Kill Em All…when I first heard this album, it blew my mind, and I never listened to metal the same after. I was not the only one – I knew loads of hardcore kids that just started getting their metal thing on after experiencing Metallica. It was the norm back then for punks to be into Exciter, Raven, OZ, Venom, Exodus, and Metallica, all while being into Discharge, Suicidal and Verbal Abuse. From my point of view, this was the beginning of punk bands going metal and vice versa. The thing about Metallica that I liked during this era was that they didn’t have a rock star vibe at all, it was totally normal to just see them at gigs all around the Bay Area. By far Cliff was the most approachable back then. For me, they represented a time in San Francisco when punks and metalheads were truly united, and all that anyone wanted to do was party and headbang. As a testament to this time in history, all you would have to do is to see a flyer from Ruthies Inn to see how hardcore bands shared the bill with
metal bands. Today, CVLT Nation wants to step back in time with Metallica, before they had platinum records and when they really created music for weirdos, so we put together this gnarly video essay with footage from 1983 to 1989.
