When Daron Malakian replaced James Hetfield in Metallica

It was the year 2000 and System of a Down had not yet been overwhelmed by the success, which would arrive the following year with “Toxicity”. Although the “Chop Suey!” band had not yet made their real leap in popularity, for his part guitarist Daron Malakian found himself catapulted onto a gigantic stage when he was called to replace James Hetfield in Metallica for a series of shows. Malakian recently returned to talk about that period on Rick Rubin’s “Tetragrammaton” podcast and when SOAD were not yet the great band they would become, being chosen among the opening artists for Metallica’s Summer Sanitarium tour, playing before Korn, Kid Rock, Powerman 5000 and the Four Horsemen themselves.

In July 2000, frontman James Hetfield was injured in a jet ski accident. But, instead of canceling the dates, Metallica decided to go ahead with the concerts anyway. Thus it was that a very young Malakian took the opportunity, living an experience destined to become a founding memory, which he still recalls with great affection today. To Rick Rubin, the guitarist told:

“When I was 12 or 13, I’d already been playing guitar for a year. I went out with these kids from my school and in their dad’s garage we played Metallica covers. That was basically all we played. I met Metallica on stage, playing with them. I’d never met them before. We were the first opening band, nobody knew us. ‘Toxicity’ hadn’t come out yet, we were on our first album and doing the Summer Sanitarium tour. Then James Hetfield did He got injured. They told me he was water skiing or something. But they didn’t cancel the show. All the opening bands played, and even Metallica came on stage anyway. Then they brought the Korn guys on stage and did some kind of Cheech & Chong cover or something. They didn’t know what to do, because James wasn’t there I know a lot of their songs.’ A moment later my technician goes to talk to the guitar technician from Metallica, then he comes back to me and says: ‘Ok, come with me’. So I find myself on the other side of the stage.

Malakian continued: “You have to understand: our band wasn’t big yet. I was still a kid, I was 22. I couldn’t even believe we were allowed to open for Metallica. It was all new to me at that point in my life. They threw me out there on stage. I turned around and was like, ‘Hey’. There was Lars, Kirk, Jason Newsted. They asked me, ‘What can you play?’. I said, ‘I don’t know… ‘Master of puppets’?’. Ok. Mi ritrovai sul palco con i Metallica a suonare ‘Master of puppets’ davanti a 60.000 persone. E pensai: ‘Chi canta?’. E dissi ‘Fanculo, canto io’. E ho cantato. Sembrava che avessimo provato, ma non avevamo provato. E io nemmeno sapevo che sarebbe successo. E invece è successo. Ero lì sopra a suonare i Metallica con i Metallica, davanti a un pubblico dove solo tre anni prima sarei stato sitting in the cheapest fucking seats.”

For Daron Malakian that incredible experience didn’t end there, as he was asked to help out at other concerts as well. In the chat with Rubin, the guitarist added: “I got off the stage and shortly after they came to me. They said: ‘Hey, James won’t be able to play for a few nights. They would like you to come and play with us. Get your stuff from the bus, because now you’re flying with us on the private jet’. It really happened. I’ll never forget it. Even though my band is where it is today, I still get goosebumps thinking about having been able to have an experience like that at that moment in my life. career.”