Lars Ulrich Talks About The Early Days Of “The Big 4″
Was there much competition in the early days of Thrash between Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax? Lars Ulrich and Robb Flynn talk about their early thrash memories in the latest issue of Metal Hammer, onsale now! Get a taster from the ultra-revealing interview inside! Get your Sonisphere tickets here!
These days, we talk of the Big Four of thrash: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. At the time, though, did it feel like you were in competition with each other?
Lars Ulrich: “No, I don’t think competition. There was certainly a sense of camaraderie, of kinship, a sense of ‘we’re in this together’. There was a little bit of friendly elbowing, to kind of push each other along to all be the best we could be. But from very, very early on everybody sort of defined who they were. It wasn’t about who had the bigger dick.
Robb Flynn: “We were fans, we didn’t know Exodus, didn’t know Metallica, we were so young we were kind of like runts, showing up at the thrash shows, everyone making fun of us, these little gangly kids. My second show after Metallica was when these two sisters took us to see DRI. At the time, DRI only drew skinheads, the SF Skins. Me and my friend went and we were like, ‘Holy fuck!’ But the sisters knew everybody and because they brought us [the skinheads] left us alone. The head guy was called Dagger. He walked by and mean-mugged us, for like 20 seconds and, man, it was the longest 20 seconds of our lives. Then he goes up to the door where this long-haired, thrash dude has just paid his five dollars and Dagger walks up to the dude and – bam! – drops him. ‘No long hairs!’ The security just grabs the longhaired dude and throws him out. We were like, ‘What the fuck, dude! We’re gonna die!’”
Read the full interview in this month’s issue of Metal Hammer, on shelves now!
Metallica will complete their European tour at the O2 Arena in London on Saturday, March 28th. You can join Metal Hammer for a special Guitar Hero: Metallica party at the Indigo2 this Saturday too. Find details of the party here!
Sonisphere will be headlined by Metallica and Linkin Park and will take place on August 1st – 2nd at Knebworth. Also on the bill will be Nine Inch Nails, Bullet For My Valentine, Avenged Sevenfold, Machine Head, Lamb Of God, Alice In Chains, Mastodon, Anthrax, Airbourne, Thin Lizzy, Killing Joke and The Sword.
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“No, I don’t think competition. There was certainly a sense of camaraderie, of kinship…”
Yeah, tell MegaDave that, clown…
MEGADETH FOREVER!!!
Frankly, i don’t get this whole “Magadeth-’Tallica” feud anyhow, that was the 1980s- getting close to 30 years ago now- can’t the various fans and members just put that shit behind them now?
if there’s one thing i can’t stand it’s people who hold grudges- it’s childish.
Yeah – that whole Megadeth Metallica feud was totally insignificant comapred to Xentrix vs Acid Reign. Or Onslaught vs Slammer. Take your pick.
Nothing to do with a fued, Megadeth were just always the better band. The fact that Mustaine was an original member of Metallica is irrelevent. I was a big fan of Metallica back in my youth but one day a light went off in my head and it dawned on me that there were far better bands out there. That whole 80’s/90’s thrash scene produced a load of awesome bands and I reckon that Metallica just got lucky. The “Big 4″? Anthrax had better riffs, Megadeth were better musicians and Slayer were, well, just fuckin’ SLAYER!!! Testament, Overkill, Forbidden, Vio-Lence, Sacred Reich… fuck man, I could go on forever listing bands that were/are better than Lars and Co.
I like metallica but i liked megadeth better, they didnt change their music styles and get greedy