The first song James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich wrote together
No amount of self-discipline in a band can make up for chemistry. Even though it takes some artists years, if not decades, to try to find the right construct for a group, there are sometimes those few artists who might not be the best on their own but work brilliantly in the context of their band. And while James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich were still a couple of snot-nosed punks trying to make their way into rock and roll history with Metallica, it took some time before they realised what they had together.
If anyone were to have looked at what Ulrich was doing on his own, though, no one would have suspected he would become one of the best drummers in the world. He was still fairly new to the metal scene, and compared to the lightning-fast down picking of Hetfield, seeing Ulrich barely keep up and spend more time playing drum fills tended to make for some sloppy rehearsal sessions.
What both of them lacked in patience, they made up for in pure drive. They knew that they wanted to be one of the best metal bands on the planet, and that meant taking the basis of their favourite groups, like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, and turning them into something a bit more aggressive than before.
After all, punk had come and gone by that point, and since Hetfield had a love of both Black Sabbath and Ramones, it was only natural for them to kick up the tempo even more and find something that sounded like a shot of adrenaline. And with ‘Hit The Lights’, they had the basis for what would become thrash metal in only a few riffs.
Despite the song not being all that dissimilar from the usual metal fare, it had much more to do with the attitude put into it. When it debuted on Metal Massacre Vol 1, Hetfield sounded like he was frothing at the mouth half the time, talking about how awesome it is to ride motorcycles and have the perfect metallic weekend with his friends. It is admittedly not the most eye-opening song anyone has ever made, but it also provided a firm basis for how they wrote their material.
Ulrich was never a musician in the sense of knowing what chords were or worrying about the BPM of a certain song, but his role became the overseer of every track. If anything, the drummer seemed to be more interested in being the secondary producer on most tracks, helping structure the songs and organising Hetfield’s riffs until they worked together as a coherent song.
In fact, there’s a lot more in common with Metallica’s songs and how architects structure a house. With ‘Hit the Lights’, each riff is like a building block of a specific riff, and when each of them is finally organised, it’s like seeing the tune go from the blueprint to a brilliantly constructed house, which, of course, happens to made out of finely crafted steel.
Even if Hetfield and Ulrich have had their personal ups and downs as a duo, half of their greatest material comes from them feeding off each other like that. There were times when the band threatened to disband over their disagreements, but if they’ve learned anything since ‘Hit the Lights’, it’s that they need each other.
