THEBIG FOURTHEBIG FOURpresents SPECIAL COLLECTOR’s ISSUE!!!

INSIDE THE METAL EVENT TO END THEM ALL

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS WITH ALL THE BANDS!!!EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS WITH ALL THE BANDS!!!THEIR HISTORIES THEIR GREATEST ALBUMS!

THE BIG FO

UR

: META

LLICA, SLAYER

, MEGA

DETH

, AN

D A

NTH

RA

XP

RIN

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D IN

TH

E U

.S.A

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DISPLAY UNTIL 7/26/2011

andrew stuart

Now that was a metal moment."Metallica frontMan JaMes Hetfield’s words—uttered after he and 13 members of Slayer, Mega-deth, Anthrax, and, of course, his band performed Diamond Head’s proto-thrash classic “Am I Evil?” together in Sofia, Bulgaria, last year—might well be the understatement of the century. After all, these aren’t members of some random garage metal bands; these musicians play in the groups that make up the Big Four of thrash metal, four bands that redefined metal with their earliest releases and never let go of the innovative spirit, all the while selling millions of records. These are four groups who continued and built on the lineage of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Motörhead to pave the way for more extreme subgenres like death metal, grindcore, black metal, and metalcore. Moreover, the mere four minutes and 37 seconds they spent playing music together onstage had been 30 years in the making. Indeed, considering the various band members’ histories of offstage jealousy and rivalry in the media, this sort of onstage union—not to mention the fact they’ve toured together and are appearing together in the U.S. for the first time ever on April 23 in Indio, California—would have seemed unthinkable just a decade ago.

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The one constant is that every time these band members have crossed paths, it’s been a big deal. The first collaborations date back to 1981, when Metallica formed with a lineup that featured Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, bassist Ron McGovney, and a fiery redhead named Dave Mustaine on lead guitar. Together, Hetfield and Mustaine pioneered a vicious guitar attack, which shook the underground on early demo releases like their infamous and well-circulated No Life ’til Leather tape. Mustaine would take these techniques with him when Metallica kicked him out of the band in 1983 because of his alcohol-fueled misbehavior. He’d later share tips with Slayer’sKerry King, who was the second guitarist for Mega-deth’s first five concerts and was already a formidable guitar presence in his own group.

In 1986 and 1987, each band would release its master-piece. Metallica would record the orchestral Master of Puppets (see page 66), containing juggernauts like the title track and thoughtful ballads like “Welcome Home (Sanitarium).” Mega-deth would unleash the unpredictable fury of their Peace Sells…

but Who’s Buying? album (see page 82), showing off Mustaine’s equal penchant for topical sarcasm and catchy hooks. Slayer would strip back their sound on the 29-minute Reign in Blood (see page 74) as they pondered dark subject matter like the Holocaust and hell. And Anthrax embraced pop culture and musical tech-nicality on Among the Living (see page 90), containing anthems like “Indians” and “I Am the Law.” Around the time of these releases, writer Don Kaye saw the connection in the bands’ histories and artistic successes and began referring to them as the “Big Four” in the U.K. music magazine Kerrang! The phrase stuck.

And yet, despite the implied sense of unity in the term, the Big Four more often worked in competition, rather than harmony, throughout the ’80s, as they tried to top each other in terms of speed, musical intricacy, and controversial lyrics. Some of the sense of rivalry would fade away in 1991 with the triple billing of Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax on the Clash of the Titans tour (see page 58). But at the same time, new, more personal tensions rose between the Megadeth and Slayer camps, when Mustaine made an unwelcome comment to King, prompting

a media feud that would last for almost the next two decades.

A couple of years after the Clash of the Titans, Anthrax faced internal chal-lenges as they underwent a number of lineup changes. These never affected the quality of the group’s creative output until it came to a peak in the late 2000s, when the band cycled through three lead singers—prompting an eight-year-and-counting gap between albums.

Meanwhile, the same year as the Clash of the Titans tour, Metallica shot to

superstardom on the back of their self-titled “Black Album,” which has since gone 15 times platinum and sold over 30 million copies worldwide. The next year, Megadeth released their commercial breakthrough, the double-platinum-selling Countdown to Extinction, but neither band’s success could stop the on-again, off-again bickering between Mustaine and Metallica, who had replaced him with founding Exodus gui-tarist Kirk Hammett. This feuding came to a head with the release of Metal-lica’s 2004 documentary, Some Kind of Monster, which included a scene where a teary-eyed Mustaine confronted Ulrich, footage Mustaine didn’t think would be included. And with that began a com-plete breakdown in communication.

Then something happened. In 2009, Metallica, by then consisting of Hetfield, Hammett, Ulrich, and bassist Robert Trujillo, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, causing them to reflect on what had brought them there. They came up with the idea of touring with the other bands in the Big Four. The timing was perfect, as Anthrax were on the verge of reuniting most of their classic ’80s

lineup—they now feature frontman Joey Belladonna, guitarists Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano, bassist Frank Bello, and drummer Charlie Benante. Moreover, tensions had subsided between Slayer—vocalist-bassist Tom Araya, guitarists King and Jeff Hanneman, and drummer Dave Lombardo—and Megadeth—whose lineup currently consists of Mustaine, guitarist Chris Broderick, bassist David Ellefson, and drummer Shawn Drover—who coheadlined the Canadian Carnage tour that year. With all of the pieces in place, the unthinkable happened, and

Metallica in 1983. Clockwise, from left: Ron McGovney, Mus-taine, Hetfield, and Lars Ulrich.

From left: Slayer’s Kerry King, Megadeth’s Dave

Mustaine, Anthrax’s Scott Ian, and Metal-

lica’s James Hetfield at the first Big Four show,

Warsaw, Poland, 2010

KING: MARK SELIGER; VINTAGE M

USTAINE AND KING: HARALD OIM

OEN; RECENT M

USTAINE AND KING: ANDREW STUART

THE ROAD TO SOFIAHow did the idea of doing shows together as the Big Four first come up?ULRICH We were sitting around in Paris one night in 2009, after playing a couple shows. It was right before Metallica were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Biff [Byford, Saxon vocalist] was there, and we were hanging out having a good time in a sort of celebratory mood. And we were also all sort of in a little bit of a nostalgic mood because of the whole Cleveland thing. We were in the process of inviting all our friends and all our partners in crime to come to Cleveland

We were talking and various things got kicked around over a couple glasses of wine, celebrating the Bay Area thrash scene or getting some of the bands together. There was just a lot of that type of stuff at 2 in the morning, most of it nonsense. But there was definitely a spirit there and we decided it would be fun if we tried to undertake something that would get everybody together. It wasn’t for business or anyone’s career or any of that horseshit. It was just kind of for fun. It came out of a very organic and pure vibe. IAN Charlie and I got invited to Metallica’s induction into the Hall of Fame. After the ceremony, we were at this party in this small bar with Lars. We had all had a bunch of drinks, and Lars said to Charlie, “What do you think about the Big Four?” Charlie was like, “What do you mean, what do I think about the Big Four?” He goes, “Doing it. Like going out and playing shows with the Big Four.”BENANTE Scott and I just looked at each other like, Yeah, that would be awe-some. All these things just went off in my head. From a fan’s perspective, it would be, Wow. This would be like Woodstock for metalheads.IAN We were like, “Yeah!” And Lars was just kind of like, “Yeah. Uh huh.” He took a sip of his drink and we didn’t really talk about it as far as I can remember.

The next day I was thinking about it, and I just chalked it up to, you know, we were drinking. Nothing would ever come of it. It was kinda later in the year that we heard rumors that there was a possibility we were gonna be doing these Big Four shows. And now here we are. It really is a privilege that all four of us get to do this. People care so much all over the world about this music that we make. MUSTAINE There’s a lot of different versions of how it came together, but I’ll just tell you mine, which is probably closest to the truth. We were asked and we agreed. [Laughs] I was told that James had said that he wanted to do this, and I think it was a great idea.KING Me and my manager talked about it. I think at the end of the day it has to come from Lars and James being into it. I think once they realized this might be a good idea, they grabbed on and said, “Let’s go.”ULRICH Then it came to be, and we ended up doing the Big Four shows in Europe 15 months later. It was just a great run. Nobody really knew what was going to happen or how it was going to play off. But everybody seemed to have such a good time. The spirit and the vibe was there. It seemed to work not only for the fans who were really excited but also the bands seemed to be really cool. It was kind of like a vibe. It was like celebrating everything that the movement kind of stood for, but also the progress each band made and celebrating today. It wasn’t only about 1984

or whatever.

What do the Big Four shows mean to you?ULRICH To me, the Big Four signifies pride and history. It signifies a point in time that we were a part of. There was a real kind of excitement in the air, there was a scene, there was something that was greater than ourselves, something that we all felt we were a part of. And then over the years, some of these things become, I don’t know, like folklore. You got to be careful about how it plays out, so it doesn’t become so nostalgic that it becomes cheesy. But I think somehow this whole thing managed to kind of carve a path that stayed pure, that didn’t get too contrived, and stayed kind of credible.MUSTAINE Well, I was really honored to be able to be part of this whole scene. For years, I was the black sheep. I was the guy easiest to not like, if you know what I mean. And a lot of that came from stuff that I said and things that I did. But a lot of that can be attributed to the time we were living in. We were all struggling, there was a lot of alcohol, a lot of drugs.

I had dabbled in witchcraft and black magic and picked up all kinds of really bad juju from that. And that haunted me for years. People were saying, Oh, Dave’s got such a tough life. Well, no, Dave hasn’t, Dave’s got a great life. I would have had an even better life if I hadn’t been dicking around with black magic. ELLEFSON What it meant to me is that we were no longer competing against each other but rather joining forces for the common good of the scene. And

I think in years past we were still all scratching and claw-ing our way up, and at this point we’ve all been to the top of the mountain and we know what the view looks like. [Laughs] I think it was cool that the four of us could stand next to each other, figuratively, and while playing “Am I Evil?”, literally, and really do something special for all those fans that supported us all those years.IAN When you really break it down, what amazes me is the fact that these four bands have been around as long as we have and are all at the top of our game, still doing what we do so well. And people all over the planet want this thing called the Big Four. Everyone on the planet wants us to come to their local stadium and do a show for them. And that just blows my mind. When you put it in perspective, it’s been 27 years since [Anthrax’s

MY FAVORITE MEGADETH SONGSKerry King, Slayer

“Obviously, I love ‘Rattlehead,’ ’cause I played it [see main feature, page

35]. But that first record [1985’s Killing Is My Business…and Business Is

Good, featuring ‘Rattlehead’] is full of gems. I remember playing some of

the riffs with those guys. We were playing songs from that and from their

next record, Peace Sells…but Who’s Buying? when I played with them.

‘The Skull Beneath the Skin’ [off Killing] is awesome, ‘The Conjuring’ [off

Peace Sells] is awesome. All kinds of great shit.”

what was going to happen or how it was going to play off. But everybody seemed to have such a good time. The spirit and the vibe was there. It seemed to work not only for the fans who were really excited but also the bands seemed to be really cool. It was kind of like a vibe. It was like celebrating everything that the movement kind of stood for, but also the progress each band made and celebrating today. It wasn’t only about 1984

or whatever.

MY FAVORITE MEKerry King, Slayer

“Obviously, I love ‘Rattlehead,’ ’cause I played it [

35]. But that first record [

Good, featuring

the riffs with those guys. We were playing songs from that and from their

next record,

‘The Skull Beneath the Skin’ [

Peace Sells] is awesome. All kinds of great shit.”

King and Mustaine, playing “Rattlehead,” 2010. Above: King, playing in Megadeth, circa 1984.

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