ADAM 'EDGE' COPELAND
The WWE Hall Of Famer has no time for Black Album haters
When did you hear Metallica for the first time?
“In my home town, there was a gang and they were called Damage Inc. That made me go, ‘What is Damage Incorporated?’, so I looked into it and it was, ‘Oh, it’s a Metallica song!’
So I started going down the wormhole, and they became my band. They weren’t mainstream - they had groundswell for sure but it was just so different at that time, and thrash was coming to the forefront. Slayer weren’t as accessible, and Megadeth… you almost had to be a mathematician. Anthrax were very ‘New York’, but there was something about Metallica that just spoke to me, and looking back now, it was the writing. Hetfield’s writing. There is some deep stuff going on in there, you know? They’re more than a metal band – metal almost pigeonholes them. They’re speaking to some big things.”
Songs like Fade To Black weren’t things that you’d see other thrash bands of the time trying…
“No, I think they’d be afraid to try it. And that was one of the things I appreciated about Metallica, especially going forward in life, was their bravery. To try things, even if they fell flat on their face. They didn’t care! They were trying things, exploring and trying to break down different boundaries, and that’s why I don’t think it’s even arguable at this point that they’re the biggest metal band of all time.”
Do you have any favourite tracks or albums by Metallica? “Ride The Lightning is always going to have that soft spot for me because that was the starting blocks for me. So Ride The Lightning is probably my favourite, but you really can’t go wrong. You go back to Kill ’Em All, I love how raw that sounds, Master Of Puppets, I love …And Justice For All. I was about 17 when The Black Album came out, and it was everywhere, and I appreciated it! I appreciated the changes, I appreciated it slowing down and the different production values and the bigger sound… you put those songs on and they punch you in the heart.”
So you’ve really been with Metallica for the whole journey, then…
“I never left. I never hopped off when they cut their hair. Coming from a type of art form myself, I appreciate wanting to try different things. You do the same thing night after night, eventually you phone it in and the audience isn’t gonna connect.”