Accusations of “selling out” have followed for almost as long as they’ve been a band. From the moment the metal titans , gatekeepers have been pissed off at them, sometimes for the most ludicrous of reasons. And one seemingly innocuous act that infuriated the purists was the first time the Four Horsemen made a music video.
Metallica made their MTV debut in 1989, with the release of the haunting clip for single . It was a moment of victory for the band, following years of rejection from mainstream TV and radio, even as became a megahit and they toured extensively with . As singer/guitarist James Hetfield revealed in 2018, however, that win didn’t enthuse everybody.
“When [MTV] asked us, ‘We need a video,’ that helped us a lot,” Papa Het reflected during a video interview on ’s 30th anniversary. “There was one moment where I was at [legendary venue] The Stone on Broadway in San Francisco, there to see some metal band. Some kid came up to me and he spit on me!” The ‘fan’ proceeded to verbally accost Hetfield, accusing him and his Metallica bandmates for selling out by making a music video.
The frontman responded with undented bravado. “Right there, I went, ‘Yes we did. Fuck you!’” he remembered.
Hetfield goes on to sound shockingly grateful for the experience. He looks back on it almost three decades later as a learning curve, where he figured out that catering to insular minds would never let Metallica grow and develop. “That’s when I start.