Metallica. You know the story. Those that don’t are doomed to have me repeat it. Early ’80s, a metal brat and a friend not ashamed to look like Frank Marino come crashing out of the Ulrich family garage in tree-lined Norwalk, California, and into the L.A. metal scene proper, only to be kicked in the corner by a batallion of stilettos. Not that there’s anything wrong with stilettos, nor make-up nor spandex nor hairspray for that matter; all have been a better friend to me than any dog I’ve known. What was wrong, in the metal sense, was the behavior of their wearers, sheep-like, rolling over, submitting themselves gladly to the businessman’s shears that snipped and smoothed and Tomwermanized them into harmless, nice, Ken doll perfection. No place in the pen for a band that thought the music of Diamond Head godhead, for a drummer who once threw up on Lemmy’s hotel carpet, for a band from L.A. who were loud, fast, obnoxious, young and didn’t care...

Metallica—in those days just Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield—came out of that corner fighting. First a track on the legendary first Metal Massacre compilation album, next—after recruiting a bass and guitar player—the even more legendary No Life ’Til Leather demo tape that circled the world on the metal underground, and finally—with a permanent line-up, Kirk Hammett and Cliff Burton— real genuine actual albums. Kill ’Em All in ’83, Ride The Lightning in ’84, and the new one, Master Of Puppets. No significance to the title, according to Lars Ulrich, who’s sitting with me and a cup of tea at his British record company’s Carnaby Street headquarters, although Metallica did manage to get where they are today—the biggest beyond-thrash band ever; over half a million sales on their last album, and even more expected now with the full weight of a big-name manager and a big-deal record company behind them—by pulling all their own strings.