James Hetfield: the kid who answered Lars Ulrich’s ad | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

JAMES HETFIELD sings, plays rhythm guitar and is Metallica’s principal songwriter. He came out of a scene of San Francisco clubs that radio ignored, and took thrash metal into stadiums.

The band’s self-titled 1991 album, the one everyone calls the Black Album, was certified 2x Diamond by the RIAA on 28 May 2025. That’s 20 million units in the US, and by then it had spent 789 weeks on the Billboard 200. Billboard called it the best-selling release of the Nielsen SoundScan era, which started in 1991.

He co-wrote its biggest songs, Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters, and before that One and Master of Puppets. Ask other guitarists about him, though, and they talk about his right hand.

Early life

Hetfield was born in Downey, California, on 3 August 1963. His father Virgil drove trucks and his mother Cynthia was a singer, and the family were Christian Scientists.

When his mother got cancer, her faith meant she turned down medical treatment, and she died around 1979 or 1980. He has talked about it since. “We watched her wither to nothing,” he told The New Yorker in 2022. Before Metallica he played in bands called Leather Charm and Obsession.

Career chapters

1. 1981Answers Lars Ulrich’s, Who’s Who number 13 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) ad; Metallica forms in Los Angeles
2. 1982Cliff Burton joins; first rehearsal 28 December
3. 1983Dave Mustaine out, Kirk Hammett, Who’s Who number 10 in; Kill ’Em All
4. 1986Master of Puppets; Cliff Burton dies in a tour bus crash in Sweden
5. 1991Metallica, the Black Album
6. 1992Burned on stage in Montreal
7. 1996Load
8. 2003Robert Trujillo joins; St. Anger
9. 2004Some Kind of Monster
10. 2009Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
11. 2010First Big Four show, in Warsaw
12. 2013Antarctica, and all seven continents
13. 202372 Seasons
14. 2025Back to the Beginning, Villa Park
15. 2026Life Burns Faster residency at Sphere, Las Vegas

The ad in the Recycler 1981 to 1982

In October 1981 Hetfield answered a classified ad in the Recycler, a Los Angeles paper. The drummer who’d placed it was Lars Ulrich, Who’s Who number 13 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon), and the two of them started Metallica. Dave Mustaine joined on lead guitar.

Finding Cliff Burton 1982

In late 1982 Hetfield and Ulrich, Who’s Who number 13 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) went to see a band called Trauma at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. They were there for the guitar player, as far as they knew. Then a skinny bass player in bell-bottoms, headbanging the whole time, played a solo through a wah pedal. “Wow, we need him!” Hetfield remembers thinking.

That was Cliff Burton. He agreed to join on one condition: the band had to move to San Francisco, where he lived. Metallica’s first rehearsal with him was on 28 December 1982, and early in 1983 they moved north to a house in El Cerrito, in the East Bay.

The Bay Area thrash scene

San Francisco suited them. The Bay Area had its own metal scene, playing clubs like Ruthie’s Inn in Berkeley, The Stone and the Mabuhay Gardens, and the Kabuki Theatre for bigger nights. Exodus, Death Angel and Legacy, who later became Testament, were all part of it.

The scene defined itself against the glam bands down in Los Angeles. Fans and bands talked about killing the “poseurs”.

Mustaine out, Megadeth begins 1983

Dave Mustaine didn’t last long in San Francisco. In April 1983, in New York to record the first album, the band fired him over his drinking and his fights with Hetfield, and put him on a Greyhound bus home, a trip of about four days. They replaced him with Kirk Hammett, Who’s Who number 10, from Exodus.

Mustaine went back to Los Angeles and formed Megadeth with bassist David Ellefson. Their first album, Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!, came out in 1985.

The first four albums 1983 to 1988

Kill ’Em All came out on 25 July 1983 on Megaforce, with Seek & Destroy on it. Ride the Lightning followed on 27 July 1984 and took them further, with Creeping Death, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Fade to Black.

Master of Puppets, in 1986, opened with Battery, and the RIAA has it at 8x Platinum. In 2016 it became the first metal recording added to the US Library of Congress National Recording Registry.

In September 1986, on the European tour, the band’s bus crashed in Sweden and Cliff Burton was killed. Jason Newsted took his place, and his first album was ...And Justice for All in 1988. Its song One won the first ever Grammy for Best Metal Performance, in 1990.

How Cliff changed the songs

Burton had studied music properly, and he brought that into the band. “He was the most schooled of any of us,” Hetfield told Classic Rock, and he credits him with introducing them to music theory. Ulrich, Who’s Who number 13 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) has pointed to the harmonies and melodies Burton brought to For Whom the Bell Tolls, the outro of Fade to Black and the intro to Fight Fire with Fire, and to the Bach and Beethoven he played them.

Hetfield’s writing grew out of that. “Cliff Burton has planted a seed in me that continues to grow,” he said in 2016.

The Black Album 1991

For the next record they brought in producer Bob Rock. The self-titled album took Metallica from the metal crowd to everyone, and it was their first number 1 in the US. The Polar Music Prize put its worldwide sales at more than 16 million by 2018. Sad but True and Nothing Else Matters are both on it.

Montreal 1992

On 8 August 1992 Metallica were co-headlining with Guns N’ Roses, with Slash, Who’s Who number 43 on lead guitar, at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. During Fade to Black a pyrotechnic went off where Hetfield was standing, and he got second and third degree burns to his left hand and arm. “I was in shock,” he said. Metallica’s set was over.

Then a sold-out crowd of more than 50,000 waited two hours for Guns N’ Roses. When they came on, the PA and the monitors kept feeding back, and singer Axl Rose, Who’s Who number 2 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) had throat problems. He cut the set short, telling the crowd “this will be our last show for a long time.”

Part of the crowd rioted, inside the stadium and out into the streets. There was looting, fires and arrests, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage.

Hetfield was back 17 days later in Phoenix, singing only, while his guitar tech John Marshall played his parts.

Load, Reload and Some Kind of Monster 1996 to 2004

Load (1996) and Reload (1997) were a different Metallica: shorter hair, more blues and hard rock, less thrash. Both went to number 1 in the US. Hetfield isn’t sure about them now. “It diluted the potency of the poison of Metallica,” he told Classic Rock.

By early 2001 the band was falling apart. Their management, Q Prime, brought in a therapist, Phil Towle, and at his first meeting Jason Newsted announced he was leaving. During the sessions for the next album Hetfield walked out and checked into rehab. When he came back he would only work from noon to 4pm. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky filmed all of it, and it came out in 2004 as the documentary Some Kind of Monster.

Robert Trujillo, St. Anger and the way back 2003 to 2023

Robert Trujillo joined on bass on 24 February 2003, and St. Anger came out that June. It went straight to number 1 in the US. Hetfield calls it “more of a statement than an album”.

From there the band went back towards the fast, heavy songs they’d started with. Death Magnetic (2008), produced by Rick Rubin, went straight to number 1 in the US, and Hardwired... To Self-Destruct (2016) and 72 Seasons followed. He got sober by 2002, after his wife urged him into treatment. In 2009 Metallica went into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with Flea doing the honours.

The Big Four 2010

Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax had long been called thrash’s Big Four, but they had never shared a bill. That changed on 16 June 2010, at the Sonisphere festival in Warsaw. Hetfield and Mustaine were on the same stage on the same day, 27 years after the Greyhound bus.

Antarctica 2013

On 8 December 2013 Metallica played Carlini Station in Antarctica for about 120 scientists and competition winners. Guinness recognised them as the first act to play all seven continents, and they’d done it all within 2013.

Tributes to Lemmy and Dio

Metallica have always covered the bands they grew up on. “We all have our mentors, and we need them,” Hetfield said in 2017.

When Ronnie James Dio’s widow Wendy asked them to record something for the 2014 tribute album Ronnie James Dio: This Is Your Life, they made the Ronnie Rising Medley, four Rainbow songs strung together: A Light in the Black, Tarot Woman, Stargazer and Kill the King.

Lemmy Kilmister, Who’s Who number 25 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) got Murder One, a song of their own written for him, on Hardwired... To Self-Destruct in 2016, the year after he died. The link went back a long way. “We were trying to write a Motörhead song,” Hetfield said of Whiplash, from Kill ’Em All, and Motörhead later covered it and won a Grammy. “There’s certainly no Metallica without a Motörhead,” he said. Both tributes are on the Hardwired deluxe edition.

Back to the Beginning 2025

On 5 July 2025 Metallica were the last band on at Back to the Beginning, Black Sabbath’s farewell show at Villa Park in Birmingham, just before Ozzy Osbourne, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) and Sabbath. Their set was Sabbath’s Hole in the Sky, then Creeping Death, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Sabbath’s Johnny Blade, played live for the first time, Battery and Master of Puppets.

“Without Sabbath, there would be no Metallica,” Hetfield told the crowd. It was a line the band had been saying since 2006, when Hetfield and Ulrich, Who’s Who number 13 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) inducted Black Sabbath into the Rock Hall, with Tony Iommi, Who’s Who number 23 in the room.

Treatment, 72 Seasons and Sphere 2019 to 2026

On 27 September 2019 the band said he was going back into treatment and cancelled nine shows in Australia and New Zealand. The band’s statement said he’d struggled with addiction for years.

72 Seasons came out on 14 April 2023, went to number 1 in the UK and number 2 in the US, and its title track won the Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2024. Now Metallica are at Sphere in Las Vegas, with 24 shows running to 13 March 2027.

Craft, sound and style

Downpicking

Hetfield plays his fast riffs with downstrokes only, which is harder and heavier than alternate picking. He says it “came through competition”, trying to play faster than the bands around him. Battery and Master of Puppets are the songs to try it on. He thinks of his right hand as part of the rhythm section. “When I pick up the guitar… I want to be the drummer,” he said, and he names Scorpions’ Rudolf Schenker as an influence.

Sad but True

Sad but True is the Black Album sound at its biggest. Guitar World’s breakdown has Hetfield on an ESP with EMG pickups, tuned down a whole step to D, through a modified Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC++ with the mids scooped, plus Marshalls to put some midrange back. A Jerry Jones baritone guitar, tuned an octave lower, was layered under the main part, with extra tracks of muted chugs for attack.

The rig

MusicRadar says a Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC+ has been central to his sound since the mid 1980s. His guitars have mostly been ESP and Gibson style Explorers with EMG active pickups, and EMG later made him his own Het Set.

From a swap meet to a white V

He started on what he calls a “terrible acoustic” at home, then a five dollar electric from a swap meet, then a 1968 Gibson SG his mother paid about US$200 for. At 16 he traded the SG for a PA and a Carvin mixer so he could sing in bands. His first band guitar was an Electra Flying V with a bolt-on neck, painted white because he wanted to play like Michael Schenker, with a Jackson V as the backup. The early amps were a Sears Silvertone with a speaker cabinet, a Peavey Deuce, then a Marshall half stack with a cabinet he bought from George Lynch.

Explorers, ESPs and the vintage ones

He liked the Gibson Explorer for its “hockey-stick” headstock, and played a white one with a black headstock. The first ESP built for him was the So What?, and it soon became his number one. His ESP signature models since then include the Truckster, the Iron Cross, the Snakebite and the Vulture. He also collects. There’s a 1958 korina V and Explorer pair, and he takes the Explorer on tour because Brian May, Who’s Who number 20 tours an old guitar. He has five 1959 Les Paul Standards and a 1960, and the first 1959 cost him US$25,000. A Zemaitis is engraved with designs from his tattoos.

The barbarian right hand

He credits Johnny Ramone’s fast downpicking for part of his style, and says Tony Iommi, Who’s Who number 23 “ruled” songs with his riffs. He calls himself “a little bit of a barbarian” when he plays. Even he has a trick on the long passages, according to Exodus guitarist Gary Holt: a slide down the neck to reset the picking hand. Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo calls him a groove player, a drummer on the guitar. In 2022 Ernie Ball put out his own strings, “Papa Het’s Hardwired Master Core”.

Learning to sing

On the Black Album, producer Bob Rock says Hetfield told him he’d never really sung, only yelled. He wanted to sing Nothing Else Matters and The Unforgiven, with Chris Isaak as his model. Rock built a vocal sound strong enough that he didn’t need to double his tracks, and says he got better every day.

Stories people still tell

1. On screen, reluctantly.

   He played a police officer in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019) and a lawman in The Thicket (2024). He isn’t keen. “I’m not into acting at all,” he told Louder.

2. Four days on a bus.

   When Metallica fired Dave Mustaine in New York in 1983, they sent him home to Los Angeles on a Greyhound.

3. Seven continents.

   It’s a record no one else can take away now: Metallica got there first, and in a single year.

Legacy

The Rock Hall credits Metallica with transforming heavy metal, and the Polar citation says they took rock to places it had never been. Hetfield co-wrote the songs that got them there, and he’s still playing them.