Before I moved to San Francisco in 1996, I visited there for a few weeks, and I really liked the city. But I was a metal musician, and for some stupid reason, I thought it might be a good place to move for playing metal music, since Metallica was from there. (In case you were wondering: it’s not.) Anyway, believe it or not, I ran into a member of Metallica in person in a bar on upper Haight Street on my first visit. It was Kirk Hammett, and if you ever heard he was a nice guy, the one who said that was being rude: Kirk Hammett is a great guy! He was nice to me even when I was being rude to him! I didn’t mean to be, though; I just couldn’t help it.
When I first saw Kirk Hammett, I thought he was a drummer, since he was wearing some white tank top, etc. He had really short hair, corn-rowed or whatever you’d call it, into little teensy pig-tails all over his head, and he had some kind of metal spike through his lower lip, kind of like the spikes you’d expect to find on a punk-rocker’s or metalhead’s leather jacket. So, having only seen him with long hair, and in band t-shirts, etc., before, I didn’t recognize him at all. But he had an entourage with him, so I guess I should have known. But I was from NYC, and nobody there had an entourage, so the whole idea was alien to me. I thought it was just a bunch of friends. But I guess that’s what an entourage is anyway, huh, only one of them is famous and successful, and the others aren’t.
Anyway, so I ran into him at a bar, and I basically approached him because he looked like a metal musician. (He is, actually! I guess I have a sixth sense!) So I asked him about what SF is like for metal, and he said it used to be good, but not so much anymore. Then he asked me where I was from, and about my music. So I told him New York City, and he surprised me by saying he had just returned from there recording an album. (I thought he was at club-playing level, like me.) So I asked him what studio, and how long he was there, etc. So he told me what studio, and that they had been there for 9 months. So I knew the studio from reputation, and I asked what they were doing there in NY for 9 months, and he said: “We were in the studio for 9 months.” So I said: “Really? You were in that studio for 9 months? What the hell?”
That’s when the conversation took a turn for the worse. For you see, I had recorded a few records in a few different recording studios in New York City over the previous few years, and I never had more than a few days to record a whole album, even when I was playing all the instruments myself (!). So the idea that anyone would get to have 9 months to spend in a studio made me see red. So I said to Kirk: “What the hell were you guys doing there? Do you realize that you could have bought the studio after three months? Then you could have let me and everyone else record there for free afterwards! Don’t you know how to write songs before you go into the studio? Jeez! Talk about wasting time and money!”
It was then that it occurred to me that this guy must be famous and stuff. But it still hadn’t occurred to me how nice he was being to me to bother talking to me at all, so I persisted in my outrage. So I said: “So you must be in some huge band or something, if they let you waste time and money like that! So what’s the name of your band?” So he said: “Metallica.” But this is what really did me in, for earlier I asked if he was in a metal band, and he said: “I used to be in a metal band, but now I’m in a hard rock band.” So that did it for me: he just insulted metal, and I was a metal musician! So I said: “You know what? You should change your name to ‘Hard-Rockicka’!” And I walked out (!).
So I just threw away whatever contact I had to my favorite band (at the time)! Duh! And he was so nice to me! Unbelievable! But the funny thing was, I loved them (and still do) for their early, metal albums, and I guess I resented them for “selling out” (growing up, I guess would be more accurate, but no less insulting to a metalhead!). So emotions really can overtake you without your realizing it.
So anyway, I never made it as a metal musician, and I doubt if Kirk Hammett even remembers ever meeting me. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he did remember me, since I’ll bet he doesn’t get a lot of angry metalheads bitching at him. But he deserves it! He said they weren’t a metal band!
I guess my outrage was partly due to their name, though. You see, for years, people had said stuff to me like: “Yeah, but they’re Metallica!” And I would say: “You know, if they weren’t called “Metallica”, you couldn’t say that!” So then, for a member of Metallica to diss metal to my face was really too much for me, especially when he was dressed like a poseur! So I guess I kind of forgot myself. Anyway, I really appreciate how nice he was! Seriously: Thanks, Kirk! But they still should change their name to “Hard-Rockicka”. I mean, if you’re not a metal band, how dare you call yourselves “Metallica”! Right?
