Early Metallica guitarist explains why the band doesn’t credit him as an “original member”
From Cliff Burton and Dave Mustaine to Jason Newsted, Metallica’s early years were marked by a revolving door of members before the band settled on its current lineup.
One of the musicians who played a pivotal role in the band’s infancy was guitarist Lloyd Grant, who recorded a solo for an early version of Hit the Lights, the track that introduced Metallica to the world on Metal Blade’s 1982 Metal Massacre compilation album.
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Despite his work on the band’s earliest original recording, Grant would hardly be remembered as – or considered – an original member of Metallica by most. His time with the band was brief, and as the guitarist tells Reality Check TV [via Blabbermouth] “I don’t think Metallica wants to say I am an original member because the band weren’t really formed then.”
“It was, like, I was looking for people to play with and we had a magazine, or a weekly [publication] that comes out on every Thursday, and Lars [Ulrich] put an ad in and I answered the ad,” he says. “And we started jamming and so forth.”
Reflecting on his early connection with the band, and founders James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich in a previous interview, Grant said: “When I met Lars, they weren’t called Metallica. We were just forming a band at the time, so there was no name at the time as far as I know.”
“I met Lars through The Recycler [newspaper]. They got kinda big and you had the version for Orange County.Yeah, we were jamming. We were playing a lot of British heavy metal. We were playing covers. And I was starting to write some other stuff.”
“I don’t know where they [the tapes] are right now [Laughs],” he added. “But it wasn’t anything significant, if that’s what you meant. We were just jamming. We may have recorded quite a bit of it. I don’t know. Whenever you see [Lars], ask him that.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
