(Credits: Far Out / Apple Music)
Sat 8 November 2025 18:15, UK
Few could have predicted just how monstrously chart-devouring thrash titans Metallica would explode a decade on from their Los Angeles launch.
Forming the supposed ‘Big Four’ along with Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer, the thrash cohort carried over their love of the new wave of British heavy metal’s shredding complexities but spiked with a charge of punk’s ephemeral urgency. While it wasn’t entirely clear from 1983’s Kill ‘Em All debut—as great as it is—the thunderous power wielded by Metallica would dwarf all competition, eventually tightening their sound for maximum appeal that saw 1991’s eponymous LP sell ungodly levels, still standing as one of the biggest-selling albums of all time.
They were one of the biggest bands on the planet. Yet, the road to the 2000s would prove more fraught. Artistic detours into the alternative rock of the Load and Reload records would exacerbate the perennial sell-out accusations from the metal world’s purists, bassist Jason Newsted would call it quits, frontman James Hetfield was stricken with a drink problem, and he and drummer Lars Ulrich’s relationship had hit a nadir. After 2003’s St Anger, team Metallica hit the pause button for a much-needed break, the first significant respite since the early 1990s. However, one of rock’s big names managed to coax Metallica from their breather.
“We disappeared then for about a year,” Ulrich told The Sun in 2019. “And then The Rolling Stones called us up and said, ‘Come and play some shows with us in California,’ and we sort of agreed, you’re not going to say no to the Stones, so that was it. It gave us the way to start it back up again. Whether you’re a team in an office or a bunch of dudes in a rock and roll band, at some point, people have to figure out how to get along and work as a team”.
The Stones’ A Bigger Bang Tour across 2005-07 boasted an eclectic range of support acts, everybody from Toots and the Maytals to Kanye West warming up the audience, but metal seemed to be a theme, Opening for two nights at San Francisco’s SBC Park along with Everclear, Metallica found themselves in good company, Mötley Crüe, Queens of the Stone Age, and Alice Cooper playing key dates on the mammoth world tour.
It can’t have hurt. Breaking records with its gross sales, A Bigger Bang Tour’s support slot may well have renewed Metallica, pointing toward the ‘back-to-basics’ approach for 2008’s Death Magnetic, heralded as a return to form from longtime fans, as well as topping album charts all over the world.
It’s hard to know exactly what Stones guitarist Keith Richards thought of the heavy bookings. Hopelessly wedded to the blues tradition, Richards is on record for stating, “Millions are in love with Metallica and Black Sabbath. I just thought they were great jokes.”
Elsewhere, Richards pointed to the Delta blues of the 1940s for his estimation of where every metal head should head. “If you want heavy metal, listen to John Lee Hooker, listen to that motherfucker play. That’s heavy metal. That’s armour”.
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