Metallica was hardly an overnight sensation.
Formed in 1981, the band toiled for years in relative obscurity, going through lineup changes, money woes, and enduring a tragedy in the death of bassist and Castro Valley native Cliff Burton in a tour bus accident.
A decade later, after releasing four acclaimed albums, Metallica was a star in the metal music world. Then came the 1991 eponymous fifth album (usually referenced as “The Black Album”), a global blockbuster that sent the band into superstar status.
Furthermore, the outfit that actually started in L.A. was fully, proudly entrenched as a San Francisco entity (reportedly it was Burton who convinced the band to settle in the Bay Area). That bond has never wavered, and so when the group celebrates its 40th anniversary this weekend, it’s doing so with a “Metallica San Francisco Takeover,” a four-day citywide series of concerts and special events highlighted by two Metallica shows — Dec. 17 and 19 — at the Chase Center, home of the Golden State Warriors. (See metallica.com for details.)
It’s a grandiose celebration, but those who know the band say it needs to be.
“They’re the biggest band in the world,” says Another Planet Entertainment CEO Gregg Perloff, who has been promoting Metallica shows in the Bay Area for decades. “A lot of bands can claim to be — and certainly there are huge bands like U2 and the Rolling Stones. But if you really think about it and know what they can do, Metallica is the biggest band in the world. … And they are getting bigger. Think about it — after 40 years, they are getting bigger.”
How did this happen? How did a group of guys, who reportedly first banded together out of a shared interest in Iron Maiden and Diamond Head, end up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and selling more than 125 million albums — more than Bob Dylan, Prince or Britney Spears?
There is no denying the sheer enormity of the musicians’ talents or the fact that the band’s first five albums alone are ranked by metal and hard-rock connoisseurs as all-time classics. “The Black Album” has sold more than 30 million copies across the globe.
Yet there’s more to it than that.
The overwhelming success of the group — currently featuring drummer Lars Ulrich, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, bassist Robert Trujillo and vocalist-guitarist James Hetfield — also reflects the bonds band members have forged, carefully yet sincerely, with their fans.
“While other bands might say ‘We owe everything to our fans,’ Metallica really believes it,” says music critic Jaan Uhelszki, a former Berkeley resident who has been covering the group for decades.
Some see Metallica’s bond with fans as reminiscent of another legendary Bay Area rock group.
“If a band doesn’t stay close to its audience, it probably won’t have a very lengthy career. Metallica had a sterling example just down the street in that regard, namely the Grateful Dead,” says Dennis McNally, author of “A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead. “Lars Ulrich has acknowledged that they took some tips from the Dead in terms of trying to keep business in-house and in trusted hands.”
“No matter how you play, starting with respect for those who are listening is good for the soul. It keeps the ‘Sandman’ happy,” adds McNally.
The connection has endured despite being tested by the band’s shift toward more mainstream hard rock in the 1990s, which some thrash-metal purists disdained, and its legal war with the music-file-sharing company Napster in the 2000s, which challenged its “band of the people” image. Band members offset these issues, in part, by tearing down some of the walls that routinely exist between rock fan and rock star.
“There has always been the sense that they’re just like their fans,” Uhelszki says. “A little rough around the edges, without pretense or airs, unabashed and honest about their foibles, self-effacing and fond of airbrush art, surfing, comic books and hockey, they have always slapped a human face on being stars.”
That was certainly the case with the stunning 2004 documentary “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster,” in which the musicians granted filmmakers extraordinary access — not to triumphant stadium concerts and cheering fans but to Hetfield’s stint in rehab, bassist Jason Newsted’s departure from the band and other issues from the troubled 2001-2003 time period.
“They have done a lot to demystify fame, and to show that it might change you, but not in particularly good ways,” Uhelszki says. “I think most importantly, that while sometimes life knocks you down they show that it’s important to get back up. They have come back from addiction, death of a founding member, divorces and betrayals, yet are still standing tall.”
Through it all, Metallica has always exhibited ample gratitude for its success and commitment to being part of San Francisco lore. This has come from more than performing at San Francisco Giants games and its two-album collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony, but in its many-faceted charitable projects.
Metallica has been done a lot of charity work over the years — including appearing at Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit concerts and the Acoustic-4-A-Cure shows that Hetfield organized with Sammy Hagar. They also started their own charity organization, All Within My Hands, a few years back.
“Metallica has always given back to the communities they’ve visited while on tour, it is something they did rather quietly since the early days,” says Renee Richardson, associate director of All Within My hands. “In 2017, they decided to form their foundation in order to have greater impact and encourage fan participation.
“Feeding people was always at the core of their efforts but once formalized, the mission expanded to workforce education in the trades and disaster relief.”
Metallica helped raise millions for North Bay fire relief efforts by headlining the Band Together Bay Area Benefit Concert at AT&T Park (now Oracle Park) in San Francisco in late 2017. The concert also featured Dead & Company, Rancid, G-Eazy, Raphael Saadiq and Dave Matthews.
“If it wasn’t for Metallica that show wouldn’t have happened,” says Perloff, whose Another Planet Entertainment co-produced the show. “No big band is going to give up the kind of money they gave up to play for free to support the fire victims in the North Bay. And they got all these other huge bands to play.
“No one gives up a stadium show like that — only Metallica.”
