little house by myself. Sometimes I would just refuse to leave; I’d sleep on the couch for days on end. It was a strange and surreal hand-to-mouth existence. I’d been there before, of course; I’d grown up poor, panhandled for beer money, knew how it felt to wear the same pair of dirty jeans for days on end and to live off boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese. I think it was harder for Lars and James. And for that reason, along with the fact that I considered us to be brothers-in-arms, I often found myself standing up for them.
There was, for example, the time we were all at a party, and in walked the guys from a band known as Armored Saint. As sometimes happens in these situations, harmless verbal jousting gave way to nasty, personal insults, paving the way for a physical confrontation. They targeted Lars, probably because he was the smallest. I don’t remember exactly how it began; I do remember jumping off my chair and telling them to leave my friend alone. They laughed at me, much as they had been laughing at Lars, which was not a good idea. Lars may not have been a fighter, but I was. I had training and expertise. More important, I didn’t give a shit.
As the guys from Armored Saint dog-piled on top of Lars, I ran across the room and applied a side kick to the first person in my path. His name was Phil Sandoval, and he was the band’s lead guitarist. The first thing I heard was a loud crack! Like the sound of a branch snapping in half. And then the sound of someone wailing as Phil fell to the floor and grabbed his lower leg.
I’d broken his ankle.
Needless to say, that was the end of the fight. I tell this story not to brag, but simply as a way of pointing out how I felt about Lars, James, and Cliff. I would have done anything for them. They were my friends.*
Although he looked the part of a gunslinger, James wasn’t big on confrontation either. One night I went to the Mabuhay Gardens, a nightclub in North Beach colloquially known as the “Old Mabuhay,” with James and his girlfriend. While we were waiting outside for the club to open, a girl came running out of a nearby alleyway, flailing her arms and screaming at the top of her lungs.
“He broke my nose! He broke my nose!”
I had no idea who she was or what had happened. And I didn’t care. Instantly I felt the rush of adrenaline you get before a fight. I looked at James, didn’t say a word. I just smiled, and I could tell what he was probably thinking.
Oh, what’s this crazy fucker gonna do now?
Finally, I touched him on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go, dude!”
So we ventured into the alley, hardly able to see a thing. I was quiet, but behind me, James was grunting, snorting, yelping half-baked threats.
“Gonna kill you, motherfucker!”
I almost laughed. James wasn’t so much threatening anyone as he was whistling past the graveyard. You know, like you did when you were a kid, trying to convince yourself that you weren’t afraid of anything when in reality you were about to shit your pants.
At the end of the alleyway was a parked van. As we drew near, with James still yelling, the driver’s-side door opened, and out stepped this big son of a bitch.
“Which one of you assholes wants to kill me?” he said, the look on his face signaling either inebriation or a complete lack of fear. Maybe both.
Before I could respond, James took a quick step backward.
Thanks a lot, brother…
There wasn’t time for an explanation. The big guy lunged at me, and as he moved forward, I opened my hand, thumb pointing down, and grabbed the back of his neck. Then I swept his foot out from underneath him, threw him on the ground, and started rabbit-punching his head until he was unconscious.
A few minutes later the cops arrived and took the guy away in handcuffs. James and I went back to hanging out in front of the club, acting like nothing had happened, but inside I was pretty shaken up. When I woke the next morning my hand was swollen and sore, like I’d punched a wall. When James asked me if I was okay, I just nodded. We never talked explicitly about the way that incident unfolded. There was no point.
“You’re a bad motherfucker!”
SAN FRANCISCO, WITH ITS THRIVING CLUB SCENE AND VIGOROUS METAL FANS, PROVED TO BE A WARM AND WELCOMING PLACE FOR METALLICA. WE PLAYED OUR FIRST SHOW WITH CLIFF ON MARCH 5, AT THE STONE. ON MARCH 19 WE PLAYED FOR A SECOND TIME, AT THE SAME CLUB. IN BETWEEN, WE RECORDED ANOTHER DEMO AND WATCHED OUR POPULARITY SOAR. IT SEEMED AS THOUGH WE HAD TAKEN OVER THE CITY IN A MATTER OF JUST A FEW SHORT WEEKS. NOT THAT ANYONE SEEMED TO MIND THE INVASION; IT WAS ACTUALLY A NICE ENVIRONMENT UP THERE, WITH A LOT OF BANDS PURSUING SIMILAR GOALS, PLAYING AND LOVING THE SAME TYPE OF MUSIC, WHAT WOULD COME TO BE KNOWN AS THRASH METAL. THE JEALOUSY AND POSTURING THAT TYPIFIED THE L.A. CLUB scene was mostly absent in the Bay Area, and we bonded quickly and easily with other musicians, most notably (and ironically, as it would turn out), those in the band Exodus. At one point I even became blood brothers with some of the guys in their band. Like, real blood brothers—cutting our hands and swapping fluid in a manner that, in retrospect, given the lifestyles we led, can only be termed reckless.*
ANYWAY, METALLICA SEEMED to be moving at warp speed. One morning in April 1983, I rolled out of bed, bleary eyed, hungover, and smelling like bad cottage cheese, and saw a U-Haul was in the driveway. Everything had happened so fast that I didn’t even know (or, frankly, care about) most of the details. If anyone wonders why I became such a control freak later in my career, well, the evolution has its roots right here. I was perfectly content to go along for the ride.
The No Life Till Leather demo had drifted east and wound up in the hands of a guy named Jon Zazula. “Jonny Z” owned a popular record shop in New Jersey called Rock and Roll Heaven that was well known for finding and promoting underground artists. He also was an aspiring record producer; after hearing the demo, and seeing the reaction to it among customers, Jonny Z offered Metallica an opportunity to play a few shows in and around New York and to help the band secure a recording contract. Most of the discussions regarding this arrangement went on without my knowledge or involvement. Days later, when we arrived in New Jersey and I discovered that my name wasn’t on any of the contracts and got a little nervous, Lars suggested that I was overreacting.
So I let it go.
I suppose I could blame Lars or James or even Mark Whitakker for cutting me out of the loop, which they did, but I also have to take responsibility for failing to keep my eye on the ball. I was too busy fucking and getting fucked-up. These guys were my friends, and despite our periodic disagreements, I trusted them.
My mistake.
Just one of many, as it turned out.
A woman I’ll call Jennifer was my bed partner the night before we left San Francisco. She was, at the time, the semiserious girlfriend of Kirk Hammett, the guitar player from Exodus (like I said, we shared a lot of things with the guys in Exodus). Jennifer was a cute girl who liked guitar players, and I certainly didn’t mind hanging out with her. As I walked out of the bedroom, Lars and James were waiting.
“Sorry,” I said. “Give me a few minutes to shower. I can’t go all the way to New York like this.”
They nodded. Everything seemed perfectly fine. But it wasn’t. I had no idea that my time in the band was nearing an end.
There has been much dispute regarding the timeline of events during this period of Metallica, but here is what I believe happened. At some point in the preceding weeks, or maybe even months, a flirtation had begun; Lars and James—Lars, mainly—had discussed with Kirk Hammett the possibility of Kirk joining Metallica. Since there was neither room nor need for a second lead guitar player, his role was clear: