The song Kirk Hammett wished he wrote: “This is a brilliant piece”
As the guitarist of Metallica, Kirk Hammett helped the band pioneer thrash metal and add a hefty dose of substance to the metal genre at large. An excellent lead guitarist who dovetails seamlessly with the group’s metronomic rhythm guitar master, James Hetfield, the two not only helped refresh guitar playing but are lifelong students of all things heavy, with this great knowledge of what came before allowing them to enact their most influential innovations.
One song that Hetfield and the rest of the band consider a “big step” for them is ‘Fade to Black’, taken from the 1984 album Ride the Lightning. Although the track is a staple of the early thrash genre, featuring Metallica’s typical overdriven guitar sound and searing solos, it was a significant moment for the band, given that it was the first time they used an acoustic guitar, an instrument long deemed antithetical to metal given its traditional role in softer music and pop.
Not only did weaponising the chimes of the acoustic prompt ample atmosphere at the onset of the composition, but it was also perfect sonic accompaniment for Hetfield’s frank lyrics outlining his depression and a general obsession with death at the time of writing, leading to lyrics such as “I have lost the will to live”. Described as a “suicide song” by Hetfield, this was the first time a thrash band had described anything so realistic, and it set the scene for all of the thematic potency to come over Metallica’s ensuing three albums.
While ‘Fade to Black’ was a significant step for Metallica, thrash and, by extension, the future of metal itself, there’s a strong call that it wasn’t the first metal song to take a bold step out of the genre’s rather rigid stylistic confines. Metallica formed in 1981, equally inspired by punk as they were the new wave of British heavy metal and hard rock, and that year, one of the most pioneering metal albums of the era was released, Ozzy Osbourne’s second solo effort, Diary of a Madman.
The last album to feature Osbourne’s young guitarist Randy Rhoads before his tragic death, it not only confirmed that the former Black Sabbath vocalist was still at the forefront of metal, but it cemented his axeman’s place as one of the genre’s definitive innovators. Although their first album together, Blizzard of Ozz, is a masterpiece in itself, confirming the pair’s potency, the final cut and title track of Diary of a Madman is by far their most accomplished effort.
The music, written by Rhoads, features a heightened atmosphere due to the picked acoustic strings, strange time signatures, jazzy chords, and intensely imaginative dynamics. It pushed metal further than it had ever been. It was a fitting accompaniment for bassist Bob Daisley’s personal lyrics about sensitivity and being his own worst enemy. Due to these obvious sonic parallels, it can be seen as a precursor to what Hammett and Hetfield enacted on ‘Fade to Black’, particularly when noting that the former is an open acolyte of the late Rhoads and names ‘Diary of a Madman’ as the one song he wishes he wrote.
When speaking on VH1, Hammett was asked to name the track he wishes he had written and replied: “I know this might sound weird, but you know, I’m really into jazz. I learnt ‘Diary of a Madman’ sometime last year and was just amazed at all the great jazz voicings that that song has. And as I was scratching my head, I thought, ‘This is a brilliant piece of work.’ Randy Rhoads really, really showed a lot more depth, other than, you know, just rock licks and power chords…”
Whether it be the 13th, suspended or diminished chords, Hammett is fully aware of the deeply jazzy nature of ‘Diary of a Madman’ that Rhoads expertly framed into a metal epic. Not only is the song the greatest testament to the late guitarist’s playing and songwriting, but it was such a forward-thinking moment for metal that several of the early shoots of Metallica’s sound are heard within.
