Ron McGovney Reveals That James Hetfield Was Struggling With Throat Infection While Recording ‘Hit The Lights’

Former Metallica bassist Ron McGovney responded to a tweet posted by a Metallica fan who was excited about receiving the first pressing of ‘Metal Massacre’ and confirmed that James Hetfield was actually having some health issues that affected his voice during the recording of ‘Hit the Lights.’

McGovney was the original bassist of Metallica who performed with the band between the years of 1981 and 1982. Yet, his time in the iconic thrash metal band was quite short mainly due to the conflicts he had with both Dave Mustaine and Lars Ulrich. After the young bassist left the band in 1982, he was replaced by Cliff Burton.

Ron has been using his social media accounts to answer questions about the very first years of Metallica as well as revealing unknown details about the band members. In his recent post on Twitter, McGovney mentioned another interesting piece of information about the band’s frontman James Hetfield and clarified a widely misunderstood issue about the ‘Metal Massacre.’

As you may know, there has been a popular discussion about the roles of each band member during the recording process of ‘Hit the Lights‘ since the vocals sounded somehow different than Hetfield’s usual voice. According to McGovney’s latest tweet, the real reason behind why James sounded different on the record was because he was struggling with some kind of throat infection at the time. Ron revealed that even though Hetfield had health problems, he wasn’t allowed any time to heal and redo his vocal parts.

Here is what Ron McGovney stated about the health problem James Hetfield had:

“I remember that James had some kind of throat infection at the time, but due to the time constraints with the album, they had to use that take. He wasn’t allowed time to heal and redo the vocals.”

You can see the tweet Ron McGovney posted on his Twitter account below.

I remember that James had some kind of throat infection at the time , but due to the time constraints with the album , they had to use that take. He wasn't allowed time to heal and redo the vocals.

— Ron McGovney (@RonMcGovney) May 16, 2021