In a recent appearance at NAMM’s Ultimate Jam Night last month, guitarist Lloyd Grant talked about Metallica’s song “Hit The Lights” and how he became involved with the band in 1982 when the group was still in its infancy. During the discussion, Grant revealed that frontman James Hetfield played bass for Metallica in those early days.
“Me and [Lars Ulrich] and James; just the three of us. James was playing bass and I was playing guitar and Lars was playing drums,” he said.
“And we rehearsed that ‘Hit The Lights’ song. But way before that, Lars let me hear that song. We were hanging out watching soccer, and he says, ‘Hey, I met this guy,’ blah blah blah, ‘and he’s exactly what we wanna jam with.’ And he played this one song, and it was great, and that’s how I first was introduced to ‘Hit The Lights’. And after that, I went over and jammed a few times,” he added.
“Then he called me and said they were gonna be on this compilation album [‘Metal Massacre’] and he brought over a tape of ‘Hit The Lights’ recorded on a four-track and asked me to make some solos for that, and they were gonna bring the four-track down and they were just gonna put it out and dump it on the compilation album.”
Despite Grant’s early contributions to the band, they never officially offered him to join Metallica.
“No; they didn’t need to, because by then they already had Dave Mustaine,” he told Metal Hammer in a 2022 interview. “Even when he left, they’d got Kirk Hammet in the wings, so they’ve always had someone great waiting.”
