All language subtitles for Murder.In.The.Front.Row.The.San.Francisco.Bay.Area.Thrash.Metal.Story.2019.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG_English

[people chanting]

[narrator] The
early 1980s.

[reporter]12 million people
are unemployed in our country,

1.3 million of
them in California,

more than 150,000 right here
in the Bay Area,

like this
self-styled Reaganville

near the railroad tracks
in Berkeley.

Those are the conditions for
tough times and real
struggle.

[Regan] I regret to say...

that we're in the worst
economic mess since

the Great Depression.

[upbeat music plays]

[narrator] The San
Francisco Bay Area,

located on the Western edge
of the continental United
States,

has a long history
of supporting new music
and free expression,

from jazz
experimentation,

to beat poetry,
to rock and roll.

By 1980, with the American
economy in recession,

a new group of teenagers
came of age,

and they wanted
a new music.

Something faster,
something heavier,

something that mirrored
their own lives and not
the previous generations.

From far away Europe,

heavy metal sounds were
slowly rippling westward,

carried by word of mouth,

a few rare,
imported records,

some bootleg
cassette tapes,

and music magazines.

But California was too
far away for most of
these bands to tour here.

So the young music fans
of the Bay Area
did what we do best.

We didn't wait for
the music we wanted.

We created our own.

[interviewer] Are we rolling?

Right, I just want
to say one thing first:

Posers must die!

We were out of our minds.
We were kind of crazy.

We were just kids.

Kids run amok.

It was scary, and it was dark.

It's this outlet for angst.

I'm Alex Skolnick,

born and raised
in Berkeley, California.

Hey, I'm James Hetfield
from Metallica.

This is the music you don't
want your parents to hear.

Gary Holt.

David Ellefson,
bassist for Megadeth.

I don't need to say my name.

Everybody watching
this knows who I am. [laughs]

We were doing it
for chicks and beer,
and I didn't drink.

My name's Chuck Billy.
I grew up in Dublin, California,

and the pits were
violent as hell.

Mark Osegueda from
the San Francisco Bay Area.

Phil Demmel
from Dublin, California.

The volume, the craziness,
was epic.

Wow, we've got to do
more of this.

Robb Flynn, Oakland, California.

My name's Rick Hunolt.
I played guitar for Exodus.

People have passion
for the metal.

There's no distinction between
the bands and the fans.

We called it,
"The Land Of Misfit Toys."

People in our scene,
we felt invincible.

It was about survival.
It was like... Ah!

Exodus had the
destruction recipe. [laughs]

If Exodus was playing,
we were there.

[whispers]
That's Paul Baloff.

Kirk came up with a name,
and we were just like, wow.

What was the question again?

My name is Lars Ulrich,
and I'm from Denmark.

Tom Araya. Fucking Slayer.

Singer and bass player
for Slayer.

I got goosebumps talking about
it right now, man.

My name is Paul Bostaph.

Larry Lalonde,
El Sereno, California.

Charlie Benante,

and I'm from
the Bronx, New York.

Dave Lombardo,
South East, L.A.

There was an aura of
watching history happen.

East Bay guys.

They played before us,
and that was kind of a mistake.

I am Robert Trujillo.

I'm from Santa Monica,
California.

There goes that guy who was
in Metallica. What's he up to?

It wasn't as exciting as
you thought it would be, was it?

[theme music plays]

[Kirk Hammett]
We were far away from the city.

We were isolated.

There was nothing to do.

All we had was music, you know?

It was a pilgrimage.

We would mow a few lawns,
save a few bucks,

take the Alameda across
the county bus transit

to the BART station,
take BART to Berkeley,

and walk up to Telegraph.

Instantly we went to all
the hard rock stuff,

you know, Aerosmith,
Deep Purple, Black Sabbath,

Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy.

Anything and everything that was
around that had an edge,

that was loud and energetic,

I just went to.

Kirk was the first guy
to ever play me, like,

Uli Roth-era Scorpions,

and that was the first day
we ever hung out.

And that was when we met
at his house to go see
Ted Nugent and the Scorpions.

But there was other stuff
coming out of
England and Germany

that nobody was really
was partial to on a large scale,

other than the kids that I knew.

The kids of my age, uh,
were listening to disco.

They were listening to pop,

and I just wasn't really
interested in that.

We all went to
the same record stores.
There was very few.

There was something that
I just wasn't getting enough of

until I heard this
one band called UFO.

They had the heaviness.
They had the intensity.

They had the energy.

They had the musicianship.

They had a guitar player
that was sent from heaven

named Michael Schenker.

Me and John Marshall
became obsessed with UFO.

[heavy metal music plays]

[audience applause]

[Lars Ulrich]
I was hanging out up in Berkeley

in April or May of 1980,

and I was walking along
Telegraph Avenue.

[Erik Lannon]
You'd see him down on Telegraph
and Berkeley all the time.

[Lars Ulrich] As I was walking,
I heard a Motorhead song.

[Erik] You could hear
him coming from a block
or two away, you know?

[Lars] A total character.

There was this
crazy skinny tall dude.

[Erik]
Denim vest on, long hair,

big Thin Lizzy Chinatown patch
on his back,

and he was playing Motorhead
on his boombox.

You know, up on his shoulder.

This is back in the day
when you'd carry
a big boombox that needed,

like, D cells, like,
ten of them.

He had this boombox about
this big on his shoulder,

and he would just be--

[Erik] Blasting Motorhead,

and that was Rich Birch.

This shit was so loud it was
like a Memorex commercial.

Whoa, who's that guy?

That seems like somebody
we should know.

[Kirk] Very quickly
I got invited to hang out
with some of his crew

and ended up in a place
in the Golden Gate Park
called Strawberry Hill,

where I met Ron Quintana.

Ian Kallen.

It was the beginning
of getting to know

that crew of people
that were all the

IronMaiden/Motorhead/
Saxon/Diamond Head/
Merciful Fate fanatics.

By 1980, music sucked.
1979 sucked worse.

Being a kid in San Francisco,

radio was going downhill disco.

So radio stations
were really bad.

Luckily there was KUSF,
which could play harder
punk stuff.

So that's where you'd first
hear UFO maybe once in a while.

And at high school
I ran into a friend,

and he said,
"You've got to go to this
store called the Record Vault.

It's amazing."

I got on the bus.
I headed up, walked in,

and it was like
walking into Mecca.

It was dark. It was cool.

There was Motorhead playing,

and all over the walls was
everything that I was into.

We'd find all this great,
imported metal, you know?

Budgie, Venom,

Diamond Head,
and Sweet Savage demos.

All this stuff that
we really loved that
you weren't going to find at,

like, Tower Records.

Back then you'd be
hanging out in the record store
for two, three hours.

You only have $20 bucks
in your pocket,

so you were trying to figure out
which two records to buy.
You know, it took a while.

It was the place everybody came
to find out things.

It was the place everybody came
to buy their new release,

to get their copy of
Metal Mania, Ardschok,
Kerrang!,whatever.

And it was awesome.

It was an amazing experience
just to go there

and see all these like minded
people that were there, too,

shopping for the same stuff,
and they're all wearing vests,

back patches, and into metal

and into all this
underground stuff.

The record stores would have
the albums set up on the wall

and on a little shelf,
so you could see the cover,

and there was the first
Iron Maiden album cover
with Eddie on it.

It was like, oh, shit,
look at that.

Down in Southern California,

my place was called
Middle Earth Records.

You know, you'd have to go in
and order the record.

There was such an anticipation
around getting it.

All the different bands,
you know,

all these different,
unique sounds and styles,

and we were just--

We just dove head first into it.

I gravitated towards
these metal bands because
they were an escape.

You listen to an
Iron Maiden song,
and they're talking about

a fantasy that was
no different, in my head,

to a Stephen King novel.

Yes, there were murders.
Yes, there were Satanic things.

It was fantasy.
It didn't make me want to go out

and slaughter babies
or anything.

It was an escape
from my suburban,
teenage life.

This is just
a drawing of Eddie.

I was a huge Iron Maiden fan,

and obviously I should've
been paying more attention
in geometry.

I got a 27 out of 52.

[narrator]The compact cassette
tape came of age in the 1970s.

Inexpensive and easy to record,

tape-traders quickly adopted it

as a means of spreading
the newest sounds.

In the pages of Kerrang!,
they would have pen pal ads.

Kerrang!
would run them for free.

That's what started everything.

That's how I found out about
Brian Lew and KJ Doughton.

KJ had a ton of Maiden,
and so did Brian.

So that was cool.

That was another big staple
of the movement.

Everyone had their demo
and bootleg list,

and they'd ask for the other
person's list and trade tapes.

Back then it was
snail mail, tapes,

stamps, and handwritten letters.

All of a sudden I was getting
letters from people in Germany,
Holland, France,

England, New York and Chicago.

It just opened up
this whole worldview.

I had been now trading with so
many people, getting tapes

and fanzines
from England, mainly.

This list kept growing from two,
three, four, five, six pages.

Then I realized,
"Well, I want to do a fanzine,"

and I started
to add pictures in July.

And it became Metal Mania
by August of 1981.

When I first met Ron,

he made me a compilation tape.

I mean, it was the thing to do.

It was part of the conversation
back then in the early '80s.

The thing that maybe
has become the misconception
over the years about

the tape-trading network is
that we weren't dubbing albums.

We were dubbing live bootlegs.

You know, at that time
part of being a music fan,

is you wanted to own the record.

You wanted to own
the seven-inch single,

because it made you feel part
of something bigger.

In high school,

they had a guitar class,

and it was literally 30 people
learning how to play guitar.

And in that class
was Mark Biederman,

who was eventually
in Blind Illusion, and Kirk.

Before Gary was
in the band, you know,

when it was just Kirk and them.

They sometimes rehearsed
at our rehearsal space.

And Kirk and I were
in Mr. Bee's class together,
the guitar class.

We were kind of just mostly
learning our instruments.

And you know,
Kirk turned me on to so
many different kinds of music.

Like, I had never heard
UFO or the Scorpions.

All we had was music, you know?

And then when
we got into the music,

all we had were each other.

We wanted to take it
to the next level,
so we got instruments.

And I think that the anger
of being in a place

that just didn't have enough
to offer, you know,

the frustration of being bored.

I think a lot of that got
channeled into our instruments.

[rock music playing]

[narrator] In Los Angeles,

a new heavy metal
was beginning to rise.

In December of 1980,
a friend of mine and I--

Who were the only
two people, by the way,

at the time who knew
anything about the new wave
of heavy metal.

Went to see Michael Schenker
Group play at a place called
the Country Club in Reseda.

After the show, my friend John
was in the parking lot,

and he saw some kid wearing
a Saxon European T-shirt.

Now, in 1980 nobody knew
who Saxon was in L.A.,

let alone had
a European T-shirt.

And that of course was
a kid named Lars Ulrich.

Fast-forward to when
James and I had the band.

One thing led to another,
and we started playing in L.A.

A year-and-a-half or so later,

we got the idea to do
a compilation album.

Lars called me up
one day and said,
"If I put together a band,

can I be on your album?"
Like, of course. Absolutely.

So Lars and me are always
talking about doing a magazine.

We need a store, man.

Let's just start
a club and hang out.

And Lars, in his way,
you know, he was like,

"Oh, that's cool.
That's a good idea, man."

He showed me a list of
his future band or club names.

So he had, like,
generic, hot-rod-y

American car names:

Thunderbolt,

Metal Mania, Metallica.

He had a huge list of names.

That ended up being some band
that starts with an "M".

I think it was Metallica,

that we misspelled on
the very first [laughs]

version of the record.

Lars always was able
to make things happen.

Somehow he landed them
a gig opening for Saxon.

James didn't play guitar.
He just sang.

And Dave Mustaine played guitar.

Their set consisted of
"Hit the Lights,"

"Blitzkrieg" by Blitzkrieg,
and about five
Diamond Head covers.

That was pretty much it.

The selection of
the cover songs we did

I think was a little bit
more involved,

because we all kind of had
a say in what bands we liked.

When Metal Mania 5 came
out right after Metallica

played their very
first shows ever.

So, Lars helped write
an article about his show

and this great new band,
Metallica.

He wrote this little article

about L.A. heavy metal

and young metal
attack Metallica,

and this is the very
first article ever

of Metallica.

and of course it was
written by Lars. [laughs]

But they never really quite
fit in with the L.A. crowd.

We got gigs when we could,
as many as we could.

You know, we got kicked out
of a few clubs

because they thought we were
a punk rock band.

With Brian Slagel's help,

we were able to go up
to the San Francisco area

with a few other L.A. bands.

Man, it was on.

[heavy metal plays]

[Sven Soderlund]
When they came up
to San Francisco,

and they saw the energy
that was involved,

they just wanted
to be in that element.

And it helped them tremendously,

and it helped us grow as a scene

in San Francisco
and the Bay Area, as well.

A lot of bands came out
of the East Bay.

A lot of musicians came out
of the East Bay.

The East Bay is
a fucked up place.

In the '70s and early 80s,

it had high unemployment,

high crime rate,

and it was a boring place.

My mom worked a lot,

so like in the daytime
I had a lot of

free time to myself
to just jam out at home.

We were ghetto kids, you know?

We stole shit, you know?

Like, there's the time
the Wagon Wheel liquor store

in Pinole burned down, right?

You know, most people stay away
from burnt out buildings.

Not Exodus.
We crawled through the wreckage,

because there was
dozens and dozens of bottles
of alcohol in there.

I actually met Gary shoplifting

when we were going
to junior high school.

We had nothing given to us.

We stole some
of our first equipment.

Gary was a friend of mine
from Richmond,

and he was kind of
helping us out

with gear and stuff like that.

Then Kirk gave him
a guitar lesson, and...

[explosion]
Wow.

Taught me how
to play guitar, you know?

I hold a pick the way I do,

I fret a bar chord the way I do.

We do it exactly the same,
because he showed me.

Here's how you hold a pick.
So, all right,

I'll hold a pick
like that, then.

It was Kirk saying yeah,
I want to jam with people

finding guys that played,
and making it happen.

I remember walking into
this party, not knowing anyone,

seeing this one short guy

with hair that was just like
mushroom-shaped, super long,

[raspy voice]
and he was talking like this

[normal voice]
and was cracking jokes,
and some of it was pretty funny.

And he started talking
about music. He's like,

[mimics voice] "Oh, yeah, Judas
Priest. So heavy, so heavy.

Oh, Maiden is so heavy,
so heavy."

And I said to him,
"Hey, bro, you know UFO?"
He goes...

♪ Rock bottom! ♪

♪ Rock bottom! ♪

And starts singing
"Rock Bottom" to me.

♪ Seventeen
and nature's queen ♪

I looked at him and said,

"You're going to be the singer
of our new band, Exodus."

He's like, "Okay."

Then from that minute on
we were inseparable.

His name was Pablo
Nikolaivich Paulakersokoff.

It means,
Son of Nicholas in Russian.

He was a blue blood Russian.

He was a little tiny guy,

very aggressive.
A strong, thick,

100-percent Russian man.

Paul was Paul,
take it or leave it.

I mean, he had so much charisma
and so much energy

that you just wanted
to be around him.

[heavy metal plays]

He couldn't sing that well,
but he could sing good enough.

[singing thrash metal]

That's where the line-up
really came together,

you know, it's when
we found the band's voice.

Baloff wasn't a singer
when we met him.

He was just a
headbanger like us.

When Exodus played, they just
got the crowd completely insane.

[Ron Quintana over radio]

[heavy thrash metal plays]

Paul's first show was at
the Ducal Palace in Alameda,

which is some little
hall pizza joint
kind of place, you know?

And I remember, like,
I knew he was the right guy
for the job

because it was one
of those places that's got a
stage that's about a foot high.

And next thing you know,
he's over on top of the tables,

and he's just rocking
them fiercely like that,

trying to break them.
It was just fucking awesome.

He checked everyone's attitude

and made sure that
if you're hanging out with us,

you're into the music,
you knew the music,

and you weren't an F'ing poser.

[heavy metal plays]

[Brian Slagel]
I was friends with all
the people in San Francisco.

There was a really great
scene going on up there,

so I was able to put together
a Metal Massacre show

at the Stone in San Francisco,
which was one of
the big clubs there.

So it was going to be
three bands from L.A.

and I called up Lars
and said, "Hey, one of
the bands dropped out.

We have this gig up
in San Francisco.
You guys want to do it?"

We weren't one of
the three bigger bands.

We weren't even first
on the agenda there,

but we got invited
when somebody canceled.

[Dave Mustaine]
So we hopped in Ron McGovney's
pickup truck with our gear,

and off we went with
a trailer in the back.

[Dave Mustaine recorded]

[audience cheering]

[Erik] There were only
a handful of people there.

I know a lot of people
claimed to have been there.

I was actually given
this shirt by their original
bass player, Ron McGovney.

And that was the most
amazing evening I ever saw,

because in L.A.
they were outcast. Nobody knew.

And we went up to San Francisco,
and that place went crazy.

[narrator] In
September 1982,

Metallica played their first
show in San Francisco.

The reaction was
immediate and explosive.

My mom didn't let me go.

[Ron Quintana]
Dave had this charisma
that just took over the band,

and when Metallica played,

I thought he was going
to be the next superstar

because he was so
crazy on stage,

and funny.

Who the fuck's the frontman,
you or him?

And I liked it because,
you know, I've got a big mouth.

I like to talk. [chuckles]

[heavy metal plays]

Some of those people
that I had befriended

for the previous
year or two came,

and you felt there was a scene,

sort of a collection
of people that were
really fans of the music,

which was a really
different thing than

what was happening
in L.A. at the time.

So it was a very, uh,

surreal,

transformative experience
for us.

[Brian Lew]
We were all teenagers.
They were in a band onstage.

We were teenagers in the crowd.

And at the time, Metallica were
doing Diamond Head covers,

you know, one of
those bands we didn't think
anybody else knew about.

And when they launched
into "The Prince,"

that's when the bond
with that band

and the Bay Area happened.
If you know that band,
you're a brother.

That was the switch.

Yeah, I remember
that first show,

seeing fans that didn't care
what they looked like.

I mean, they had
cutoff denim and stuff.

They didn't care.

And they were at
the front of the stage,

headbanging, because the
music did that for them.

They weren't gathered around
the bar scene or anything.

They were there for the music.

I think we had a much different
relationship with our fans,

because we were
salt of the earth.

Metallica came up
to the Bay Area to play
the Old Waldorf,

and I remember watching
them thinking,

"Fucking pretty cool."

Then Laaz Rockit came on
and played for literally,
like, 25 people,

and that said a lot to me.

It said a lot to Baloff.
It said to everyone in Exodus.

We were like, okay.

All right, we know
what's working here,
and we know what's not.

Yeah, so Metallica, I first got
hip to them through the demo.

So shortly after that, the band
I was playing with at the time,

Laaz Rockit,
we were playing a show together.

They were playing before us.
Mistake.

Something about Metallica.
They had that special--

That kick,

and you know?

They got that extra boost
of adrenaline that

I think made everyone
step up their game. Everyone.

Then we played
a show the next day,

and it was a benefit
for Metal Mania.

It was kind of
a hodgepodge thing

that was put together
in 24 hours.
They needed to find bands.

They had got Metallica.

They asked us to open. We said
sure, we'll open the show.

This is at the Mabuhay Gardens.

We played our show.

Then Metallica came on,
and they played.

And they were just fantastic.

That's when I first met James,

and that's when
I first met Lars.

You know, it's funny
because it was a window into
things to come in my future,

because as I was
talking to Lars,

he got undressed and changed
right in front of me.

I was like, wow,
why is this guy doing that?

Then I realized, oh,

this is, I guess,
what European people do.

[laughs] Because...

You know,
I lived in the East Bay.

All I had to contend with was
rednecks everywhere, you know?

[narrator] Metallica's
legendary demo cassette,
"No Life Til Leather,"

was recorded in
the summer of 1982.

It immediately became a stapleof
the tape-trading underground

and established the band as a
force to be reckoned with.

[Lars] First we did a four-song
demo called "Power Metal,"

and then the infamous
"No Life Til Leather" tape

came a couple months after.

I just started sending it
to all the same people

that I'd been trading
some of this other
underground metal stuff with,

Like the KJ Doughtons
of the world.

Oh, my God,
this is tape is amazing.

It just crushes.
It's unbelievable,

they've come so far.

And I sent Brian
the first Metallica demo,

and I think that's
the first taste he got of it.

[Tony Isabella]
While working at the club,

one of my coworkers had started
to do a Monday night event

called Metal Monday,

and these bands that later
became thrash were presented.

And it was clear this
was a new direction.

[Craig Behrhurst]
Attendance on a Tuesday morning
in any of the high schools

across the Bay Area
was pretty poor.

I can attest to that,
because a lot of us
were still in high school.

[Harold Olmden]
The Bay Area people were
so loyal to the band that

if they didn't like the band,
they would actually

turn their backs on the band
while they were playing.

[Brian] There was a band
called Hans Naughty.

They were based in San Francisco

but with a very much Los Angeles
Sunset Strip aesthetic,

and they were on
the bill with Metallica.

There were fans
that had patches of

obviously their favorite
bands on and what not.

They would show how much
they liked the band
or didn't like the band.

We might've flipped
them off a couple times,
and that got boring.

[K.J. Doughton]
They just quietly turned, and
that was I guess silent protest.

They got across that hey,
you're not a favorite band,

and we're waiting for this one,
the one that's on my back patch.

[Ray Burton]
Cliff came to us and said,

"I'd like to learn
to play bass guitar."

Jan and I said yeah,

so we got him a cheap guitar
and a cheap amplifier,

then started giving him lessons.

And from then on...

it was all Cliff.

I knew about Cliff Burton
from his previous band, Trauma,

because Baloff
knew about Trauma.

Baloff had seen Trauma and said,
"Oh, you got to see this band.

They've got a killer bass player
and a killer guitar player."

He said to me one day,
"Hey, let's--

you want to go

to San Francisco
to see a show at the Stone?"

"What's going on?"
He goes, "Well, let's see
this band Metallica."

Maybe a couple months later,
I was talking to Lars.

He said, "Do you know any good
bass players out there?"

I said, "Well, there's
this band from San Francisco

with this amazing bass player
named Cliff Burton.

I saw him at the
Troubadour a while ago,
coming down and playing again.

"You guys should come."
So Lars was like, "Okay, cool."

The show happens.
Lars and James were there.

I didn't know how far
into the set,
but it was pretty early.

Maybe the second or
third song Lars goes to me,

"That's going
to be our bass player."

[bass plays]

[James Hetfield]
Cliff represented the Bay Area.

He represented a freedom.

He represented a freakness

that I didn't know

so much growing up in L.A.

I went and saw Cliff play with
Trauma at the Keystone Berkeley,

and it was no secret
that the band knew

that Cliff was about
to be poached from them.

That's where Cliff belonged,
was in Metallica.

[Ray] Cliff would be talking
to somebody on the phone.

And just talk, talk.

And this went on for,

oh, golly, I'd swear a month.

Finally I said to Jan,

"Who's Cliff talking to on
the phone so much?"

And she said, "Well,
there's a band from Los Angeles

that wants him to join them."

And Cliff said,

"No, I'm not going
to go down to L.A., I said,

"If you guys want me
to join your band,

you can come up
to the Bay Area."

And by golly, here they did.
[laughs]

Then one day...

[phone rings]

Baloff called me up and said,

"That guy Cliff Burton,
bass player for Trauma,

is in Metallica now!"
And I said, "No fucking way."

And then I saw them
at the Stone,

you know, Cliff's first gig
at the Stone. I was just like--

[Gary Holt] It was kind of
like looking in a mirror.

Here's another
band playing, like,

kind of what we are, you know,

their own stamp on it.
But, you know,

I remember just hanging out
and getting hammered that night,

and we just all kind of
said the same thing.

We kind of found our kindred
spirit, you know?

[James]
There was a lot of integrity

in the metal scene
in San Francisco.

Besides going up on
the hill by the park

and just blasting whatever
music we were loving,

booze and music, you know?

That was our collective. That's
where we got to know each other

and really feel like
we had a family.

[man] Cliff is the one that
brought us to the Bay Area.

If you want me in the band,
you got to come up here.

[narrator]
On December 28th, 1982,

Cliff Burton was invited
to play in a small house
in El Cerrito

that would later
come to be known
as the Metallica Mansion.

Part audition,
part rehearsal,

only a lucky few
were there.

No audio exists,
but fortunately for history

Brian Lew brought
his camera and photographed
the new band lineup.

[Brian] At some point Lars
probably called me and said,

"You know, we're going to be
playing with our new bassist."

Ron Quintana was there.
Rich Burch was there.

Ian Callin,
who did Metal Mania
with Ron, was there.

There was a group
of maybe five or six of us.

There's this little room
in El Cerrito,

and that was the living room
where Metallica played
with Cliff for the first time.

And that was it.

Jamming with Cliff
for the first time
in the living room there,

hearing "Seek and Destroy,"
and all of a sudden
he's doing some stuff.

It's like, oh, my God,
this is going to be awesome.

It sort of catapulted
Metallica to another level.

[narrator] In early 1983,
Metallica moved from Los
Angeles to the Bay Area.

A very short window of time

with Mustaine in the band
and Cliff in the band,

and rehearsing and a few really
great shows in the Bay Area.

[Dave] That was one of
the things that you could tell
when we played together.

When the lights are off
and the guitars are roaring,
there's a respect.

Just the whole area,
being up there,

getting Cliff onboard,
it felt like home.

Then it came time for us
to play the show at the Stone.

We went on,
and we had a great show.

The place was packed.

And then Metallica came on.

[heavy metal playing]

And it was the first time
that I'd actually been able

to watch the whole show.

As I'm watching them, I thought,

"These guys are fucking great.

They'd be so much
better with me."

[narrator]
In the New York area,

Anthrax was proudly
flying the flag
of the new heavy metal.

[Charlie Benante]
I think we felt
kind of out of it

because we were the only band

on the East Coast that wanted
to do something like this.

We thought it was so cool
that in the Bay Area,

there was this kind of club

of this type of bands

that were gigging around
and just making music.

And I remember Exodus being
one of the first bands,

beside Metallica,

that I thought
were fucking great.

I just started getting
the tape out there,

and then we started getting
some good response.

And eventually this
tape ended up in
the hands of Johnny Z.

Around that time we
were meeting with Johnny Z
in New Jersey,

giving him demos.

He was bringing the band
from San Francisco to come over.

[Kirk] Johnny Z came down
to the house with a demo tape,

which was "No Life Til Leather."
We were blown away.

Metallica was always ahead of us
and the other bands, you know?

They were always six months
to a year ahead of us.

They came out with
"Kill Em All"

before any other band
had their records out.

I think "Kill Em All"
really set the tone
for what was going to come.

[narrator] In April 1983,

Dave Mustaine was
let go from Metallica

and replaced by
Kirk Hammett.

We had obviously started
hanging out with Exodus,

and Kirk was definitely
very musically gifted.

And he was also very up
for whatever was going on.

Yeah, Kirk and I
were at this party.

He's like, "Hey, man, come here.
Mark Whitaker just called me.

They want me
to audition for Metallica."

You know, it's like a passing
of the torch, you know?

Like, Kirk giving me the keys
to the family car and saying,

"Here, it's yours now.
Don't blow it up."

As far as the music
was concerned,

Exodus's music was similar

as to what Metallica
was doing already.

I had the chops
to be able to play all
that stuff on "Kill Em All,"

no problem.

That was the least
of my worries,

because even then I knew
that when you go into a band,
there's a certain dynamic.

And if your personality doesn't
work within that band dynamic,

it just won't work.
You won't go anywhere.

[narrator]A group of die-hard
New Jersey metal fans

known as the Old Bridge
Militiatook Metallica into their
home,

the Funhouse.

It's pretty amazing that
the house got a nickname,

which was the Funhouse
because of all the things
that we did down there.

[Ray Dill]
The place was all about fun,
because what did you do there?

-You had dirt bikes happening.
-oh, Yeah.

You had canoe rides.
We hooked a canoe up to a chain.

[Mark] We were welcome
to quite a few places

that maybe shouldn't have.
[laughs]

-The Funhouse--
-Not much to pick from.

-They didn't have much.
-A house with no heat,
sometimes.

[Mark] You know, they supplied
us with the things we needed.

[laughing]

You know,
everybody knew that

we would have
these crazy parties

with the music going crazy.

The sound system was...

I believe it was
a four-channel Onkyo.

[Joe] Yeah, I had the SAE,
but we bought a regular--

-Rack system.
-Yeah, a whole rack system.

Yeah, we just didn't
have the regular speakers.

I guess they
were monitors, right?

Two 12s, two 14s--
whatever.

It went up to
the ceiling of the house.

Run a demo, and then
you're in your bedroom.

It was like, wow,
this is pretty wild.

[narrator]nMeanwhile
back in the East Bay,

Exodus quickly took hold

as the Bay Area's go-to
heavy metal band.

Ruthie's Inn became home
to the burgeoning scene.

Looks like someone's
trying to make a respectable
location out of this place.

Let's open it back up,
Ruthie's Inn. [laughs]

Last time I was down here,
it still had the marquee,

and you could still see
Ruthie's Inn on it.

This place was
as much the epicenter

of the Bay Area thrash scene
as CBGBs was to
the New York punk scene.

I mean, there were so many
clubs prior to Ruthie's,

but this is where
the violence took off.

[laughs] This is where
"Murder in the Front Row"

really did take place.

[Durelle Ali]
My father was Wes Robinson,
born in Port Arthur, Texas.

Came out to
the East Bay about 1933.

He grew up in a household
that was full of music,

and they were
hardcore jazz aficionados.

They would sneak out
late at night to go see
Ella Fitzgerald or the classics.

A lot of the greats.
That started his love of music.

It wasn't so much
that he had a club,

but rather that
he would foster relationships

that would allow him
to use different venues
for performances.

He was a promoter,

and that was the beginning.

And Wes Robinson, you know,

the late, great Wes Robinson,
you know,

booked Exodus at the first ever
show at Ruthie's, a blues club.

[Durelle]
His joy for something

always led his actions into
getting involved with it.

He never got involved
with something just because

he might be able
to make some money at it.

He saw something in it.

I'm not sure what he saw.

Maybe he recognized
from when he was a music fan,

being younger.

Obviously much different music,

but I think he saw some
of that same energy.

So he really helped
nurture the scene.

There were battles
along the way.

There were battles
from the neighborhood.

There was a parking lot across
from Ruthie's that is--

The business is still there.
Big O Tires.

People would throw up in there,
in that parking lot,

and break bottles.

After a while I was like,
these people never complain.

They never call the cops.
They never do anything.

After thinking about it,
I'm like, well, they do sell
tires there, so.

We would party right
across the street at
the Big O parking lot.

Someone would roll up
in their Chevy Nova,

crack the trunk,
and there'd be coolers of beer

and bottles of Jack
and what not.
And we all hung out.

Half the bands
would wait with us
and drink with us, and then,

Oh, got to go into the show.

Well, Exodus shows at
Ruthie's were really crazy.

I mean, I don't think I ever
paid once to get into the show.

Wes would be sitting
at the door.

I would walk by, and he'd
just kind of go like that.

Connie, Pam,

Rebecca, Leah,

those girls were something else,

because there weren't
very many of us at all.

[Conie Taylor] We would go
to the bar. We would sit down.
We would drink.

We didn't have IDs.
We weren't old enough.

But it just sort of happened.

You know, people were dancing,
and the bands were
playing so hard.

It became very human, very fast.

[Gary]
That's when we found our home,

because it was kind of
where we were from.

You know, Rick and Paul
were both from Berkeley.

Robbie was from Berkeley.

Tom and I were from San Pablo.

[Brian]
Exodus at Ruthie's Inn,
a random person would

just record it and send
it off to our pen pal friends.

So you know,
pre "Bonded by Blood,"

this is how
Exodus's music got out.

[Alex Skolnick]
It very quickly became a scene.

It was the place to go.
They have great kamikazes.

You knew never knew what
was going to happen.

You know, some crazy shit
was going to jump off.

Of course, I was young,
and we were all just raging.

It was a party.

[Harold]
The place was really dark,

and you kind of get away
with almost anything there.

I'll never forget one time
going through the crowd,
headbanging and going crazy.

I actually tripped
on some people.

There were some
people having sex.

The shows were classic, dude.
I mean,

it was like Ruthie's Inn,

so hot and humid in there.
The walls would be sweating.

People are hanging off of
plumbing pipes and sprinklers,

and toilets were getting broke.

The place would just
get fucking destroyed,

and they'd still have us back
like two weeks later.

Toby Rage, Andy Anderson,
Lonnie Hunolt...

You know, we'd all take turns.

We called it bowling ball.

It's where people jump on stage,

and you're crouched in
a ducking position by the drums.

You get a running start
and just linebacker them
as hard as you could

down into the crowd, you know?
That was fun.

We were hanging out at
the Big O across the street.

This cat Toby Rage comes up,

and he sees Leroy with
his Mike Tereo hair

and his white Capezios.

And he walks up,
and he just goes...

[spits]

Nice shoes.

Toby Rage was,

again, I never saw
him break character.

I don't know how he...
lived at that level.

I just remember feeling
claustrophobic in there,

but if the music was good,
that was all that mattered.

[Mark Osegueda]
Exodus just owned, and the pits
were violent as hell.

It was just--

It was glorious.

[Brian] You know,
Exodus's group of close friends,

you know, they were called
the Slay Team,

and literally if someone
showed up at Ruthie's Inn

wearing a Motley Crue
or a hair metal band shirt,

they would literally tear
the shirt off the kid's back.

They would cut strips off
of the shirt and tie
them around their wrists,

like scalps, and those aren't
fucking friendship strips.

Those are like war trophies.

[Harold]Lizzie Green,
Baloff's girlfriend,

actually did a comic book
that was based on the Slay Team.

It was just them going out
and killing posers, literally.

Paul and I had this idea that
we were going to make money.

So I draw up this whole comic.

She would sit there
and draw these little comics,

which have now become
the Slay Team comics,
which are famous.

"I can't believe this.
That car just ran him down.

Someone wants to kill us all.

It's the Slay Team,
and they will kill us
all unless we strike back."

So we start a poser war.

This is actually a real person.
We called him Poser Bob.

I don't remember what
Bob's real name is.

He did dress like this.
He had no problem being a poser.

[record scratches]

[narrator]By the way folks,
she's now a nuclear scientist.

I research explosives
for the government,
is the party line,

but I blow shit up for
the government is my line.

[Baloff]

[Mark Devito]
Toby Rage, I mean,

it's like nobody was
going to try posing

if all of a sudden
you were going to get
a Converse footprint

on the side of your head.

I got off the plane the one day,
went to Ruthie's the next day.

People were jumping
on the PA stack.

They were jumping off
into the crowd.

People were standing with
their backs against the stage,

holding their hands like this,

throwing people on.

We had never seen anything
like that in Europe.

[man]

[Pam Behrhorst]
No stage diving for me.

Most of the time
I stood just on the outside

and let some other guys push
the guys in the middle.

Just close enough so you could
still see the band but not get,

you know, run over.

Ruthie's was insane.

We were never real crazy about

keeping people offstage
at that point, you know?

That's what they did, and they
had a damn good time doing it.

If you were a poser or
a dippy girl or something
like that,

they could be terrifying,
but if you were

a friend of theirs
and understood them
or accepted them,

their hearts were so big.

[Brian] One of those defining
moments in any scene,

where that was the show
that inspired the lyrics
to "Bonded by Blood."

I remember it was us and some
rock band playing, right?

And the rock band,
they were up there rocking out
for their sister's band

or whatever with
their drink glasses and left
them on the front of the stage.

When we come on, everybody
starts smashing all the glass.

So people's hands got cut,

-so there was literally--
-Blood upon the stage.

There's literally
blood all over.

And I remember this one girl who
was there to see the rock band

must've saw something
she liked about the band,

and she was up front
and was rocking out, you know,
this is kind of cool.

And Paul reached down
and got a big smear,
a handful of blood,

and just wiped it down her face.

And she just ran out,
ah, screaming.

[Brian] Bonded by Blood
is written by a band
who were in the thick of it.

That song and that album
resonate so much because

it's a product of the scene.

[man singing]

[Brian] You know, if you
listen to it, it's almost
like a documentary in some ways

about those brief years
when this whole Bay Area scene
was just getting going,

like '83 to '85.

[heavy metal music plays]

[narrator] Nobody,
and I mean nobody,

had ever seen
anything like...

Slayer.

[thrash metal music plays]

I remember thinking this
is really interesting, okay?

They're from
Southern California,

but they're faster than...
[chuckles]

any band I've heard.

The imagery, the speed,

and just the heaviness of it all
just kind of took me into this.

Fucking Slayer.

[Dave Lonbardo]
When we went to the Bay Area,
that's where we felt at home,

because L.A. was saturated

and Hollywood was saturated
with glam rock.

We all know what that is,

compared to thrashers
and metal heads.

We were opposite.

When we played,

all I remember
is the enthusiasm of the crowd,

their intensity.
Kids jumping on the stage,

and then they'd just
start walking on people's heads
and shoulders, you know,

because everybody
was just stuck together.

We went up north and did
a show with Exodus,

which blew me away.

[Gary] There's nothing
wrong with imports.

The Bay Area was the epicenter
of the thrash scene,

and if your own region was not
welcoming of you, we would be.

Being from L.A.,
nobody did what we did.

So to be there, hear them,

and think, "oh, my god,
these guys are doing
the same thing we are."

Really heavy music, awesome.

The sounds are awesome.
The band is fucking awesome.

The guys were really cool,
and we got along great.

L.A. was more where
the hair metal was going down.

So we're kind of in O.C.,

and the O.C. crowd was very
similar to the Bay Area crowd,

but the Bay Area crowd
was far more advanced.

I first became aware of
Slayer when Brian Slagel,

who runs Metal Bay Records,
sent me an advanced tape
of Show No Mercy,

their first album.

It was almost like a demo.

Again, it was at the time when

all we cared about
were bands that played fast.

Slayer came up here and played
their first three shows
in January '84,

and the first one was at
the Keystone Berkeley.

If you look at the back cover
of Show No Mercy,
they were wearing eyeliner.

Why do you wear makeup?
[laughs]

You can't call it glam,

and it wasn't really makeup,
but it was eyeliner.

[Tom Araya] Somebody made
the remark, "Why are you guys
wearing that makeup?"

My thought is I'm not
really wearing makeup.

You don't need to be wearing
that stuff, man.

They're all in makeup,

and they have the spandex
and all the trip going on.

I think Kerry might've
had spikes at that point.

Whether you don't know me,
whether you don't know
the guitar,

whether you don't
know much about Slayer,
you know those nails.

They had some shit going on that
I was-- "What the fuck is this?"

People like Andy Anderson
and Toby Rage, like,
the original Slay Team.

They noticed it and started a
chant of "take off the makeup."

Andy even went as far
as going to the men's room
and getting paper towels.

We waved the
paper towels at them.

Slayer did two shows.

They played the
Keystone Berkeley
the night before

and then played Ruthie's
the following night with Exodus.

The Keystone Berkeley show
was the last show they
wore the makeup,

because we told them that shit
won't wash at Ruthie's Inn.

That was it for me.
Took all that shit off.

Was like, "Fuck it,
I don't need that shit."

So I just stuck with
black shirts and leather pants.

[laughs]

[Greg] And after the
Keystone Berkeley show,
we destroyed their hotel.

It was a swath of destruction.

It had to be admired
and appreciated.

It was awesome.

[Fred Cotton]
They had a hotel room at
the Berkeley Plaza Hotel,

and we just destroyed
that place.

Showed up with Tom Hunting,

and these guys were nailing
pizza to the ceiling, man,

and jamming everything
they could in the toilet.

You know, we actually tunneled
a hole through the wall

into the manager's hotel room.

They trashed this motel room
that I had under my name,

because I was the
oldest guy in the band.

So we had two rooms,
and they trashed them.

Not too many years ago
now Kerry and I were
having a conversation,

and somehow that came up.
He was like,

"Yeah, I got in a lot
of trouble for that."

That was kind of our
first introduction

to traveling away from home.

[narrator] In 1984,

Wes Robinson organized
a mini-festival

bringing together
various types of bands.

Although called Eastern
Front, the festival was
affectionately known as

Day on the Dirt,

a sly nod towards Bill Graham's

much larger Day
on the Green shows.

[man] It was how we would
envision what a day on
the green should be,

because these were our heroes.
These were our bands.

[Brian] And Wes Robinson,
who ran Ruthie's Inn,
organized it.

It was kind of like
the Woodstock moment of
the Bay Area scene.

He wanted people to be able
to do what they wanted to do

and hopefully make
some money at it,

and if you didn't
make any money,

at least there was the show.

[Mark D] This was all at an
aquatic park, which is at
the bottom of Berkeley,

right across this estuary
that flanks the 80 Interstate.

The lineup was...

Slayer, Exodus,

Possessed, Suicidal Tendencies.

It's kind of a defining
moment historically,

because that's
a crossover moment.

Like, Suicidal was
a hardcore band,

and they were playing
with Exodus and Slayer,
who are metal bands.

I know for a fact that
the band could not play L.A.

when I first joined the band.

And uh, basically

Suicidal Tendencies
was banned from Los Angeles.

Everyone sort of went like,
"Hey, we're not that different."

We love extreme music.
We fucking hate glam rock.

We hated all the bullshit
about poser-type shit.

It was kind of
a defining moment,

because everyone who
was there were like,

"Wow, this is pretty cool."

And you can see all the photos.

I mean, all those guys
were fast friends already,

and if not, that solidified it.

[Tim] That was one
of the first shows where

I started seeing the camaraderie
of the bands and stuff,

and I think that's one of
the things that shows
in the pictures, too.

[Robert Trujillo]
It was just amazing, you know,
the spirit up north,

experiencing that
positive energy.

And for me it was all brand new,

because again, I didn't even
get a chance to play L.A. yet

with this band
that was from L.A.

[Brian] It was a fast
and furious pit.
We had plenty of room.

The dirt was flying,
and it was a great show.

[Dave Mustaine]

[narrator]Dave Mustaine began
his new band, Megadeth,

with a vengeance

and immediately played
the Bay Area,

where he was welcomed
with open arms.

This is Megadeth's first demo

that Dave recorded after getting

the original Megadeth together.

He sent them out to maybe
a half dozen fans and people.

He handwrote the track
listing on it.

Dave had this
friend Brian Lew

who offered to run our fan club,

which basically consisted
of a post office box.

One day this letter
shows up that says,

"Hey, Dave, I hope
your new shit's faster
than Metallica."

And that night, I kid you not,

we went to rehearsal
and sped every song up

by 10 to 20 beats per minute.
I mean, every song.

So things like
"Skull Beneath the Skin,"
which were like...

[vocalizing bass]

Kind of this Sabbath groove...

[vocalizing drums]

[guitar plays]

[man] We'd been to
the Bay Area enough times.
I couldn't tell you how many,

but we'd been there enough to
where me showing up in Megadeth

is going to make people
think of Slayer, too.

I saw Mustaine
playing Metallica.

Me and Jeff would both sit
in the crowd and go,
"How's he do that?

How's he playing that
fucking shit and not
looking at his fingers."

You know, we would just be
amazed that he's just up
there ripping,

looking over there.

So I was flattered
when Mustaine came calling.

[Dave]
There's a lot of crazy folklore

about those first couple
of days, weeks, and months
after I left New York.

When I got on the bus,

I rode all the way
to California.

Did a lot of soul-searching.

I had already started
writing lyrics.

The first lyric I wrote
was to the song
"Set the World Afire,"

which was called Megadeth.

And I saw a piece of paper
on the floor of the bus

that was from
Senator Alan Cranston.

It was a handbill that
he had put out that said,

"The arsenal of Megadeath
can't be ready."

He was talking about
nuclear armament.

Arsenal of Megadeath,
that's a great line,

so I wrote it down
and put it in the song.

Didn't think that,
you know, that would
one day end up being the title.

My first show was with Megadeth,

and I remember the first time
watching Mustaine play.

I just couldn't believe it.

As a band,
that was the first place

that we went up
there was Ruthie's.

That was interesting,
because Ruthie's was so small,

we'd built this crazy stage
over at Kerry's house.

You know, I'd ask Kerry
if he would help us until
we'd find a permanent player,

and we built the stage
because I wanted this
war scene kind of thing.

When we got up there,
the roof was about this tall,

and we're trying to
figure out how we're going to
get all our stuff in there.

It's like, well shit.

And borrowing every marshal
in the community

and everything we could
buy out of the recycler.

You know, you got to kind of
keep your head down.

If you jump up in the air,
you're going to stick your
head in a light socket.

He's like, "I'm going to put
together this super group

that is just going to take
fucking no prisoners, man."

[heavy metal music plays]

What I noticed around town
is there were a lot of
people posing, primping,

and wearing their
studded wristbands from the
shops on Hollywood Boulevard.

And everybody looked like
Vince Neil or David Lee Roth,
but Dave was the real deal.

[speed metal music plays]

Everybody was really
surprised that Mustaine
got booted out of the band,

because back then he
was almost like the frontman.

He really had something to
prove after he left Metallica.

It was incredible how
quick he got it together.

Megadeth was a band
that was conceptualized
before it was ever a band.

It was an architectural
blueprint of what
the band was going to be,

and I think because
that was drafted in Dave
apartment's and my apartment,

we've had this vision
of what we've been aiming for.

It's really creative.

It's a great blend,

and it's got that punk energy.

[plays speed guitar]

When we debuted
the band in the Bay Area,

to see that frenzy happening.

A kid reached up and
actually grabs he string
and breaks it off my bass,

right in the middle of the song.

I'd never seen
anything like this,

and people were literally
bleeding on the stage
from headbanging

and thrashing down front.

You could feel almost
a tension, you know?

He's up there trying
to prove himself.

[indistinct chatter]

[Brian] They moved
here maybe January '83.

They were gone in April.

They came back
for I think a month in June,

after recording finished.

Then they were on tour.
So that first year
that they quote-unquote

moved to the Bay Area,

they were probably
only here a couple months.

We really had just come
from out of the underground.

We recorded Kill Em All.

We ran back to San Francisco
to give it to all the people
who were our core group.

It was our opportunity to

put the scene on
the fucking map.

Kill Em Allcame out in
December of '83, you know?

In our second issue
I made the review.

You know, we had record reviews.

I said Metallica are going
to get a whole page.

Nobody knew at the time
how big they're going to get,

but I said,
"This band is a killer."

So I made the headline,
"Metal Album of the Year:

"Kill 'Em All."

[narrator]Exodus recorded
their definitive
thrash metal masterpiece,

Bonded by Blood, in 1984.

Bonded by Blood?
How do you not like
Bonded by Blood?

I love Exodus,

especially from that time.

That's my favorite
Exodus record.

"Bonded by Blood" was kind of
more anticipated than

Kill Em Allin a
lot of ways,

just because we spent
more time with Exodus
than we did with Metallica.

Basically I ended up
replacing Kirk.

We were never in
the studio before,

so we're learning
the process, you know,

the whole mike thing and how
to keep the guitars in tune,

because the mike
hears everything--

Just learning from
the very ground up
how to record an album.

When we recorded Bonded by
Bloodat Prairie Sun studios,

our friends would
come up from the Bay Area,

and we'd party at night.

They'd get too drunk,

and there were fistfights and
windows getting broken.

The whole thing with
"Bonded by Blood" was it's like,

it's a chemistry
that five kids had.

Not knowing nothing
about recording.

We got nine songs together,

and we just want
to put everything
we have into these songs

and just capture this vibe.

It's the craziest thing.
The very first note, man,
is just like...

[thrash music plays]

Bonded by Blood
is an amazing album.

The riffs, the speed.

That's my Exodus record.

That's the Exodus record.

It captured that kind
of youthful angst and anger.

That was thrash metal.

That was a Bay Area
thrash metal record, you know?

So Kill Em All
and Bonded by Blood

they're kind of like twins,
in a way.

To this day,
people are just like, man,

Bonded by Blood,
forget about it.

There are quite a few covers
from that period of time

where you kind of look at them
and are like, wow, really?

But none the less,

I mean, what was
inside that sleeve

was nothing but
pure Bay Area thrash.

What do you guys do with posers?

-Poser.
-What?

That guy's a poser.

What do you teach them?

[audience]
A lesson in violence!

Here's a poser right here.

Some places don't know
that you kill posers.

Break a poser's leg.
It makes me smile.

Posers must die!

There's only one Paul, man.

[thrash metal plays]

[Sven] He's the epitome of
what a singer should be,

because if you weren't into it,

he's all, "Pummel that poser."

He'd go on one of those rants
about killing posers onstage,

and if there were posers
in the crowd, they worried.

My grandmother makes
more noise than that!

[audience screams]

[both] My grandmother makes more
noise than that, and she's dead.

He would go to
people's houses and completely
trash their house.

The Exodus guys would be there,
and Paul would kick people out.

One of the prerequisites
to getting into the party

was you had to bring
a two-by-four so you
could destroy the place.

I remember grabbing
a beer bottle and firing
it straight at the fireplace

right when we walked in,
and it just erupted.

[Harold] He kind of got away
with a bunch of stuff,

stuff that was kind of messed up
actually, to be honest.

He handcuffed someone
to a tree like this.

He let a live sewer rat loose
in my house one time.

We'd cut people's hair.

If you had a Ratt pin.

A Bon Jovi shirt.

A Motley Crue shirt
or something like that.

He'd strip you right
where you stood.

I'm gonna slice that shirt up.
We'll slice you with it.

If that's all he did,
they were lucky.

I remember his place.

He lived in just a--
He lived on a concrete slab.

His wolf lived with him, Bidor.

Bidor and Paul
were pretty much inseparable.

He had a house-wrecking party.

Some pretty crazy shit happened
at these parties.

A lot of beer, a lot of liquor.

Pictures getting smashed.

Walls being kicked
in with holes.

Just slamming our arms down
the hallways,

just punching
in all the plaster.

Houses dismantled,

you know, piece by piece.

Paul Baloff passed away
following a stroke in 2002.

He's beloved by his friends
and metal fans everywhere.

Paul, for what he lacked
in pure musical talent,

he had all the drive and passion
that you'd ever want,

could we have done more
to keep him around?

Probably yeah, might've been
a failure in attempting it.

I'm happy.
I've got a million memories

and five billion photographs
worth of fucking awesome
times to look back on.

He's like the greatest
thrash metal frontman
of all time,

and he made one album twice.

We were all by his bedside
in the hospital,

and Rick and I lowered
him into the ground.

Fuck, you know, I miss him.

The legend.

I miss him every day.

See you, buddy.

[narrator]
In the mid 1980s,

Lars and James lived
at the infamous

Metallica mansion
in El Cerrito.

Yes, the Metalla-mansion,

and that is certainly not one
of our cars right there.

That Porsche was not parked
there because of us.

You know, at least with
the Metallica mansion,

it was literally almost
a straight shot back
from Ruthie's Inn.

So if there was a show
or whatever at Ruthie's Inn,

it was a straight shot
almost down San Pablo Avenue
back to their house.

Definitely a bachelor pad.

You don't dare go into
the bedrooms at all.

The front room's covered
with posters and beer bottles.

I remember pulling all
the furniture out the
front door right here

and hosting this party.

We left the turntable and maybe
a couple chairs, maybe a couch,

and obviously the booze.

[laughs]

So music, booze,
and we would just go insane.

Wrestling and have these
crazy mosh pits in the house.

Usually we're out partying
in the streets or whatnot,

so to actually have a place to
go and hang out was pretty cool.

Even the Metallica house--

I think Exodus were
there more than Metallica,

because they were already
on tour constantly.

[narrator]While touring, lonely
Metallica members wrote
postcards

to keep in touch with
the scene back home.

Aww.

[Mike] Yeah, postcards, letters,
that was the only way
you could keep in contact.

We'd get in town
and write down what's happening,

then just send it off.

All those early
Ruthie's Inn shows

that were kind of laying
the foundation for the Bay Area
scene were happening.

Hey, John, how you doing?

We're jamming and playing.

Okay, we're going to go party,
go drinking.

Then you'd flip it over.

Hey, John, it's 2:00 AM.

We're here. We're ranging.
We're getting drunk.

We're drinking beers
and hanging out with Venom.

Metal up your ass,
right-stack Marshall,

Lars Ulrich,
drummer in parentheses.

In hindsight, it was probably
them dealing with all the shit

that was happening with them.
You know, they were going
to the next level,

thousand of miles
away from home.

Being away from home,
being away from your friends,

being away from your girlfriend.
It was a big deal.

And they liked to write letters.

You know, back then we
all wrote letters.

Flying the flag for the Bay Area
in San Francisco in the scene.

So it was important for us
to stay in touch with everybody

that was back at home,
holding the fort.

[man]
See if you know this one.

I want you all to scream
it back at me!

this is titled,

"Seek and Destroy!"

["Seek and Destroy" plays]

Cliff would write me really
long letters from Copenhagen

in his horrible writing

and just talk about
how good things were going.

This tour is great.

First Aardschok festival
I called Lars.

If he wanted to open up
for my festival

because I thought
it was a great band.

You know, I'd send them money
for plane tickets and stuff.

It definitely made
a big impression.

You could already tell
that these guys were
going to go somewhere.

Everybody knew.
I mean, we all knew.

Some old black and white
pictures of Metallica
at that show.

They were so nervous there
around that time to do the show.

Even though they
were aware, they were
still part of the scene.

You heard that the band
was blowing people away,

just like they did
when they started here.

Lars said no.
We didn't have the cover.

It was just Kirk on there.

Tapes were being
copied the next day,

and they were sent
to Germany, Belgium,

France, all over the world.

[Lars]
It wasn't really until James

started getting some
European shows under his belt

in the spring of 1984,

where he started
being able to command the big,
European crowds.

That's when he became
James Hetfield, the frontman.

Are we fucking nuts tonight!

[audience screams]

[Mike] This was certainly
not the shy kid that was
in high school, hating life.

This was the kid that

finally found his voice

and got to be in a band that was
able to help express it for him.

We were very aware
there was something brewing
in San Francisco

that was a little heavier,
a little angrier.

Exodus, you know,
were definitely part of that.

[narrator]Blown away by
what he saw in the Bay Area,

Andre Werheizen booked
Exodus into the Dynamo Club.

The show has passed into
legendspread by numerous
bootlegs.

I want to dedicate
this one to Andre over here.

Who's here because of Andre?

That was Exodus's
first tour of Europe.

[man] The only club show
they did was at the Dynamo,

and they did 300 or 350 people
by themselves.

More people in there than
I think officially were allowed,

maybe three times as much,

because everybody wanted
to see those bands,

and Dynamo Club was the only
place you could see them.

From my pen pals, Brian Lew
and Andy Airborne Anderson,

who was very close with Exodus,
I got some live tapes.

And we were fascinated. They
were even faster than Metallica.

They were even
a little bit more intense.
Word got out,

and word by mouth is
the strongest promotion
that you can get.

[narrator]While Metallica
were away touring,

Pam and Connie were
house-sitting the mansion.

[Connie] We had sort of screwed
up their finances along the way.

We weren't very good
at balancing checkbooks.

Mark had just left
the checkbook.

He left a checkbook
that was signed with checks,

and we were just supposed
to deposit money and
then give them the checks.

I had to go to my
very conservative,
Republican mom and dad

and ask for them
to bail out Metallica.

So I like to say that my mom,
Mike and Carole Bryant

sort of saved
the Metallica band.

-Sorry, guys.
-So there you go.

-It all worked out.
-It all worked out, yeah.

New bands were rising
everywhere in the Bay Area,

inspired by the scene
they were living in.

Bands like Testament,
Death Angel,

Violence, Forbidden,

and Possessed all made their
mark on the metal scene.

Each year there'd be a band
that would kind of step up

into the role of being able
to headline a show at, say,
Ruthie's or the Stone.

Metallica came out
with Kill Em All,

and they were doing
the Kill Em All For One tour.

We stood right on
the edge of the pit,

and we head-banged for
the entire fucking show
when it was Cliff Burton,

and he's doing
"Anesthesia Pulling Teeth."

We're like,
these guys are fucking amazing.

And the whole way
home it was like,

we're going to start a band,

we're going to start
playing shows,

and we're going to play thrash.

All those people would be going
to the shows at Ruthie's

in the Bay Area clubs and stuff,

and basically they kind of
looked up on stage and said,
"I can do that."

You always hear
the old cats talk about
the Beatles on Ed Sullivan

and how they picked up
a guitar after they saw that.

That was my
Beatles/Ed Sullivan moment,

but if we wanted
to be something,
if we wanted to matter,

we had to get into Ruthie's.

And if we could
survive Ruthie's,

and not get killed,

and not get booed off the stage,

and not get the mike
ripped down in front of it
like people were prone to do,

and survive the Slay Team,

then that would be the ultimate.

You can't tell the story of
the San Francisco metal scene

without talking
about Debbie Abono.

She managed one of the most
hardcore bands to come out
of the Bay Area,

which was Possessed, you know,
super Satanic speed metal.

This is metal mom right here.

I know there's a few
metal moms across the globe,

but this was ours.

I broke my leg at a DRI show.

She basically nursed me
back to health at her house.

She was the mom
of the scene, you know?

Every show she'd
be there for every band.

She lived at a house in Penol,

and after parties
we'd be at her house.

[Alex] She really saw everybody
in that scene as human,

whereas there was
a lot of demonization...

of the youth.

She knew that
we needed a safe place,

and Debbie Abono's house
was always a safe place.

-You know, a party would--
-Last a couple of days.

Last a couple days.

I know sometimes
I'd be going to school
the next day,

walking through the people
who were still hanging
out at my house.

They all knew that
Debbie would take care of them

if they didn't
have anywhere to go.

The word-of-mouth kind of got--
Because you go hey, I need this

or I need that for my band.

And my mom would go out
and get it for you.

For me personally,
she helped me a ton.

I started taking guitar
lessons from Joe Satriani.
I couldn't afford it.

She paid for it,

and I couldn't thank her enough.

There's no way I'd be anywhere
I was right now without Debbie,

so I'm eternally grateful
for everything she did.

For young, 16-year-old
Larry Lalonde,

he's in tenth grade
in high school,

and they have a record out.

You know, imagine being
a tenth-grader,

and you have an actual album.

And you're playing in clubs.

I remember kind of showing up
at high school and going hey,
I've got a record,

and them being like,
yeah, big deal.

People kind of being like, what,
you think you're hot shit now?

Then she'd get tapes
constantly in the mail.

She'd get hundreds of them
from other bands,

wanting her to manage them.

Really looked out
for everybody, you know?

When she managed Forbidden,

she would go on tour.

I think she was 57 years old
when she was doing this.

I mean, just going out
on tour in a van for
two months across America

at 57 years old.

Like, that's fucking crazy.

And it's everything that
the horrors probably that
you've heard of.

She put up with a lot of
shenanigans from us, you know?

One time I guess they
had a porno magazine
in the back of the van,

and they taped a bunch of
pictures to the inside
windows of the van.

And we come pulling
into a gas station,

and here's this grandma,
you know, this older lady,
pulling in.

And then here's the most
obscene pictures on the windows.

And she couldn't believe
we'd do that stuff.

I always considered us
the third wave of thrash.

So it's like Metallica, Slayer,
and Exodus was the first wave.

Then Testament, Death Angel,
and Violence Forbidden.

I started auditioning
and just went from band to band
to band, you know?

And finally it clicked
with Forbidden Evil.

A band that young could get
a show at Ruthie's Inn,

and no one would bat an eye.

We're hanging out Ruthie's Inn
and the Stone.

We're not supposed to be there,
because we're 14.

My first show ever
was November 24, 1984,

Megadeth and Death Angel.

When they were loading in,
you know,

we were making fun of them.

Like, you know, your mom's
driving you to the show.

Then we'd get all pissed off.

Why do they always refer
to us as just so young and stuff

and just focusing on
the fact that we're young?

It was hard to put
a band together,

especially if you're 15.

I also knew that if I could
just get through one show,

it'll be a positive experience.
I need to do this.

Alex history--
I'm sure he told you.

You know, he's 15
and didn't have teenage years.

He toured the whole time,
you know,

from the first record
to the fifth record.

We did a record every year
and toured ever year:
five records, five years.

[narrator] Possessed is
credited withstarting the death
metal genre.

You know, the whole
Satanic theme was kind of funny.

I don't think anyone
was actually into Satan.

It just freaked people out, so.

[narrator]In August 1985,
Metallica played Bill Graham's

legendary Day on
the Green festival.

On a bill that
featurednScorpions and Yngwie
Malmsteen,

Metallica stole the show.

I was there.
It was insane.

Did we all come here to kick
some fucking ass or what?

The fact that Metallica got
a chance to play at Donington

and then two weeks later
at Day on the Green

was just a total mind fuck.

Me, what I remember
is going in there kind of cold,

not really knowing
what's going on

but blown away

at the consumer satisfaction.

The audience had so
fervently embraced

this from the minute
that band set stage that

it wasn't even a matter of
whether I understood it or not.

I could tell that these
people understood it,

and I witnessed the
extraordinary fervor
and enthusiasm.

It was hard not
to be swept up in it.

[Alex] With most other bands,
bass is sort of
a background role,

but with that
version of Metallica,

it was featured.

[playing speed guitar]

Cliff had a very serious
attack to his strings.

His technique was very abrasive,

and there was a lot
of power in it.

It was almost like this
punk attitude coming out
of his fingertips,

and yet he was very
graceful with his connection
to classical music.

[heavy metal plays]

It can't be overstated
what a huge moment that was

for not just Metallica but for
the whole Bay Area scene.

The fact that Metallica were
playing at Day on the Green,

it was like all of us were
playing Day on the Green.

[James Hatfeild]
Day on the Green has been
around since the '70s.

For us to be asked
to be part of it.

Didn't care where
we were on the bill.

Ratt was placed above Metallica,
which was sacrilegious,

to say the least.

So I painted this banner
with the Metallica logo

crushing down on this rat
that was flipped upside down

with a little spiked wristband,

and it was sitting next to
a thing that said rat poison.

And I got berated by a couple
overweight ladies in spandex.

You know, fucking Metallica
came out, and they
just took over.

As soon as they got on stage,

it was the stone in the pond.

Concentric circles of violence
spread throughout.

I remember standing
there stage left and
going there's Metallica,

and there's 60,000 people.
It's 1985.

It's like, yeah,
this is really cool.

[Metallica playing]

I don't think anyone
had seen a mosh pit,

and it didn't occur to me to go,

"And there's going
to be a mosh pit."

So for the both of us,

to be there onstage
on Day on the Green,

it was a huge accomplishment.

[James] The whole metal
community was excited
and supporting us,

especially for Cliff

being from the Bay Area.
It was like heaven for him.

[Connie] Everyone knows
about that worldwide, so,
he was excited.

After the Day on the Green show,
we did our normal stuff,
you know?

James and I went out
to the crowd to throw fruit.

Fred Rotten Cotton
and a few of the others,

you know, had some beverages
and just went crazy.

Took avocados and crammed
through vents.

Air-conditioning vents.

Just wrecked the
backstage dressing room.

You know, you're supposed
to trash shit.

So we did. We destroyed it.

I called the Metallica house,

and James answered the phone.

And I was like,
"We're in trouble."

Had no clue that, you know,
there's another day after ours.

You know, another band
has to use your trailer.

You're going to have to go over
there and talk to Bill.

I was like, oh, shit,
like I'm being called in.

He sat me down and said,
"Hey, I know you're a
rock and roll band at heart,

and breaking shit
and destroying things, you know,

it might be fun
for a little bit."

What would you do if

people came in your home
and behaved this way?

And James goes, "Well, pretty
much they do every weekend."

[James] I didn't quite get
what he was trying to say.

He said, "You guys are talented,
and you're on
a path to destruction."

He knew.

He said,
"I've had this same talk

with Sid Vicious
and with Keith Moon,

and they didn't listen.

Maybe you'll listen, maybe not."

What really happened
was James totally manned up,

and Bill completely
respected it.

[James] So I said,
"You know, I'm young.
I'm stupid.

And thanks for that.

I appreciate the talk,
and I'll do my best."

Years later he would go to me,

"How's James?"

Well, I haven't really talked
to him lately,

but I'm sure he's fine.

To this day I still never
said thank you to him,

because it did enlighten me
a little bit.

He made it right
to the best of his ability.

The next time we came to play
in the backstage area,

he put Visqueen, Clear plastic,

over everything.

The ceiling, the walls,

the floor, the table.

He even wrapped
bottles of beer in it, so...

it would be protected.

[narrator]1986 was an
ear-shattering year

for thrash metal.

Metallica, Megadeth,
and Slayer,

followed by Anthrax, all
released landmark albums.

I was asking Lars
where this was taken,

and he says, "I'm pretty sure it
was in Copenhagen."

[Corinne Lynn]
He would wake up

and put on his
little boxer shorts.

And he had a little amp
and his white guitar.

And it looked like a Gibson,
but it wasn't.

And he would play.

He could not wait
to get on the road.

And Cliff was excited,
as much as he didn't
want to go to Europe.

It was a short tour.

He wanted me to look at houses.

At this point we
had really developed and
were going to live together.

So he wanted me to
look at houses just around,

in the East Bay.

[narrator]
On September 26th, 1986,

Metallica played
a show in Stockholm, Sweden

supported by their friends,
Anthrax.

Anthrax went on ahead
to the next show.

Metallica never made it.

In the early hours
of September 27th,

their tour bus crashed, and
Cliff Burton was killed.

He was 24 years old.

I went home and started
calling Cliff

in Sweden at the hotel.

I had the itinerary.

"Oh, no, they haven't
checked in yet."

Okay, that's weird.

Try again an hour later.

That's when she told me.

It just wasn't even real.
It wasn't possible.

So I immediately called
Cliff's parents.

I didn't want to be
with anyone else, you know,

wanted to be with his parents

and smell his things.

We don't sit
back and say oh,

I hope we're big next year
or I hope this or hope that.

We just go and do it

and don't put a lot
of thought into

what might happen
or what could happen.

We try not to think
too much about the future.

[James]
Cliff was such a character,

and he was with us for
that short amount of time.

Thank God there were
some people filming

and some friends around
that had cameras.

To respect that time greatly.

I am so glad that
he was in my life

and I got to share some
times with him.

Someone so close

and someone who...

I saw my future with.

And it was awful.

It was just awful.

Most of us were so young
back then that we...

we really hadn't dealt
with death before.

[Tim Healy]
The first thing I did was I got
up and headed out to the Vault,

because I was working
the next day at the store.

From the minute that
we opened the door,

it was a constant flood
of people coming in.

It was the place where
people came to grieve.

It was the place were
people came to reflect
and tell stories.

And it was almost
the perfect place to find out,

because it was home
for all of the scene,

also for him and those guys.

What made us survive it was

that community of
those thrashers.

[Sven] No one ever thought about

the perils of rock and roll

or the fact that
tour buses crash

and people die out there

doing what we were
all aspired to do, and doing
what he ultimately loved.

[Charlie Benante]
I know we felt bad,

but I could only imagine
what each one of
them personally felt.

Yeah, it was a terrible time.

A terrible thing.

[Dave] What I know
about Cliff was that
he was a very gentle soul,

and we laughed.

Man, we would laugh.

You can't ask more
from your kids,

particularly when you don't
have to say much to them.

Cliff would just decide
he knew on his own

what was right
and what was wrong,

and he...

practiced it just like
he'd practice his music.

People forget what you do this.

It's because think back
to those days when you guys were
in a shitty rehearsal room.

Nothing else mattered
but just making something.

That's all you lived for.

So Metal Allegiance we're just
the guys from the neighborhood.

We're the friends
that all shared the same
record collection.

It was just a great spirit.

We said, you know,
maybe we should make a record.

Just to see what it sounds like
if all of us can actually write
and record some music together.

The marching orders
for that record, though,

is we're writing
a thrash metal record.

Obviously Alex is
involved in that scene.

We're getting Mark Osegueda,

Gary Holt, and Chuck Billy.

We're getting
the Bay Area's best.

You would hope
this happens everywhere,

but we're like,
you know, do you think it does?

Like, no, it's the Bay Area.
It's a special place,

and we've got some
special people that
are backing each other.

Why don't we ever get to do
any jams with people, you know?

And I got approached,

I'm like, absolutely, please.

[narrator] Since
the 1980s,

thrash metal music that was
nurtured in the Bay Area

extended its reach
around the globe,

inspiring metal fans
everywhere to crank it up.

[explosion]

[heavy metal plays]

In 2013,

Gary Holt replaced the late,
great Jeff Hanneman in
Slayer.

It's kind of weird, you know?

I got the call from Kerry
to come help them out.

People who don't know
the background between
the two bands will ask me,

wow, how's it feel to be
playing with such metal legends?
They're my buddies.

I think metal fans are the most
devoted of any fans there are.

They're not fickle.
They like what they like,

and I think a Slayer fan
is that fan times ten.

To me it's about humility,

and I'm more humbled
by the fact that people

have such an admiration
for the band.

You hear stories
about some of these people

that your music made
me strong and held me together

to get past a certain
point in my life.

I'm very grateful for that.

You're getting me
all teary-eyed.

[narrator]In 2017, Megadeth
won the Grammy for best metal
performance for their album,

Dystopia.

[Dave] One thing is for sure,

This community has a way
of taking care of its own.

I'm honored that the fans
still like what we're doing.

It's great to hear.
It feels good.

Oh, my God!

-Like wrestlers.
-We're wrestlers.

[Robert] When we put on our
instruments, we're like
teenagers again.

We have a good time.
We joke around. We laugh.

Everything we do revolves
around the jam.

There seems to be
a certain energy

and magic that's
very pure about this music.

In 2016,

[narrator] Metallica
released Hardwired... to
Self-Destruct

to massive critical
and commercial acclaim.

We are super grateful to
still be where we are, you know?

We're in Mexico City right
here playing in front of
60,000 to 70,000 people

in one show.

It blows my mind.

[chanting]

[James] It's pretty remarkable
for bands like Megadeth,
Anthrax, Slayer,

and Exodus are still around
and still playing gigs.

I tell you, whatever you think
is going to happen to you,

you have no fricking idea.
You just don't.

If it wasn't for Cliff
and wasn't for those early
Metallica records,

I would not be there,
that's for sure,

and there would be
no Metal Allegiance.

Cliff was a fun bass player,

and you can feel that onstage.

For me, I'm honored
and blessed to be able
to play his bass lines

and celebrate him and his bass
playing to the world.

All over the world.

To take it there and share it.

If you and I were
sitting in 1982,

having a conversation
about the East Bay days,

obviously nobody at that time

would ever slow down long enough

to believe that
the music could have

and the scene could have
that kind of impact and
that kind of longevity.

[Sven] There's a shirt
that says, I think,

"Four Albums
And Still No Ballad!"

And they meant that,
because they weren't
about that, you know?

They weren't going to do it.

I love those guys.
They're still my friends.

They're like my brothers.

[heavy metal plays]

We didn't invent music.
We didn't invent metal.

We just took what we loved,

and we stood on
the backs of giants

and put our own two cents in.

That's all we did,
and out came thrash metal.

[Kirk] It was a real
happening that had

real far-reaching impacts

over music culture over time.

See, this wasn't here.

I'm wondering if the stage was
kind of where the bathroom was.

I think it was,
and this wall was exposed.

You know, we're talking
35 years ago and shit or more.

I'm surprised how nice
the park looks.
It's pretty awesome.

We did a lot of cover tunes.
We did "Gets Your Rocks Off"

by Def Leppard and "Wasted"
by Def Leppard.

Half of the first Maiden album.

Our friend bought Iron Maiden
Ijust because of the cover.

It was so fresh and new back
then that a lot of people
thought "Running Free"

was an Exodus original
for a little while.

We're like, no, sorry.
Can't take credit for that one.

Yeah, "Prowler."
Like, I love that song
"Prowler."

That song rocks.

Kirk used to sing "Another Piece
of Me" by the Scorpions.

That was in my
high school band room,

back when I still
went to school.

[Kirk] It was a perfect storm
of all the people that we needed

to form a long-lasting
musical scene that went
on to do great things,

and the amazing thing about it
was we were all young, innocent,

and didn't know what
the fuck we were doing

or where it all was going.

It just happened.

It was like from heaven.

It was one of
the greatest times of my life.

You know, I was telling
somebody this morning

that I thought
Metallica played here.

No, no. Kirk Hammett
from Metallica,

when he was a member
of our band Exodus, played here
when we were 16 years old.

-No, you guys are Exodus?
-Yeah.

I've been a fan forever.

That is so awesome.
You're back.

[narrator]Exodus continue
to play on around the world,

and still no
fucking ballads!

[theme music plays]