Opinion: Albums That Changed My Life (Metallica)

In the second edition of our new editorial series, Max our Indie Sales Coordinator tells us about an album and band that changed his life and shaped who he is today.

It was the summer between fifth and sixth grade. At the beginning of said summer Rap music was the genre I celebrated, and I probably had about 100 CDs of the genre (which was a big deal for a pre-teen kid). I was a product of environment and my older half-brother listened to a lot of Rap at the time, so I naturally gravitated towards it. Like most younger siblings around that age, I wanted to emulate what he was doing. Well, my world was about to change…

I was attending summer camp and a “friend” had a cassette tape of Master of Puppets by Metallica. That little jerk would later end up blaming me for writing “Metallica” on a wall in his parents’ house at a birthday party I wasn’t even at, because he didn’t want to get in trouble, so eff that guy for making all the kids’ parents think I was a little vandal… but he’s relevant to the story. He was playing the album through one of those yellow portable cassette decks, the water-resistant kind that you could have near the pool without worrying about it getting splashed. We could take it everywhere as long as the batteries lasted. I hadn’t heard of Metallica before, nor had I been exposed to any heavy music like that. I was mesmerized by the sounds and wanted to hear the album on repeat…which ended up happening because it’s the only tape he brought. I was singing along to every song by the end of the day. Master of Puppets became the soundtrack of that summer.

Battery kicked me in the brain… with its soothing, almost classical guitar like intro that rapidly accelerated into an avalanche of Thrash Metal riffery and “right-in-your-face” vocals. Then, the title track kicked in and confirmed that this album is going to be a wild time. It’s a music rollercoaster of a ride that I would line up for repeatedly. The instrumental track “Orion” can evoke emotions that one didn’t even know they had. Plus Damage, Inc. just seemed like it was a special treat at that age, because it had the “F-word” a few times – it’s also really fast (without blast-beats) and just made me exclaim “wow!”

It seemed like the perfect album to start my day, while being thrust into the pre-teen social experiment known as summer camp. I’m a social person, except when I’m not. On some days, the thought of having to “play sports” and interact with people who seemed like strangers gave me a bit of anxiety, but this album helped. It made me feel as if I could face the day without feeling anxious about it. It gave me the “you got this” mentality that I didn’t even realize I needed.

My music tastes certainly changed after that summer at camp, and I was loving this newfound heavy music. My desire to listen to anything Rap related seemed to have vanished. As soon as I got home that first day, I gathered up all my Rap CDs and took them to the local music store and traded them in for store credit so that I could load up on Metal. The first CD I grabbed was Master of Puppets (obviously), the rest of my purchases were largely based on album artwork and song titles, but I would be lying if I said that a Parental Advisory sticker didn’t have any influence on my decision. I had a cool Mom, she let me listen to whatever (I even had 2 Live Crew tapes, and they might have gotten me into some trouble at school #worthit). But when I returned to school for the start of my sixth-grade year, my hair was at my shoulders. I became a Metalhead after hearing Master of Puppets, no question about it.

I started taking guitar lessons and would later start a band (wanting to be like James Hetfield) and bought as many band shirts as I could. By the age of 13, my wardrobe was 99% provided by Hot Topic and the Rockabilia mail-order company. Since I was too young to drive, my family would take me to as many concerts as possible. I think my first proper Metal show was Megadeth, Infectious Grooves, and Stone Temple Pilots at Long Beach Arena, on New Year’s Eve 1992. I eventually would see Metallica for the first time in 1994 on the Summer Sh*t ‘94 tour. Suicidal Tendencies (playing the area for the first time after a decade long ban), Candlebox, and Rob Halford’s band Fight were the openers. Fight was a last-minute replacement for the intended act, Alice in Chains.

My friendships were rather limited while in middle-school, because I was a kid that liked Metal and acted like I was vomiting at school dances whenever anything Hip-Hop related was being played. I didn’t dance, let alone know how to. I just wanted to hear Slayer and start shoving people, but in a friendly way, not looking to take out teeth. However, most of the other kids would rather rub their adolescent bodies together and call it dancing. I felt royally out of place. I don’t know why I even went to school dances. To be honest, it’s not like I had anyone to dance with, but I was probably just craving a connection. I wasn’t about to pretend that I liked to ‘do the Tootsie Roll’ just to make friends, though.

Since I grew up in Southern California and was within antenna range, I was able to listen to the radio station KNAC, which played all the heavy stuff. KNAC quickly became my one of best friends. It no longer exists as a traditional radio station (just online), but it was a huge part of the Metal scene while I was growing up. Many of the Metal artists of that era could be seen wearing KNAC t-shirts. I felt like I was part of the ‘Heavy Metal Cool Club’, and it felt wonderful, like I was part of something bigger. So, I listened to KNAC a lot. It was my alarm clock and I fell asleep at night listening to it. When the station got sold and changed formats, I risked detention to listen to their final song as a ‘Pure Rock’ station during class… which was Metallica’s Fade to Black. Considering that Metallica got me into the genre, it was almost poetic. A large part of my life was influenced in one way, or another, by Metallica and their MOP masterpiece. Granted, my current genres of choice aren’t Metal these days, but it’s still a part of my core.

Header artwork by Don Brautigam.

Find out more and purchase album – metallica.com