James Hetfield has recalled the period Metallica spent in Denmark to record ‘Ride the Lightning’ and ‘Master of Puppets’‘, remembering that he and his companions had to “steal a lot“in order to survive in that era.
Even though both albums would end up being two of the greatest works in history, Metallica were still not in a comfortable position when they recorded them, as Hetfield now tells The Metallica Report (via Ultimate Guitar). During the bill of the continuation of the ‘Kill ‘Em All‘ in Copenhagen with the producer Flemming Rasmussenthose from San Francisco had to do whatever they could to survive.
This, of course, ultimately caused Hetfield to feel “more at home” when he visits Ulrich’s Denmark.
“The first few days were tough because we had no idea about the business. Lars was kind of trying“James remembers.
Describing the days he and his bandmates spent at Copenhagen’s Sweet Silence studios, Hetfield continued: “We were in the attic, sleeping on the floor and stealing food from other gangs that passed by, stealing bicycles to get around, stealing empty beer bottles to go exchange them for more beer. We had to steal a lot“.
“We had nothing, we didn’t have shit. So it wasn’t stealing, we were borrowing it forever [risas]“.
hidden treasures
Living in a recording studio did have its advantages, though, especially because of the vast amount of material he had stored there: “Lars and I slept in the tape storage room upstairs.” Sweet Silence and looking at it I was like whoa, Richie Blackmore stuff and all kinds of different bands that have been around doing stuff.”
This experience, however, made Metallica grow as artists: “When we heard back what we had done, they were amazed and were very proud. I had never heard that kind of power through the studio speakers.”
Of course, for ‘Master of Puppets’ the band took a vital leap in quality, as Rasmussen acknowledged at the time: “They had matured a lot and their circumstances had improved – this time they had hotel rooms, instead of sleeping in a friend’s apartment – but they were still just as nice. Every day they had dinner with my wife and me at our house before we started filming at 7 p.m., and it was always fun to have them around.”
