In honor of James Hetfield's 44th birthday, I am picking a Metallica song today.  BLOGGING UP YOUR ASS!!!

In mid-1987, I hated heavy metal.  I wanted nothing to do with it.  I'd had my fill of the whole hair band thing and was just waiting for it to go away (which it thankfully did, eventually).  Everything about it had become so cliched and crappy I was just sick of it.

At that time, I began my first year of college and moved into a dorm.  There was a guy who lived in the room across from mine named Adrian, and he was an ENORMOUS heavy metal fan.  What struck me about him immediately was that even though he had long hair, he didn't fit most of the metal-head stereotypes.  He was as polite and soft-spoken a guy as you could imagine - didn't curse up a storm, didn't smoke pot, didn't drink (at least not to excess), just a pleasant fellow overall.  And even though he may have been a casual fan of hair metal, the bands he followed more passionately sounded MUCH different.  Anthrax.  Slayer.  Exodus.  Agnostic Front.  Megadeth.  Flotsam and Jetsam.  He also turned me on to a totally unknown band named Guns N' Roses (remember, this was around Sept. 1987).

Adrian's absolute favorite band was, of course, Metallica.  When he slotted his Ride the Lightning CD (he had just gotten a CD player, I didn't even have one yet) and I heard its opening track, "Fight Fire With Fire", my life changed.  This was clearly NOT your little sister's heavy metal.  More than four years before "Enter Sandman" was even conceived, I was a fan.

Click here to watch a fan-made video for "Fight Fire With Fire" on YouTube.  (song begins at 00:37)

Click here to watch a live performance from Woodstock '99.