Metallica

It's the sort of story that scriptwriters would get laughed out of conference rooms for proposing. The sort of story that illustrates perfect synchronicity between hunger, passion and time. The sortof story that only happens every 30-odd years. And the sort of story that would need approximately 500 pages to do it true justice.

Metallica. A household name. The 7th biggest selling act inAmerican history.

Who'd have thought it when, on October 28th, 1981, drummer Lars Ulrich made guitar player/singer James Hetfield an offer he couldn't refuse: "I've got a track saved for my band onBrian Slagel's new Metal Blade label."

The truth is, Lars didn't have a band at that time, but he did that day when James joined him. The two recorded their first track on a cheap recorder with Jamesperforming singing duties, rhythm guitar duties and bass guitar duties. Lars dutifully pounded the drums, helped with musical arrangements and acted as manager. Hetfield's friend and housemate RonMcGovney was eventually talked into taking up bass and Dave Mustaine took lead guitar duties.

The band adopted the moniker Metallica after a suggestion from Bay Area friend Ron Quintana, and theyquickly began gigging in the Los Angeles area opening for bands like Saxon. Eventually recording a fully-fledged demo called No Life 'Til Leather, Metallica quickly saw the tape whistle around the metaltape-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 morehonest than LA's "there to be seen" mob. They also caught up-and-coming band Trauma, and most importantly their bass player, Cliff Burton. Cliff refused to move to Southern California: it was enough toconvince Metallica to relocate to the Bay Area, and 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...