Travis and myself got into this discussion the other day – he likes cover songs, I do not. He asked me what good bands didn’t at least do one cover, and I pointed out Black Sabbath and the Stooges. I won that argument. But I will give in with him a little bit here with this record.

We all had to watch what happened with the Black Album, and the nonsense that followed. But we all should know and acknowledge that early Metallica ripped. I saw Metallica for the first time in 1984 at a club in my hometown called the Eagles Ballroom, which was also a supperclub. There couldn’t have been more than 60 people there. They came out and opened with “Fight Fire With Fire” and James Hetfield broke his top string in like the first 20 seconds. He threw his guitar down pissed, tossed back like two Jagermeister shots, grabbed a new one and started the song again. They blew my mind. 

One weird thing about Metallica though, they did A LOT of covers. All I have to say is this: if you’re going to do a covers record, make sure it rocks this hard.

(Download - "Helpless")