RIP Jeff Hanneman

[supa]

I'll state my opinion...

Pretty far stretch bro but I'll give you an A for effort.

I don't know how old you are but I'll assume you're somewhere near the average age of FTRs member base. I was 13 when both bands debut albums came out and was a huge fan of both bands from the beginning. I saw Metallica play (at the Whiskey [with an 'e' eug] I think) when Mustaine was still in the band. When I was 15/16 I was in a band that played almost exclusively Metallica covers (mostly from Kill em All).

The reason I bring this up is I was there when all this was going down. Hell yeah times were bleak for musicians in the 80s. It was a time when pay to play was common. You didn't book a gig and get paid for it. You had to buy the tickets up front and hope sell enough of them to cover your costs. Usually you didn't and gave most of them away to friends and relatives just to prove you pack the house. But this was thousands of bands, not just the unfortunately coined "Big Four" that some idiot decided to call them.

At the time the 2 bands were part of completely separate genres. Slayer was Death Metal, a part of the metal scene that only the most hardcore were willing to be associated with. Slayer was the anti-metallica. People liked Metallica. Metallica was considered to be in a genre of their own. If you told people they were Death Metal or Speed Metal they'd argue with you and tell you they couldn't be classified. I always thought that was fucking stupid but whatever, it gets to my point. Metallica was in a class by itself almost from the beginning.

I'll give your starving argument little credit. It's what every band did at the time but Metallica certainly didn't do it for long. The Kill em All for One tour in 83 wasn't exactly arena gigs but most of their dates were in 3000 seat venues like the Country Club in LA. I can tell you from first hand experience that when you're playing those kinds of venues early in your career you are living your dream and while you might not be making hookers and cocaine money you are light years away from the pay to play gigs you're used to doing.

As far as influencing each other I don't know. I'm sure there was some for of influence both ways even but Rentons point of faster tracks on later albums isn't really true. Listen to Whiplash on Kill em All. Nuff said?

Another point that I had to look up because I couldn't remember is Metallica and Slayer only toured together one time and that wasn't until 95, 12 years after both of their debut albums. It took 12 years for these bands to finally play together when they came from the same city, formed the same year and released there debut albums the same year.

Anyway, I know you weren't looking for an argument and I'm not really trying to poke one out of you, I just thought some perspective was needed.

[Renton]

but Rentons point of faster tracks on later albums isn't really true. Listen to Whiplash on Kill em All. Nuff said?

I won't argue too hard since you're obviously coming from a superior position, but Whiplash (and Metal Militia) wasn't really that fast. It was certainly fast for its day and by Metallica standards but the Damage Inc esque stuff later was faster.

Honestly Metallica was always limited by having The Worst Metal Drummer Of All Time (tm) so that might have just been as fast as they could make it. Listening to the earliest Slayer records, I seem to recall them sounding VERY like Kill em All, but they quickly went in a much different direction than Metallica after that.

Interesting semi-unrelated: I find it funny how Metallica was so hardcore about forging this genre in the early days but their music was really just louder/harder blues-Sabbath-Lizzy-influenced rock. Other bands (like Slayer) actually carved new niche subgenres of metal and remained largely in obscurity because of it.

Anyway I kind of hate both of the bands now, but it is fun to have warm reminiscences of my former musical tastes.