Testament’s Eric Peterson Says The First Metallica Demo James Hetfield Sold Him Was Really Inspiring
Testament guitarist Eric Peterson opened up about his inspirations such as Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Van Halen during an interview with ‘Let There Be Talk’ in addition to revealing the first demo he bought from Metallica which was given him by frontman James Hetfield.
As many of you know, Eric Peterson mentions how Metallica had a huge role in his own music career every time he has the chance during interviews. Peterson always stresses the fact that after seeing Metallica performing for the first time, he felt like he found the sound he was looking for and wanted to sound like them.
During a recent interview, Eric Peterson opened up about the influences of bands and musicians such as Judas Priest, Vaan Halen, Mötley Crüe, and Iron Maiden on his early music career while revealing that he was mesmerized by the way drummer Lars Ulrich performed and the reaction of the audience.
In addition to this, Eric Peterson revealed that the first-ever demo he bought from Metallica was given to him by the frontman James Hetfield himself which has been extremely inspiring to him at the time.
Here is what Peterson said:
“And I remember being on the phone with someone, on the payphone, and as soon as I heard. I was, ‘I gotta go, man.’ I went up there, and I was just like, Lars was like The Animal, and I just sat there and just sitting there going, and everybody’s holding on to each other and just headbanging and I went home and wrote like four songs that week.
And I knew what I wanted to do now because everything was Judas Priest, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Motley Crue, that’s all there was, really. So I got their demo, I ended up buying it from James, I think, I forgot how I got it, but yeah, that was really inspiring. Metallica was a big inspiration for sure. And then taking everything else in, you know, still listening to ‘Angel of Death’ by Angel Witch – that was a huge influence.”
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