Though best known as a four-piece, for a brief moment in the early 80s Metallica had five members. During a show on April 23, 1982 at the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood, the band added guitarist Brad Parker (also known as Damian Phillips) to the lineup, while James Hetfield handled vocals only.
Parker’s time with the band ended after that one gig, with Metallica’s official website noting that “his performance did not go over well.”
Now, speaking recently on SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation with Eddie Trunk,” Megadeth‘s Dave Mustaine – who was a member of Metallica at the time – admitted that he was unimpressed with Parker from the start. He added that, after seeing James Hetfield’s guitar abilities, he didn’t see any reason for the band to keep Parker around.
“[James is] an exceptional guitar player,” Mustaine said. “I remember the day I saw him play guitar for the first time. We were playing at the Whisky [a Go Go]. And we had a guitar player with us, his name was Brad Parker. And the night of the show he changed it to Damian Phillips. And he showed up at the Whisky in mid-1980s Rudy Sarzo garb. And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s not gonna go down.’ And I looked at him and he had a giant feather earring. And I thought to myself, ‘This guy’s not gonna be here very long.’”
He went on to say he became excited about the band’s future once Hetfield committed to playing guitar.
“So I go to rehearsal, after the show, the next rehearsal I go and there’s no Brad, there’s no Damian, nobody. It was just James playing guitar — like a motherf*cker,” Mustaine recalled. “And I thought, ‘How did this happen? How did this guy go from singer to a great guitar player like this?’ And I was excited for me. I was excited for the band. And we started playing then.”
