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  <name>Metallica</name>
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      <bio>
    <published>Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:35:07 +0000</published>
    <summary><![CDATA[Metallica is a pioneering <a href="http://www.last.fm/tag/thrash%20metal" class="bbcode_tag" rel="tag">thrash metal</a> band, one of the longest lived and one of the most influential metal bands in history. The band was formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1981 by guitarist and vocalist James Hetfield, and drummer and former tennis prodigy Lars Ulrich .  The band was part of the wave of American metal bands which combined the sounds of the NWOBHM with hardcore punk influence, and together with bands like Testament, Metal Church, Anthrax, Exodus, Overkill, Slayer, Megadeth and others, formed the genre which is known as thrash metal.]]></summary>
    <content><![CDATA[Metallica is a pioneering <a href="http://www.last.fm/tag/thrash%20metal" class="bbcode_tag" rel="tag">thrash metal</a> band, one of the longest lived and one of the most influential metal bands in history. The band was formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1981 by guitarist and vocalist James Hetfield, and drummer and former tennis prodigy Lars Ulrich .
 
 The band was part of the wave of American metal bands which combined the sounds of the NWOBHM with hardcore punk influence, and together with bands like Testament, Metal Church, Anthrax, Exodus, Overkill, Slayer, Megadeth and others, formed the genre which is known as thrash metal. Their big commercial breakthrough came with their fifth album “Metallica”, also known as the Black Album.
 
 The two recorded their first track on a cheap recorder with James singing and playing rhythm and bass guitar. Lars pounded the drums, helped with musical arrangements and acted as manager. Hetfield’s friend and housemate Ron McGovney was eventually talked into taking up bass and Dave Mustaine took lead guitar.
 
 The band adopted the name Metallica after a suggestion from Bay Area friend Ron Quintana, and they quickly began gigging in the Los Angeles area opening for bands like Saxon. Eventually they recorded a fully-fledged demo called No Life Til Leather; Metallica quickly saw the tape whistle around the metal tape-trading underground and become a hot commodity, with San Francisco and New York particularly receptive.
 
 Metallica performed two shows in San Francisco and found the crowds friendlier and more honest than LA’s “there to be seen” mob. They also caught up-and-coming band Trauma, and most importantly their future bass player: Cliff Burton. Metallica chose to relocate to the Bay Area due to Cliff being unwilling to move. Cliff subsequently joined Metallica.
 
 In New York, a copy of No Life Til Leather made its way to Jon Zazula’s record shop, the aptly named Metal Heaven. Zazula quickly recruited Metallica to come out east to play some shows and record an album. The band made it to New York in a stolen U-Haul. Dave Mustaine, however, was proving to be problematic. Mustaine was kicked out due to his drug and alcohol abuse, going on to form the band Megadeth. Roadie Mark Whitakker suggested Kirk Hammett from Bay Area thrashers Exodus to replace Dave. Two phone calls and one flight later, on April 1, 1983 Kirk Hammett joined Metallica.
 
 Metallica’s first album, Kill ‘Em All, was released in late 1983 and some ferocious touring which saw the band’s reputation soar both in the US and Europe. In 1984 they went to work with producer Flemming Rassmussen in Copenhagen at Sweet Silence Studios on their second album. Ride The Lightning showed a growth in writing, sound, maturity, and intensity. This improvement saw them immediately targeted by major management agency QPrime and major record label Elektra. Deals with both were done by the fall of ‘84.
 
 Returning to the same studio in 1985, the group recorded Master Of Puppets, mixing in LA with Michael Wagner and releasing in early 1986. They quickly secured a tour with Ozzy Osbourne, and that stunt (plus a top 30 album chart position) saw their fan base and name take a quantum leap.
 
 On September 27th, 1986, Metallica nearly ceased to exist. 50 kilometers north of Ljungby, in Sweden on an overnight drive, the bands’ tour bus skidded out of control and flipped, ejecting Cliff Burton from the bus. The bus then landed on him killing him. It was impossible to imagine Metallica without him. Though the 3 remaining members had doubts about continuing on without Cliff, eventually Jason Newsted was chosen from over 40 auditions, which started the day after the funeral, to be the new bassist. The quartet immediately jumped into a tour, and then quickly recorded an EP of cover tunes titled Garage Days Re-Revisited.
 
 With Jason fully established, the band went back to record their fourth full-length album …And Justice For All, released in August 1988. It reached #6 on the US charts and received a Grammy nomination for Best Metal/Hard Rock album. The album also produced two US singles and the band’s very first venture into music video for the song One.
 
 In 1991 Metallica released a self-titled album, and saw their popularity soar. With new producer Bob Rock, this album was a marked departure from the previous album with shorter songs, a fuller sound and simpler arrangements. It went to #1 in the United States, stayed there for several weeks and ended up selling in excess of 15 million copies worldwide. It also spawned several singles as well a Grammy Award and aMTV/ American Music Award. The band toured for close to three years, playing a solo arena tour in ‘An Evening With Metallica’, with Guns N’ Roses on the duos’ joint-headline stadium tour, and as headliner at many festivals. It meant that by the time the fall of 1993 rolled around, the four members were shattered both physically and mentally. Save for some Summer Shed action, there was little activity as the band allowed their personal lives to catch up.
 
 Nearly five years would pass before the next Metallica album saw light, called “Load”, and recorded at The Plant in Sausalito California, it was the longest Metallica album to date with nearly 80 minutes of music and signaled some significant changes for the band. Produced by Bob Rock, the material was loose, powerful and eclectic; the sound thick and punchy. Though Load could never match the heights of the Black album saleswise, it became a phenomenally successful album in its own right. So many songs came from the sessions that a second album titled Reload followed in 1997, the year after. The Load tour encompassed cutting-edge technology, stuntmen, two-stages and an epic two-plus hours of performance.
 
 In 1998, they re-packaged all the old B-sides, covers and the two previous Garage Days sessions and ran into The Plant to record 11 new covers. The double-disc Garage Inc. was great reminder that for all their success, Metallica’s heart was still in the music. This point was further proven in 1999, when with conductor/composer Michael Kamen, Metallica embarked upon collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony to bring new dimension to classic material. Any potential skepticism of the project was blown away by two nights in April at the Berkeley Community Theater. Far from their material being compromised, the arrangements of songs such as Master Of Puppets gave symphonic instruments the chance to explode into the spaces and fill them with greater, heavier power than ever before. Having recorded and filmed the shows on the off-chance it might turn out alright, Metallica released the S&amp;M double-disc and DVD in late 1999, marking yet another significant addition to their discography.
 
 In the summer of 2000, Metallica took yet fresher steps towards establishing freedom from convention, proving that it was possible to assemble, and headline, your own stadium tour without promoting a record. Summer Sanitarium, Hetfield’s back not withstanding, was a huge success, and anticipation grew as to when the band would hit the studio again.
 
 Meanwhile, the band heard their demo of “I Disappear” on the radio, before it were released. They tracked the source to be the P2P-program Napster, where they found there whole catalogue ready for download. They sued Napster, and several universities for not blocking Napster. Lars Ulrich where in the front of the case, and became the most hated person in rock &amp; roll business. But they achieved what they wanted. Metallica lost a lot of fans because of this case, and it all looked dark, when they also were in need of a new bassguitarist, because Newsted had quit.
 
 The anticipation was replaced by fear at the turn of 2001 when, after several rumors, Jason Newsted departed the band. No one reason can be fairly the cause, more several long-standing issues that silently grew beyond their initial molehills. Of course many assumed that this would precipitate the break-up of the band, when of course it merely provided a conduit to newer levels of creativity and understanding.
 
 The band realized there was much work to be done on both their personal and creative relationships, and spent the first part of 2001 investigating spontaneous avenues of discovery both in and out of the studio. They set up shop at an old ex-Army barracks called The Presidio, jammed together at length and made a decision not to rush the process of finding a new band member, opting instead to have producer Bob Rock do all bass parts.
 
 In the middle of 2001, James Hetfield reached a place in his life where he felt rehabilitation, rest and re-focus were necessary for him to not only continue but also flourish. It meant that for many months, the members of Metallica embarked upon various levels of deeper discovery about themselves, the band and their lives both as a band and human beings. The results were to manifest themselves two-fold: when they came together again in the Spring of 2002 there was a deeper respect and appreciation for each other than ever before. And they were finally ready to make a new album, free of outside expectations, free of inner expectations and independent of anyone. 2001 would be the only year in the history of Metallica, where the band wouldn’t play live at all.
 
 Settling into their new HQ, the band set about making ‘St Anger’ with Bob Rock. Those early Presidio sessions had certainly helped shape the freeform thinking and expression that was to come, but no-one, least of all the guys themselves, could’ve known just how fierce, raw and passionate the ‘St Anger’ material would turn out to be. With Rock always offering prompt and support, lyrics were written by everyone, writing was shared and performance was off the cuff, spontaneous and a 180 degree turn from the months of cut-and-paste which had become a part of the Metallirecording process in the past.
 
 It was in the Fall of 2002 that the band decided it was time to search for a new bassist, and after some closed auditions with personal invitees over a few months, ex-Suicidal Tendencies/Ozzy Osbourne bass player Robert Trujillo was chosen to be the new member of Metallica. Note, member. Not bassist or hired gun or replacement. But a band member. His whole demeanor, happy, relaxed, warm, enthusiastic blended with over 15 years of experience and a ferocious finger-picking style made Robert the only natural choice.
 
 The “St.Anger” era kicked off on April 30th/May 1st with the small matter of a video shoot at San Quentin prison for the same-titled track, and continued in earnest with an MTV Icons tribute show a week later, where peers such as Korn and Limp Bizkit lined up to pay tribute to the chaps. The guys also performed live, marking the first ‘official’ live appearance of Robert Trujillo as well as James Hetfield’s first public performance since his stunt in rehab.
 
 Then came the small matter of rehearsals which Metallica chose to do in front of their loyal fan club members over 4 nights at the historic Fillmore Theatre in San Francisco…and then it was off to Europe in June for the start of what would end up being 19 months of touring, with the festival circuit taking the early brunt, Metallica successfully playing to multiple 60,000-plus crowds. “St.Anger” saw it’s release on June 5th, a raw, feral, unrestrained slab of molten Metallica stuffed with abrasion, aggression and the overspill of four years excitement, anger, frustration and ultimate fruition. For those who thought it would signal a radio-honed band, “St.Anger” was a big, fat slap in the face. Indeed, it was actually too heavy for some! Oh, and as if to prove that this ‘new’ Metallica were not a bunch of ginger-snap panty-waists, the boys played three shows in three different Parisian clubs in one day during mid-June, each venue harboring a temperature of not less than 100 degrees.
 
 In the US, Summer Sanitarium followed, with Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit amongst the support acts on another series of stadium sell-outs. In the meanwhile, the fervor was slowly building for ‘Some Kind Of Monster’, the documentary film by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky about the world of Metallica between 2001 and 2003. Ostensibly slated to be about the making of an album, the filmmakers found a whole new project developing when James went into rehab, and thus having been projected as a marketing tool, the end product ended up being an incredibly revealing 2 hour 20 minute documentary.
 
 As the Mighty Metallica continued ploughing on through the world (going back to Europe, Japan and then onto Australia in January), SKOM was debuted to enormous critical acclaim at the 2004 Sundance Independent Film Festival in Utah during January.
 
 And the year continued in the way that you’d imagine a Metalli-year does, deciding to play (seemingly) every single town capable of hosting a major arena gig in North America (some 80-plus dates) with Godsmack in support. Result? Oh well, the usual sell-outs you’d expect for this ‘in-the-round’ two hour thirty minute set which saw no song off limits and many a fan favorite raised from retirement for a gleeful airing. (p.s….there was another Grammy in February for Best Metal Performance – ‘St.Anger’).
 
 July saw the theatrical debut of ‘Some Kind Of Monster’ which opened to enormous critical acclaim and went on to hold it’s own in North American theaters for three months before going through Europe. And August also saw the release of the first official Metallica book, “So What! The Good, the Mad, and the Ugly”, an edited compilation of the band’s fan club magazine spanning 10 years from 1994 to 2004.
 
 And still the ‘Madly In Anger With The World’ tour continued, selling out venues right through to it’s final date in San Jose, California on November 29, 2004.
 
 They did publicly state that the majority of 2005 would be spent re-charging those creative and mental batteries, and true to their word it was a quiet year, except for two little hometown gigs with the Rolling Stones at SBC Park in November. We all knew an entire year would not pass without at least a sighting of the guys!
 
 With batteries re-charged after the two shows with the Stones, the guys hit the studio in early 2006 to start writing a new album and were excited to announce that they would be working with a new producer, Rick Rubin. The spring and summer found them escaping from the studio once again with shows in South Africa (their first ever visit to the continent!), Europe, Japan and Korea. “The New Song” made its debut in Berlin, Germany on June 6 to give us all a little taste of things to come in 2007 with the remainder of the year scheduled for more writing and jamming.
 
 While popular in the larger rock community Metallica has gained a certain amount of notoriety in the Heavy Metal community because their popularity has brought mainstream attention on a previously intimate musical community. Additional distdain has accrued through the band’s longevity, with associated age and maturity themed songwriting (commonly held to lack the edge of earlier work). More than this however, Metallica is particularly notorious in the internet community because of its aggressive position on copyright enforcement.
 ruma rumpali kova ääni. ]]></content>
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