System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian has been talking about an often-forgotten episode in early 2000s metal – the time when he deputised for an injured James Hetfield and fronted Metallica.
At the time, SOAD were very much an up and coming name. They were the opening act on Metallica’s Summer Sanitarium tour in the year 2000, a big package event that also had Korn and Kid Rock on the bill. When Hetfield injured himself in a jetski accident, plans were thrown into disarray. But rather than cancel any dates, Metallica decided that, in time honoured tradition, the show must go on.
Talking to Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcast, Malakian set the scene: "I met Metallica on stage playing with them. I never met them before. We're the first band. Nobody knows us. Toxicity’s not out yet. We're on our first album. And we are on the Summer Sanitarium tour.”
For Metallica’s set, Jason Newsted was singing. “Then they brought the guys from Korn on and they kind of played like this Cheech And Chong cover song or something. They didn't know what to do, because James wasn't there.
"And I turned to my tech and I go, 'Listen, man. Go tell their tech that I know a lot of their shit. Next thing you know, my tech goes and talks to their guitar tech and then my tech comes back to me. He's, like, 'All right, come with me.'”
The next thing Malakian knows, he’s on stage with Metallica. "They put me out there, and I turn and I'm, like, 'Hey.' It's Lars, it's Kirk, it's Jason Newsted. They're, like, 'What do you know?' I go, 'I don't know. Master of Puppets. OK. Count it in.'
"I'm up there with Metallica playing Master Of Puppets in front of 60,000 people. And I'm, like, 'Who's gonna sing?' I said, 'Fuck it. I'll go sing.' And I sang. You would think we were rehearsed, but we didn't rehearse it. And I didn't even know it was gonna happen. And it happened. I'm up there and I am playing Metallica with Metallica in front of an audience where I would've been in the fucking cheap seats just three years ago."
It sounds like something from a dream. But Malakian didn’t wake up sweating. He actually did well enough to be a replacement Hetfield for the next few dates.
"I got off stage. Next thing you know, they're coming to me. They're, like, 'Hey, James isn't gonna be able to play for a few nights. They want you to come and play with them. Then next thing you know, they're, like, 'Hey, get your shit from your bus, because you're flying on the private jet with us now.'”
It was, he suggests, a pivotal moment in his life. "I'll never forget it,” he told Rubin. “It still brings goosebumps that I had a chance to experience that at that point of my career."
