Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine sat down with AXS TV and recalled Diamond Head’s influence back when he was in Metallica.
“Diamond Head was one of the first bands that I saw that played music that I understood that I wanted to play,” the frontman said. “And when I was in Metallica was when we were basically discovering Diamond Head the most. Lars [Ulrich] had spent a lot of time with the guys in Diamond Head, and this was such an influential band to me and to the guys in Metallica that there’s seven songs on the back of this record.”
“And on side A, it’s ‘Lightning To The Nations’, ‘The Prince’ and ‘Sucking My Love,'” Mustaine named the songs. “And we played ‘The Prince,’ we played ‘Sucking My Love.’ And on side B it’s ‘Am I Evil?’ ‘Sweet And Innocent,’ ‘It’s Electric’ and ‘Helpless.’ And we played ‘Am I Evil?’ we played ‘It’s Electric’ and we played ‘Helpless.'”
Metallica covered Diamond Head songs, but when it came to giving credits to the band, things were a little different. “There’s five songs off of this record that we were playing in Metallica, and a lot of people thought those were original songs, because we weren’t rightly going out there and explaining to everybody, ‘Hey, these songs are great, and you’re probably gonna think they’re ours and we’re not gonna tell you that. We’re gonna give credit to where credit’s due.’ Nah, nah. We’re gonna be quiet and make you think we’re really great.”
However, this didn’t make not just Metallica famous, but Diamond Head ‘rich’ too.
“They covered ‘Am I Evil?’, and we just thought it was very, very flattering; they’d done a great job. But I didn’t expect them to become the biggest metal band of all time,” Diamond Head guitarist Brian Tatler said in a separate interview. “And the income that sales of that song on their record would generate, I had no idea that it would help provide me with income for years and years to come.”
Mustaine has often talked about the ‘massive influence’ Diamond Head and Tatler had on him and the music he created for Megadeth and Metallica. Tatler has also shared his gratitude to Metallica over the years.
Metallica played ‘Am I Evil?’ during the 2011 Sonisphere festival with the Big Four. Diamond Head joined them on stage, along with Anthrax. Later, Tatler and Sean Harris attended Metallica’s 30th-anniversary celebration in San Francisco, where they performed ‘Am I Evil?’ together.
