep connection with Metallica and Hetfield since the early days of their careers.
What is James Hetfield’s opinion on Anthrax
James Hetfield has been a huge fan of Anthrax since the early days of their career, when the New York group helped Metallica a lot when they had no money and had nowhere to stay as they crossed the United States to record their first album. One of Hetfield’s favorite Anthrax songs is “Only”, from their 1993 album “Sound of White Noise” and he has praised the track multiple times directly to the band members.
“James is always a great ballbuster. One night he, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammett came to an Anthrax show in San Francisco. I remember they were at the side of the stage. This was when John Bush was in the band. James loves the song ‘Only’ that Bush sang on, so he’s rocking at the side with the rest of Metallica. We went out afterward and I thanked him for coming along. He said, ‘Yeah, but I couldn’t hear the bass.’ He started f*cking with me, like, ‘Were you playing tonight? Was the bass plugged in?’ and all this stuff. It was really funny. Whenever I hear a loud bass player now, I think of him,” Anthrax’s Frank Bello said in his autobiography.
According to the band’s founder and guitarist Scott Ian, Hetfield told him the song was actually perfect. “He did say that, he said that to John Bush and I. It was at the Warfield in San Francisco at an Anthrax show, if I remember. That could be totally wrong, but that’s something you would remember if somebody said that to you. Thank you, James,” Scott Ian said in an interview with Loudwire in 2015 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
Anthrax helped James Hetfield and Metallica survive before they recorded their first album
Metallica and Anthrax’s history began in 1983, when James Hetfield and his bandmates traveled to New York to record their debut album. The sessions were financed by “Jonny Z” Zazula, who believed in the band so strongly that he borrowed enough money to cover the budget and signed them to his own label, Megaforce Records. They met the guys from Anthrax and according to Scott Ian: “They (Metallica) had no money, they had nowhere to go. So we pretty much went out of our way to help them out in any way we could. We brought them to our houses to shower, and we gave them a refrigerator and a toaster oven so they could cook the hot dogs that they were eating cold. We just hung out as much as possible,” he told Mick Wall in the book “Enter Night”.
It was around that time that Dave Mustaine was fired and Kirk Hammett was brought into the band. Hammett played his first live show with Metallica at a nightclub in Dover, New Jersey, called The Showplace. That concert also marked the first time Metallica played with Anthrax, who were the opening act. James always enjoyed playing with them and putting together the historic “Big Four” tour. It was proof of how much he and Metallica valued their friends and peers.
Anthrax members helped Hetfield cope with Cliff’s death right after the accident
“I enjoy playing other bands, I enjoy, obviously, playing with the Big 4. We share a lot in common besides neck injuries and all the other headbanging (issues). We’re all from the same era, same riff school. So there’s something really extra cool about this,” James Hetfield told Rock 105.3 in 2011. Frank Bello and Scott Ian have thanked James and the band many times over the years for those special shows, which gave the other bands greater visibility. They said that the Metallica members did not have to do it, but chose to do so anyway and that it was extremely important for them.
Anthrax also helped James cope with Cliff Burton’s death, as they were touring together at the time. It was Charlie Benante and Frank Bello who took James outside the hotel for a walk to help him clear his head. The frontman was out of control, screaming Cliff’s name, still in shock over his friend’s tragic death.
John Bush nearly became Metallica’s vocalist in place of James Hetfield
Curiously, the famous Armored Saint vocalist John Bush, who later became a member of Anthrax and was the voice on “Only”, the song James said was perfect, almost became Metallica’s frontman. In the early 1980s, when James did not feel he should handle vocals, Bush was considered for the role.
James himself told that story, saying: “A lot of those early memories (of Metallica) were celebrated with a band called Armored Saint. (They) were a fellow L.A. band back in the early ’80s when we were getting started. Obviously, John Bush was a singer we got to know really well. (We) really, really tried to get him into the band as the singer.”
“It didn’t work out. He was dedicated and very in love with what he was doing with his brothers in Armored Saint. We absolutely respect that. But we got to hear them and love them every single night. We did get a crew member from them, our buddy (guitar tech) Zach Harmon. (He) was running their whole show, ended up on our tour bus for some reason, somehow, which was quite awesome. [Chuckles]”.
Bush has been the vocalist of Armored Saint since 1982. Some of their most famous songs are “Can U Deliver”, “End of The Attention Span” and “Reign Of Fire”. He was the frontman of Anthrax from 1992 to 2005 and in 2009 and 2010. With the New York band he recorded the albums “Sound of White Noise” (1993), “Stomp 442” (1995), “Volume 8: The Threat Is Real” (1998), “We’ve Come For You All” (2003) and “The Greater of Two Evils” (2004). John and Scott Ian were part of Metallica’s 30th anniversary concert joining them on stage to perform “Seek & Destroy”.
Scott Ian said Metallica and Megadeth influenced them when they recorded “Only”
After Metallica took the risk of slightly changing their sound and releasing the “Black Album” in the early 1990s, their career took a dramatic turn, turning them into one of the most successful Metal bands in the world. Seeing that success, Megadeth and Anthrax followed a similar path, which resulted in highly praised albums such as “Countdown to Extinction” (1992) and “Sound of White Noise” (1993). According to Scott Ian, Anthrax’s album would not have been the same without Metallica’s example.
“I also felt that we had made the record and we had the songs with ‘Only’ and ‘Room for One More,’ and ‘Black Lodge’. I thought with those three songs because remember, Megadeth already had ‘Symphony of Destruction’. They had like a multi-platinum record at this point. The ‘Black Album,’ that’s another planet. But with us, Megadeth, and Slayer… Megadeth had now reached new heights that us and Slayer, we were all like right around here selling between gold and platinum.”
He continued:
“And then Megadeth went like this, they went more commercial. I felt like we’re right on that path. Listen to these songs, ‘Only,’ ‘Room for One More,’ and ‘Black Lodge,’ the ‘ballad.’ We’re on Elektra (Records), and they’re throwing a shitton of money at it. At radio, at videos, we’ve had a machine behind us now like we’ve never had before in our lives. In my mind, I thought we were going to sell three million copies of that record. I literally thought, ‘This is it, we’re going to where Metallica (is)’.
“Maybe not as big, because ‘Black Album,’ as I said, that’s another planet. But I thought we would at least do what Megadeth did, if not more than what Megadeth did,” Scott Ian said in an interview with NPR in 2022 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). In Scott’s view, Metallica has always been the band within the Big Four that broke down walls and showed the others how far they could go with their music.
I'm a Brazilian journalist who always loved Classic Rock and Heavy Metal music. That passion inspired me to create Rock and Roll Garage over 6 years ago.
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After graduating in journalism from the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, I pursued a postgraduate degree in digital communication at the same institution. The studies and experience in the field helped me improve the website and always bring the best of classic rock to the world!
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