If you were at one of a handful of Metallica shows in the early 2000s, you might have seen System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian filling in for Metallica’s James Hetfield. The sets were part of Metallica’s 2000 Summer Sanitarium tour, and while recalling the life-changing experience, Malakian explained that he “didn’t even know it was gonna happen.”
Malakian reflected on the concerts during an appearance on Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcast. It all happened while the band was opening for Metallica, along with Korn, Kid Rock, and Powerman 5000. This was before they released their sophomore album, Toxicity, so SOAD was still fairly unknown to most audiences.
Daron Malakian says he met Metallica for the first time when he went on stage to play with them
One day, James Hetfield found himself injured in a jet ski accident. This took him out of commission for a while, which meant the band would have to figure out how to continue. This meant bringing out some of their tour mates to play with them, which led to Malakian’s literal first encounter with the thrash legends.
“I met Metallica on stage playing with them,” Malakian told Rubin, via Louder. “I never met them before. We’re the first band. Nobody knows us.”
“Jason Newsted [former Metallica bassist] was singing, and then they brought the guys from Korn on, and they kind of played like this Cheech & Chong cover song or something,” he remembered from that first show without Hetfield.” They didn’t know what to do, because James wasn’t there.”
Observing the aimless performance, Malakina said that he went to his guitar tech and urged him to go tell Metallica’s guitar tech that he knew “a lot of their s***.”
System of a Down was still a “small” band and had not even released their second album yet
“Next thing you know,” Malakian said, “my tech goes, and talks to their guitar tech, and then my tech comes back to me. He’s, like, ‘All right, come with me. So, next thing you know, I go on the other side of the stage. I get handed a Les Paul. I think it was one of Kirk Hammett’s Les Pauls. And they’re, like, ‘All right. Go.’”
“You gotta understand, our band’s not big yet,” he went on to explain. “I’m still a kid. I’m 22 years old. I can’t even believe that we’re even allowed to open up for Metallica. So, this is all new to me at this point of my life.”
“And they put me out there,” Malakian remembered, “and I turn, and I’m, like, ‘Hey.’ It’s Lars [Ulrich], it’s Kirk [Hammett], it’s Jason Newsted. They’re, like, ‘What do you know?’ I go, ‘I don’t know. ‘Master Of Puppets’. Okay. Count it in.’”
“I’m up there with Metallica playing ‘Master Of Puppets’ in front of 60,000 people. And I’m, like, ‘Who’s gonna sing?’ I said, ‘F*** it. I’ll go sing.’ And I sang,” he continued. “You would think we rehearsed it, but we didn’t rehearse it. And I didn’t even know it was gonna happen. And it happened. I’m up there, and I’m playing Metallica with Metallica, in front of an audience where I would’ve been in the f***ing cheap seats just three years ago.”
Metallica ended up taking Malakian out with them for a handful of shows
For Malakian, that one-off gig led to a bunch more. “I got off stage. Next thing you know, they’re coming to me,” he shared. “They’re, like, ‘Hey, James isn’t gonna be able to play for a few nights. They want you to come and play with them.’”
“And then next thing you know, they’re, like, ‘Hey, get your s*** from your bus, because you’re flying on the private jet with us now.’ Oh, man. I’ll never forget it,” Malakian finally added. “Even though my band is where we’re at right now, it still brings goosebumps that I had a chance to experience that at that point of my career.”
The post System of a Down Guitarist Daron Malakian Recalls Filling In for Metallica’s James Hetfield: ‘I Didn’t Even Know It Was Gonna Happen’ appeared first on VICE.
