Dave Mustaine - Mustaine - A Life in Metal

Regardless, out of respect for my mom (and fear of getting caught), I stopped dealing drugs and tried to earn some cash in a more reputable manner. Lars had gotten an overnight job delivering newspapers for the Los Angeles Times, and he asked me if I wanted a job, too. I did it for a little while, but I hated the hours and the drudgery of the work. Sometimes, just to make it more interesting, Lars and I would deliver papers together. We’d drive around in his mom’s AMC Pacer, careening through neighborhoods, sometimes sideswiping parked cars or mailboxes. There were few images funnier than Lars driving the Pacer, which was basically a fishbowl on wheels. To see him weaving down the street in one of the ugliest cars in history, chucking newspapers out the window, with no regard for where they landed, you couldn’t help but laugh. It was like a video game: Evil Danish Paperboy!

All you needed was Orson Welles or James Earl Jones providing the narration: “Metallica is coming to get you!”

By February of 1983 we had relocated to the Bay Area, specifically to the El Cerrito home of Exodus manager Mark Whitakker, who would soon become Metallica’s road manager and facilitator. Mark’s place, affectionately known as the Metallica Mansion, became ground zero for all things related to the band. Lars and James moved right in and took the two available bedrooms. I settled for a shitty little box of a room—with no shower, sink, or refrigerator—at the home of Mark’s grandmother, roughly an hour away. I lived out of a Styrofoam cooler, into which I would pack everything I needed for the day…or for two days…maybe even three. One of the guys, usually Cliff Burton, would pick me up in the morning and drive me to rehearsal. Cliff and I got pretty close in those first couple months, simply because we spent so much time together. We’d drive back and forth, smoking some of Cliff’s horrible homegrown pot, talking about music and listening to music. And not just metal or even vintage hard rock, but stuff you’d never associate with Metallica. I can recall several instances in which we were driving along, sharing a joint, and singing out loud to Lynyrd Skynyrd.

When rehearsal would end, and the other guys would start talking about doing something else with the rest of the day, I’d suggest we keep playing. Not necessarily because I loved rehearsal, but because I couldn’t stand the idea of going back to that little house by myself. Sometimes I would just refuse to leave; I’d sleep on the couch for days on end. It was a strange and surreal hand-to-mouth existence. I’d been there before, of course; I’d grown up poor, panhandled for beer money, knew how it felt to wear the same pair of dirty jeans for days on end and to live off boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese. I think it was harder for Lars and James. And for that reason, along with the fact that I considered us to be brothers-in-arms, I often found myself standing up for them.

There was, for example, the time we were all at a party, and in walked the guys from a band known as Armored Saint. As sometimes happens in these situations, harmless verbal jousting gave way to nasty, personal insults, paving the way for a physical confrontation. They targeted Lars, probably because he was the smallest. I don’t remember exactly how it began; I do remember jumping off my chair and telling them to leave my friend alone. They laughed at me, much as they had been laughing at Lars, which was not a good idea. Lars may not have been a fighter, but I was. I had training and expertise. More important, I didn’t give a shit.

As the guys from Armored Saint dog-piled on top of Lars, I ran across the room and applied a side kick to the first person in my path. His name was Phil Sandoval, and he was the band’s lead guitarist. The first thing I heard was a loud crack! Like the sound of a branch snapping in half. And then the sound of someone wailing as Phil fell to the floor and grabbed his lower leg.

I’d broken his ankle.

Needless to say, that was the end of the fight. I tell this story not to brag, but simply as a way of pointing out how I felt about Lars, James, and Cliff. I would have done anything for them. They were my friends. *

Although he looked the part of a gunslinger, James wasn’t big on confrontation either. One night I went to the Mabuhay Gardens, a nightclub in North Beach colloquially known as the “Old Mabuhay,” with James and his girlfriend. While we were waiting outside for the club to open, a girl came running out of a nearby alleyway, flailing her arms and screaming at the top of her lungs.

“He broke my nose! He broke my nose!”

I had no idea who she was or what had happened. And I didn’t care. Instantly I felt the rush of adrenaline you get before a fight. I looked at James, didn’t say a word. I just smiled, and I could tell what he was probably thinking.

Oh, what’s this crazy fucker gonna do now?

Finally, I touched him on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go, dude!”

So we ventured into the alley, hardly able to see a thing. I was quiet, but behind me, James was grunting, snorting, yelping half-baked threats.

“Gonna kill you, motherfucker!”

I almost laughed. James wasn’t so much threatening anyone as he was whistling past the graveyard. You know, like you did when you were a kid, trying to convince yourself that you weren’t afraid of anything when in reality you were about to shit your pants.

At the end of the alleyway was a parked van. As we drew near, with James still yelling, the driver’s-side door opened, and out stepped this big son of a bitch.

“Which one of you assholes wants to kill me?” he said, the look on his face signaling either inebriation or a complete lack of fear. Maybe both.

Before I could respond, James took a quick step backward.

Thanks a lot, brother…

There wasn’t time for an explanation. The big guy lunged at me, and as he moved forward, I opened my hand, thumb pointing down, and grabbed the back of his neck. Then I swept his foot out from underneath him, threw him on the ground, and started rabbit-punching his head until he was unconscious.

A few minutes later the cops arrived and took the guy away in handcuffs. James and I went back to hanging out in front of the club, acting like nothing had happened, but inside I was pretty shaken up. When I woke the next morning my hand was swollen and sore, like I’d punched a wall. When James asked me if I was okay, I just nodded. We never talked explicitly about the way that incident unfolded. There was no point.

“You’re a bad motherfucker!”

SAN FRANCISCO, WITH ITS THRIVING CLUB SCENE AND VIGOROUS METAL FANS, PROVED TO BE A WARM AND WELCOMING PLACE FOR METALLICA. WE PLAYED OUR FIRST SHOW WITH CLIFF ON MARCH 5, AT THE STONE. ON MARCH 19 WE PLAYED FOR A SECOND TIME, AT THE SAME CLUB. IN BETWEEN, WE RECORDED ANOTHER DEMO AND WATCHED OUR POPULARITY SOAR. IT SEEMED AS THOUGH WE HAD TAKEN OVER THE CITY IN A MATTER OF JUST A FEW SHORT WEEKS. NOT THAT ANYONE SEEMED TO MIND THE INVASION; IT WAS ACTUALLY A NICE ENVIRONMENT UP THERE, WITH A LOT OF BANDS PURSUING SIMILAR GOALS, PLAYING AND LOVING THE SAME TYPE OF MUSIC, WHAT WOULD COME TO BE KNOWN AS THRASH METAL. THE JEALOUSY AND POSTURING THAT TYPIFIED THE L.A. CLUBscene was mostly absent in the Bay Area, and we bonded quickly and easily with other musicians, most notably (and ironically, as it would turn out), those in the band Exodus. At one point I even became blood brothers with some of the guys in their band. Like, real blood brothers—cutting our hands and swapping fluid in a manner that, in retrospect, given the lifestyles we led, can only be termed reckless. *

ANYWAY, METALLICA SEEMEDto be moving at warp speed. One morning in April 1983, I rolled out of bed, bleary eyed, hungover, and smelling like bad cottage cheese, and saw a U-Haul was in the driveway. Everything had happened so fast that I didn’t even know (or, frankly, care about) most of the details. If anyone wonders why I became such a control freak later in my career, well, the evolution has its roots right here. I was perfectly content to go along for the ride.