The Metallica vocalist, guitarist and main songwriter James Hetfield is a fundamental part of the band but although they started fundamentally as a Thrash Metal group, the members have many different influences that don’t come only from Heavy Metal. Hetfield for example is a huge fan of the Southern Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, which was a huge influence for him when he was growing up.
Over the decades he talked about the band and revealed which is one of his favorite songs of the band. He also had the chance to perform on stage with the late Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington.
The Lynyrd Skynyrd song James Hetfield said is one of his favorites
When Lynyrd Skynyrd released their self-titled debut album in 1973, James Hetfield was only 10 years-old and in the following years he became a huge fan of the group. In an interview with Rolling Stone back in 2004 he listed his 10 favorite songs of all time and one of them was “Free Bird”.
“Nothing tops this workingman’s ballad. ‘Free Bird’ fit my life for the first 20 years on the road. Not really getting too attached to stuff, living life for the moment and moving on,” James Hetfield said.
That song was the final track of Skynyrd’s debut album and remains as one of their most famous ones.
Gary Rossington played with Metallica
In 1998 Metallica covered the famous Skynyrd song “Tuesday’s Gone” on their cover album “Garage Inc.” and Gary Rossington even performed on it. Besides him there were more additional musicians like Les Claypool (Primus) and Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains).
In 2011 on the celebration show of Metallica’s 30th birthday, the band invited many legendary artists to perform a few songs with them. One of them was Garry Rosington, who appeared to perform the song Metallica covered.
In 2019, during a concert in Birmingham, Alabama, Kirk Hammett and Rob Trujillo played a snippet of “Sweet Home Alabama” in the middle of the show. Although James is usually not part of those moments in the shows, when the bassist and guitarist plays a song that has a connection to the place they are playing, Hetifeld appeared and sang a little bit.
When the musician passed away in 2023, James shared a tribute on Metallica’s social media. He said: “R.I.P. Brother Gary. Thank you for bringing me so much joy with your guitar playing and songwriting in one of my all time favorite bands, Lynyrd Skynyrd.”
Metallica’s “The Four Horsemen” was inspired by “Sweet Home Alabama”
Metallica’s song “The Four Horsemen” was released on their debut album in 1983. It was later revamped by Dave Mustaine, one of the songwriters, and released as “Mechanix”.
As Mustaine recalled in an interview with Eddie Trunk in 2018 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), the songs were actually inspired by “Sweet Home Alabama”.
“Cliff (Burton) was really a wonderful human being, we used to ride to rehearsal together. I remember this one story in particular. We were smoking some really terrible pot, it was homegrown, so it was really awful. We were listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd, because Cliff loved Lynyrd Skynyrd.”
“I like them but not as much as he did because we were listening to them everyday. So one day we get to rehearse and we were playing the song ‘Mechanix’. (That song) had been changed to ‘Four Horsemen’ and I will tell you why. So we get there and Lars goes ‘Oh fuck, man. We need to slow this song down a little bit, man’. And I went ‘Huh, really?’ Because we were supposed to be fast, loud and rude.”
“So I pick up my guitar and I go (plays ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ riff). Now go back and listen to ‘Four Horsemen’ again. So I played that riff in the middle and Lars goes ‘Fuck man, that’s fucking brilliant man’. And I went ‘Oh my God’. So I (changed a little bit of the riff) and that’s the difference between ‘Four Horseman’ and ‘Mechanix’. It’s the bastardized version of Lynyrd Skynyrd thanks to Cliff,” Dave Mustaine said.