James Hetfield talks about Category 7, the new band he likes

The Metallica co-founder, guitarist, singer and main songwriter James Hetfield said during a new episode of the “The Metallica Report” podcast that the group Category 7 is one of the new bands he likes.

The musician explained that he first discovered them when hearing music through the satellite radio SiriusXM, because it’s only like that he usually discovers new bands. At first he said that the voice of the singer sounded familiar and then he discovered that it was actually John Bush (Armored Saint/Anthrax), who was almost Metallica’s vocalist in the early days.

The band is a spin off of the supergroup Metal Allegiance and it has John Bush, Phil Demmel (Guitar), Mike Orlando (Guitar), Jack Gibson (Bass) and Jason Bittner (Drums). Their self-titled debut album was released in 2024.

James Hetfield talks about Category 7, the new band he likes

“(Transcribed by Blabbermouth) As far as new music goes… Let’s see. I flipped through Sirius a bunch. I mean, it’s just so easy to go on to your playlist and listen to the same stuff over and over. And if I’m not listening to the radio of some sort where someone else is in control, I’m not learning new stuff so much.”

“I don’t like getting caught in that rabbit hole: ‘If you like this, you might like this.’ And then sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn’t. That’s a computer telling me what I might like. But listening to the radio, I guess the newest thing that I was surprised by and really made me smile was Category 7, a band that’s kind of a collaboration of few people.”

He continued:

“I was listening to it, I’m going, ‘That voice is awesome. It sounds very familiar.’ It was fricking John Bush, our singer that we never got. And so John Bush is in a band with a few other well-known people out there, Phil Demmel from Machine Head, Exodus, a few other people in this band, kind of a — I don’t know if it’s a, whatever, supergroup of metal guys, but they all wanted to form a band and start playing.”

“And Brian Slagel has signed him. So I heard one song on the radio, and that’s it. And it was great. It was really good. And I’m glad that John has kind of gone out on his own and done his own thing. And he was so, so, so tied to Armored Saint and then the Anthrax thing. Yeah, it’s exciting,” James Hetfield said.