Lars and James attend a show at the Whiskey A Go-Go and see a band called Trauma that features bass player Cliff Burton. Burton uses a wah-wah pedal to create a sound unlike any the guys have heard from a bass before. Unhappy with Metallica's current bass player Ron McGovney, Lars and James are blown away by Cliff's stage presence and playing. They pursue Cliff after the show and ask him to join Metallica. Cliff declines. By the end of the year, though, Cliff agrees to join Metallica only if the band moves to San Francisco.
"Ron didn't contribute anything, he just followed."
-- James Hetfield (Unbound)
"A bass player is supposed to follow the drummer and Ron would follow the guitarist. Ron could never follow what we did and copy us. Then we came up here and played with Cliff who just blew the doors off of anyone we've ever played with. He's the new [Iron Maiden Bassist] Steve Harris of metal."
-- Dave Mustaine (Unbound)
November 29, 1982
Metallica headline at The Old Waldorf in San Francisco, Calif. and meet Exodus guitarist Kirk Hammett for the first time. The show is recorded on a boom box set up in front of the speakers, a recording that comes to be known as the Live Metal Up Your Ass demo. Soon after the performance, Metallica jam with Cliff Burton.
Early 1983
James, Lars and Dave move to soundman/manager/pyro tech Mark Whitaker's house at 3132 Carlson Boulevard in San Francisco. Dave moves into Whitaker's mother's house.
Johnny 'Z' Zazula, concert promoter and owner of New Jersey's Metal Heaven record store, invites the band to the east coast to play some shows and record an album after he hears their demo No Life 'Til Leather.
March 1983
Metallica play live with Cliff Burton for the first time at The Stone in San Francisco, Calif. Part of the show is videotaped, later to be seen in the Cliff 'Em All video.
Spring, 1983
Metallica record their fourth demo, known as the Megaforce demo. It's the last recording with Dave Mustaine and the first with Cliff Burton, featuring "No Remorse" and "Whiplash."
April, 1983
Metallica go to the east coast to meet Johnny Zazula. The band rents a U-Haul and drives to New York. In Laramie, Wyoming, they get into an accident when the truck spins out in the snow. But they eventually make it.
Once in New York, Johnny Z asks his friends in the band Anthrax up if Metallica could stay with them. Anthrax sets Metallica up in a decrepit old music building in Jamaica, Queens. Anthrax gives Metallica a refrigerator and a toaster oven and brings the guys back to their houses to shower, since there is no shower in the space.
Johnny signs Metallica to his new label, Megaforce Records, after shopping their demo and finding no takers.
Metallica decide they need to get rid of Dave. One morning they wake him and James gives him a bus ticket back to California. Replacement guitarist Kirk Hammett, of Exodus, flies in to fill the vacant slot that same afternoon.
"[Anthrax guitarist] Scott Ian and I came out of rehearsal and we saw Cliff Burton and James Hetfield in the lobby. They had just come back from a trip to the deli. They said, 'We threw Dave out this morning.' Scott went, 'Bulls**t!' and Cliff looked at him and said, 'Bulls**t, bulls**t' - and we all know two negatives equal a positive."
-Dan Lilker, former Anthrax bassist (Sound of the Beast)
April 16, 1983
Kirk Hammett performs his first live show with Metallica at The Showplace in Dover, New Jersey.
