Watch Metallica & Slayer talk influences in unreleased doco footage

Watch some of the most legendary voices in thrash metal recall their earliest musical influences in a brand new outtake from the upcoming documentary Murder in the Front Row, from Metallica to Slayer.

Metallica’s James Hetfield names Jeff Beck as his inspiration and bandmate, Robert Trujillo, talks about Stevie Wonder. Anthrax’s Charlie Benante remembers opera in his house growing up, while Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine talks about the British Invasion and Motown. In the three-minute clip, which will accompany the upcoming home-video release of the film, members of Exodus, Slayer, Testament and many other bands all look back to their past influences that have made them who they are today.

The film will be available via digital streaming outlets and on DVD on April 24th. You can currently preorder it now, however. The doco traces the origins of the genre of Metal and how San Francisco became the de facto spiritual home for the genre.

“The Bay Area in Murder in the Front Row gave focus to the rise of thrash metal because the young people there had a unique front-row seat to the development of the musical style,” the film’s director, Adam Dubin, told Rolling Stone.

Dubin is best known for documentaries like A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica and the Beastie Boys’ “Fight for Your Right to Party” clip. “I had witnessed the growth of the hip-hop scene in New York City at the same time as thrash metal, so I understood the power of a scene and that’s something that I wanted to explore,” he adds.

“I think the biggest surprise was the high-energy interview with Kirk Hammett because I realised how central he was to the development of the music,” Dubin says. “Within six months of first playing in San Francisco, Metallica becomes 50 per cent a Bay Area band with Cliff [Burton] and Kirk. That’s no coincidence. That’s the musical hand of fate. And Dave Mustaine puts together Megadeth and immediately plays the Bay Area with Kerry King in the band. It was amazing times.”

Watch the band members talk their influences below.