"Then someone shoved a copy of the band's now legendary No Life 'Til Leather demo into my beer-stained hands": The Mötley Crüe haters who paved the way for one man's discovery of Metallica

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I first came across Metallica quite by accident in the autumn of 1982. I was in San Francisco checking out glamsters Mötley Crüe when I bumped into a group of rowdy Bay Area ’bangers (aka thrash metal fans) who immediately started slagging off Nikki Sixx and friends and chanting the name Metallica over and over. I was intrigued. What was this new, mysterious beast called Metallica? Then someone shoved a copy of the band’s now legendary No Life ’Til Leather demo into my beer-stained hands. 

That night in a drunken haze I played the tape over and over again, my Sony Walkman (remember them?) literally shaking with my excitement. My first reaction was total shock – this was new; it was like crossing Ted Nugent with Motörhead and then putting it through a blender at 120mph. Strange as it may seem, Metallica sounded more European than American. This, I was later to discover, was down to the band’s Danish skin-pounder, Lars Ulrich, and his European metal influences.