While Slayer and Metallica both helped shape the thrash metal scene, Kerry King recently reflected on Metallica’s early days — particularly Dave Mustaine’s role — and how those formative performances left a lasting impression. Speaking on the Lipps Service With Scott Lipps podcast, King shared memories of watching Metallica before they exploded onto the global stage.
King recalled seeing the band during their early Southern California gigs, back when Mustaine was still a member. The experience was eye-opening, especially watching Mustaine’s impressive guitar work: “I saw ’em with Mustaine. And we opened for them. I think Mustaine was still in the band, at the place we used to frequent called the Woodstock.”
He went on to describe how Mustaine’s effortless shredding stood out to him as a guitarist: “When I first saw ‘em with Mustaine, I was sitting kind of between James and McGovney (former Metallica bassist) in where the audience is, and I was just blown away watching Mustaine just ripping on guitar and not even looking at his fingers. I’m, like, ‘I can’t do that.’ And to this day, he’s a badass guitar player.”
Mustaine’s contributions to Metallica’s early sound are undeniable, King noted, acknowledging how the guitarist took many of those foundational riffs with him when he went on to form Megadeth: “He wrote tons of the riffs in the early days. So, when he branched off into Megadeth, a lot of the riffs went with him.”
However, King struck a more critical tone when it comes to Mustaine‘s personality, acknowledging the guitarist’s tendency to spark controversy: “Mustaine’s cool, but Mustaine’s one of those guys that he can’t help but stick his foot in his mouth. So, I’ll take my 20 minutes and I’ll bolt just before anything gets uncomfortable.”
King also shared his thoughts on Metallica’s other members, expressing particular fondness for James Hetfield, despite their relatively limited personal interactions over the years: “It’s funny, James is one of those guys, even though we’ve got basically the same career, different circles, we did the shows featuring the ‘Big Four’ of 1980s thrash metal, he made a point to come say ‘hey’ to us, but it’s funny that it hasn’t occurred in the 40 years we’ve both been doing this that I’ve rarely seen James.”
In contrast, King noted that he’s had more social interactions with Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, and Robert Trujillo: “Kirk’s cool, Rob’s cool, Lars is cool. We hang out when they feel like hanging out. Yeah, that’s all of ’em.”
Despite being impressed by Metallica’s early performances, King clarified that those gigs weren’t what fueled Slayer’s formation. Slayer was already on its way to refining a darker, more menacing sound: “No, it didn’t have anything to do with seeing them doing it, ’cause we’d already known Venom and we were in the process of morphing what we had to that point to punky, Venom, Motörhead — kind of what they did before us.”
He did, however, acknowledge that Metallica had already streamlined their style while Slayer was still finding its footing: “Even when they were… a Southern California band, as much as they like to be called a San Francisco Bay Area band, they’re from Southern Cal. Sorry. But they had streamlined everything, and we were still working it out.”
