METALLICA
Metallica is... James Hetfield - guitar/vocals, Lars Ulrich - Drums, Kirk Hammet - guitars, Rob Trujillo - bass February 10, 1962: Cliff Burton, bassist for Metallica's first three albums, is born.
November 18, 1962: Kirk Hammett is born in San Francisco, California
March 4, 1963: Jason Newsted, Cliff's replacement, is born in Battle Creek, Michigan
August 3, 1963: Jaymz Alan Hetfield is born in Los Angeles, California
December 26, 1963: Lars Ulrich is born in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he lives until the late '70s. When his parents decide to move to Newport Beach, in the vicinity of Los Angeles.
In 1973 Lars, at age 9, goes to his first concert, when Deep Purple played in Copenhagen. He enjoys the concert so much he starts to collect albums by Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy. Later he discovers the NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal). He then discovers bands like Iron Maiden, Saxon, Sweet Savage and Diamond Head, which influenced his musical direction. It was Late 1976 when Lars got his first drum kit from his Grandparents.
In 1980 Lars Ulrich, now 17 flew to Britain to see Diamond Head, his favorite band play. He meet the singer Sean Harris and lived with the band for a month. He soon learned about the band Mercyful Fate, another band in the NWOBHM. Lars returned to Los Angeles to try and make his own NWOBHM band.
Kirk Hammett played his first gig with Metallica on April 16 in Dover New Jersey. Another very important reason for Metallica's relocation to SF was the work of a record shop owner called John Zazula, John put the band up when they moved to SF in the beginning, they paid their rent by the sale of the No Life Til Leather demo tape through John's shop. John also at this time had a record label called Megaforce records. Metallica signed to this record label it was their first contracted record label. Only days later on May 10 Metallica started work on their first album later to be titled Kill Em' All (after the people who wouldn't let the album be called Metal Up Your Ass with the picture of a hand holding a knife coming out of a toilet bowl on the cover). the recording of Kill Em' All was finished on May 27.