System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian has reflected on his brief stint deputizing for James Hetfield in Metallica – which began after he saved one of the band's shows at the last minute.
In 2000, Malakian’s nu-metallers were the new the kids on the block. They only had one album and a few commendable Ozzfest showings to their name at that point, but they were making serious waves.
So, when James Hetfield was sidelined after a water skiing accident, Malakian was promptly sworn into the band. He and some ad hoc vocalists helped fill the void left by the band’s co-founder across a handful of shows, after Malakian put himself in the frame.
“When I was 12 or 13, I had been playing the guitar for a year. I was with these guys in my school and, in their dad's garage, we would play Metallica covers,” he says on Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcast (via Blabbermouth).
“That's pretty much all we'd play,” he adds. “[It was] a big part of how I learned how to play the guitar, so I knew all the Metallica covers.”
Aside from Malakian’s in-depth knowledge of the material, his hiring was also practical as System of a Down were supporting Metallica on their Stadium Sanitarium tour that summer. But there was no time for a bedding-in process.
"I met Metallica on stage playing with them,” he reveals. “I never met them before. We're the first band. Nobody knows us. It was like, five bands on the bill [including Kid Rock and Korn].
“Jason Newsted was singing, and then they brought [Jonathan Davis from] Korn on, and they played this Cheech & Chong cover song or something. They didn't know what to do because James [Hetfield] wasn't there.
“So I turned to my tech, and I say, ‘Go tell their tech that I know a lot of their shit.’ Then my tech comes back to me. He's, like, ‘All right, come with me.’
“Next thing you know, I go on the other side of the stage. I get handed a Les Paul – I think it was one of Kirk Hammett's. I'm in my after-show [clothes], wearing Lakers sweats. I'm not even ready to get on stage.”
But on stage he went, in front of 60,000 people, many of whom may not have caught SOAD’s set.
“You gotta understand that [at the time] our band's not big yet. I'm still a kid. I'm 22 years old,” Malakian continues. “I can't even believe that we're even allowed to open up for Metallica, and they put me out there! They're, like, ‘What do you know?’ I go, ‘I don't know; Master Of Puppets,' ‘Okay. Count it in.’
“And then there's this thing that happened where, in the middle of Master Of Puppets, instead of going into that slow part, they went into Welcome Home (Sanitarium), and I didn't know they were gonna do that. You would think we rehearsed it – I didn't even know it was gonna happen.”
Malakian clearly made a good impression. He continues, “Next thing you know, Kirk Hammett's in front of me with a guitar trying to teach me stuff off Load, and they're like, ‘Hey, get your shit from your bus, because you're flying on the private jet with us now.’”
After a few shows, Hetfield was back in the saddle, while Malakian was left with lifelong memories.
In related news, Malakian stumbled across a SOAD cover band while on tour last year and proceeded to play with them.
