James Hetfield on How Metallica Had to Resort to ‘Thieving’ Early on: ‘We Didn’t Have Anything’

“So it wasn’t thieving, we were just borrowing it forever [laughs].”

James Hetfield reflected on the period Metallica had spent in Denmark to record “Ride the Lightning” and “Master of Puppets”, noting how he and his bandmates had done “a lot of thieving” back then in order to sustain themselves.

Although “Ride the Lightning” and especially “Master of Puppets” are among the most widely popular and best-selling heavy metal albums, Metallica was still toughing it out when working on those two monster LPs, as James Hetfield revealed during a recent appearance on “The Metallica Report” podcast. Their days in Copenhagen, where they would record the follow-up to their 1983 debut “Kill ‘Em All” and begin their fruitful collaboration with the Danish producer Flemming Rasmussen, was marked by frugal living, and even thievery, to make ends meet.

From today’s perspective of a world-known rock star, James Hetfield looks back at those days with fondness, and notes that, because of those experiences, he feels “a lot more at home” in his bandmate Lars Ulrich’s native Denmark now (via Guitar):

“You know, the early days were tough because, as far as us and the business side, we had no clue. Lars [Ulrich] was kind of taking a shot at it.”

Describing the days he and his bandmates spent at the Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Hetfield went on:

“[We were] up in the attic, sleeping on the floor and stealing food from other bands that were coming through there, stealing bikes just to get around, stealing empty beer bottles to go turn them in for more beer. There was a lot of thieving.”

“We didn’t have anything, we didn’t have shit. So it wasn’t thieving, we were just borrowing it forever [laughs].”

Still, living in the studio had some practical advantages, as there was a treasure trove of records the young musicians could explore during downtime:

“Lars and I slept in the tape storage upstairs of Sweet Silence and looking through it was like whoa, Richie Blackmore’s stuff and all kinds of different bands that have gone through there doing stuff.”

That period was also marked by intense artistic growth for Metallica, as Flemming Rasmussen noted a couple of years ago. Unlike with “Kill ‘Em All”, where Rasmussen felt Metallica’s “technical abilities were not as developed as their ambitions”, “Ride the Lightning” was something else:

“When we listened back to what we had done, they were blown away, and were so proud. I had never heard that kind of power come through the studio speakers.”

Metallica’s artistic and personal maturing was noticeable even between “Ride the Lightning” and “Master of Puppets”, Rasmussen noted on the same occasion:

“They had matured quite a bit, and their circumstances were improved – this time they had hotel rooms, rather than sleeping on a friend’s floor – but they were just as likable. Every day they would have dinner with my wife and myself at our house before we started recording at 7pm, and they were always fun to have around.”