Kill 'Em All - Background

Background

Metallica's original line-up featured James Hetfield (guitar/vocals), Lars Ulrich (drums), Ron McGovney (bass), and Dave Mustaine (lead guitar). Because of tensions with Mustaine, McGovney left the band. Castro Valley-born bassist Cliff Burton was recruited as his replacement. Mustaine was fired in April 1983 for his drug and alcohol problems, overly aggressive behavior and clashes with bandmates. After Mustaine's departure, Metallica recruited Kirk Hammett, who previously played for Exodus and was a one time student of Joe Satriani. The band started recording the album with Hammett, whose guitar solos on the album were partially based on Mustaine's original solos (the first four bars of most solos were written by Mustaine), barely a month later. Mustaine then formed the band Megadeth, which also achieved multi-million selling success.

Despite their differences, Mustaine's contributions to the early years of Metallica were still acknowledged; he received co-writing credits on four of the songs on Kill 'Em All. The songs "The Four Horsemen" (originally titled "The Mechanix"), "Jump in the Fire", "Phantom Lord" and "Metal Militia" were primarily written by Mustaine, most of "The Four Horsemen" was written by Dave Mustaine when he was in his previous band Panic. "The Mechanix" was performed at many early Metallica shows, but following Mustaine's exit, the band added a mid-paced, melodic middle section. Hetfield also wrote new lyrics for both "The Mechanix" and "Jump in the Fire" (a song originally about teenage sexual frustration), and retitled "The Mechanix" as "The Four Horsemen".