James Hetfield (Metallica)

Metallica's Website

In the early '80s, heavy metal was in danger of becoming a spandex-sporting/hairspray-soaked/makeup-smeared parody, but bands like Metallica brought metal back to its original, straight-ahead approach. With most other metal singers posing for the camera and singing about sex, drugs, and rock & roll, Metallica singer/guitarist James Hetfield's approach was a much-welcomed break from the norm with his tattered jeans and unkempt hair, while singing (well, shouting) about serious subject matter and bashing out intense metal riffs on either his Gibson Explorer or Flying V. James Alan Hetfield was born in Downey, CA (a suburb of Los Angeles) on August 3, 1963, to Christian Science parents, a religion he would dismiss later on. Feeling isolated from his high school classmates (and in the wake of his mother's death when he was a teenager), Hetfield turned to playing guitar and the sounds of '70s heavy metal: Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith, AC/DC, UFO, and Blue Oyster Cult. His enlistment in a few garage bands followed (two being Obsession and Leather Charm), yet didn't lead to much. But he would soon find a kindred musical spirit from an ad in the local music paper placed by a L.A.-by-way-of-Denmark drummer/metal fan, Lars Ulrich.

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