By whom? Answers on a postcard, please…Ĭharlie Benante: I believe the first time I became aware of the term “thrash metal” was from a magazine – it could have been Kerrang!. At some point in 1983 or ’84 the term “thrash metal” was coined. A lot of Ritchie Blackmore, too.Ī fertile thrash metal movement also took root in Los Angeles, where Slayer formed in 1982. Kirk Hammett (guitarist, Metallica): The stuff I used to listen to back when I was a teenager was old UFO stuff, Ulrich Roth solo albums, old Scorpions, the first three or four Van Halen albums, and more abstract stuff like Robin Trower and Pat Travers. Tom Araya: Exodus blew us away: we did three shows with them in San Francisco, and we came home with a competitive edge, thinking, “That’s what we gotta do to make f_kin’ great music!” They may have given me 20 chances, but sometimes you don’t see the writing on the wall until you come to a screeching halt. He went on to form Megadeth, while his place in Metallica was filled by Kirk Hammett of Exodus, the next Bay Area thrashers out of the blocks.ĭave Mustaine: I know they had to do what they had to do: in fact, because of how much we were drinking, they may have given me a second chance. Mustaine’s drunken antics caused the band to fire him in early ’83. He loved soundscapes, but in a heavy way: he was a big fan of Pink Floyd and some of the really deep but heavy stuff. There are always thoughts, when we’re doing things, in the back of our minds: “Wow! Cliff would just love this,” you know? He loved to jam and just go crazy with sounds. James Hetfield: Cliff Burton is still alive in our hearts and our fans’ hearts, there’s no doubt about that. Me and Jeff Hanneman would be blown away that he’d be ripping through all these solos and looking around, not paying any attention to what he was playing. Kerry King (guitarist, Slayer): I used to go and see Dave Mustaine play with Metallica. Unfortunately, I had so many emotional things happening to me when I was growing up, that booze was the only way I had to escape from them. I had to really let it rip from the part inside of me that was harboring all the pain and the emotion. I don’t see how it could get much faster.ĭave Mustaine (guitarist/vocalist, Megadeth): I wanted to have fun and be like AC/DC, but my guitar playing didn’t dictate that – I had a much more aggressive playing style. My speed – as far as downpicking, and rhythms – I’m pretty comfortable with it. All the fast rhythm stuff is pretty fun: you put so much emotion into that. James Hetfield (guitarist/vocalist, Metallica): There was always competition in the old days when it came to speed, and challenging each other to step up. Another important musician in Metallica’s development was Cliff Burton, a classically trained bassist who died tragically young in a coach crash in 1986.
Guitarist Dave Mustaine was an early member. The first and biggest Bay Area thrash band was Metallica, though they were originally from Los Angeles. Once thrash metal found a foothold in California, its spiritual home became San Francisco’s Bay Area. Their Welcome To Hell and Black Metal albums were a big influence on our guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman.Ĭharlie Benante (drummer, Anthrax): My wanting to play fast came from certain bands, especially those from the UK, such as Motörhead – and another one that I loved from back then, Venom. Tom Araya (bassist/vocalist, Slayer): Without Venom, there’s a good chance there wouldn’t have been a Slayer.
It’s probably fair to say that the first thrash metal song we did was “Witching Hour.” How did we do it? Well, like Paul Stanley said, when someone asked him how they came up with the KISS make-up, he said, “If someone falls into the Mississippi and comes up with 16 gold nuggets, you’re not going to call them a f_kin’ genius.” What we did was just what we did, it wasn’t contrived. Jeff “Mantas” Dunn (guitarist, Venom): I think the metal-buying public was ready for something different, so we went out there and thrashed it up and the audiences loved it. Once it was apparent that we could handle that speed without breaking our necks, we thought, “Why the f_k not? Let’s get this as fast as possible.” People’s jaws would drop at the speed of it. “Angel Dust” was our attempt at a Motörhead or UFO song, and from there it just got faster and faster and faster, and we thought we’d take it to the next level.
Listen to the best thrash metal on Spotify.īelieve it or not, the beginnings of American thrash metal were found in the unlikely environment of Newcastle, England, where an unruly metal trio called Venom lurked…Ĭonrad “Cronos” Lant (bassist/vocalist, Venom): I came out of the punk scene as well as the usual rock stuff like the Stones and Deep Purple other bands used to take the piss out of us and say we couldn’t play, because our songs were so fast.