Metallica:Did They Steal Their Biggest Hit Enter Sandman From Excel? Tapping Into The Emotional Void

Did Metallica Steal their song 'Enter Sandman' from the band Excel (Tapping Into the Emotional void)

0:00 - Introduction/Writing of Song
3:43 - Song Similarities

SIGN UP for 10 of the Craziest Stories in Rock N' Roll [Secret Playlist]: https://bit.ly/3vVPAEF

Check out our Top 25 Favourite Albums Here
https://rockandrolltruestories.com/

Have a video request or a topic you'd like to see us cover? Fill out our google form!
https://bit.ly/3stnXlN

-----CONNECT ON SOCIAL-----
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rocknrolltruestories
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RNRTrueStories
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rocktruestories
Blog: www.rockandrolltruestories.com

#metallica #entersandman #larsulrich

I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.

As Metallica began writing their follow up record to 1988’s And Justice For All they would go in a much more commercial direction, much to the chagrin of some of their longtime fans. As they toured on And Justice For All they noticed the songs didn’t translate as well to a live audience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBJRbSJdZGM&t=2s
The first song written for their new album would be a track called Enter Sandman, while strangely enough frontman James Hetfield wouldn’t come up with the lyrics until towards the later part of recording the album. The song would prove to be Metallica’s biggest single charting at number 16 on the billboard hot 100 charts. But immediately after the song’s release it drew comparisons to another band who had some strange relationship to metallica, that’s what were going to explore in today’s video.

In the summer of 1990 James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, Metallica’s principle songwriters met to go through song ideas which they referred to as ‘the riff tapes.’ One of the riffs the pair heard on the riff tapes was the Enter Sandman a riff guitarist Kirk Hammett had come up with. Hammet would be inspired by Soundgarden’s album Louder Than Love telling Total Guitar

“Back in ’89 I’d just discovered this new musical movement coming out of the Seattle area,”. “I was listening to a lot of Soundgarden. I was pretty impressed with the rawness of their sound and how heavy it felt.One thing we spoke about as a band was how much we all like bouncy riffs. So I was just sitting there with my guitar at three o’clock in the morning, thinking: ‘Soundgarden, bounce, flattened fifths…’ Almost simulating my mind to those sounds. And then this riff came out and I thought, ‘Whoah, that works!'


The band had previously worked with Flemming Rasmussen. They would enlist Motley Crue, The Cult and Bon Jovi producer Bob Rock to work on their follow up to And Justice For All. Some feared what Bob Rock would do to the band’s sound but Hetfield brushed off those concerns saying Some people thought Bob would make us sound too commercial,” said James Hetfield. “You know: ʻOh, Bob works with Bon Jovi, Bob works with Mötley Crüe.ʼ But if Flemming Rasmussen worked on a Bon Jovi record, would Bon Jovi all of a sudden sound like Metallica?”
Rock was known for being outspoken producer telling Uncut “I really didn’t give a shit, to be honest,” “When they started doing things the way they had always done, I just gave [songs] back to them. They were quite taken aback. When they’d do stupid things I’d call them on it. Lars would show up really late and I’d say, ‘What a f***** ahole you are…’ I don’t think people did that to them before.”

The original lyrics for Enter Sandman were centered around any new parents worst nightmare, sudden infant death syndrome with the line ‘off to never land’ originally being written as ‘disrupt the perfect family’. . The lyrics were flat out rejected by Ulrich and Rock who thought they were too grotesque. Hetfield would tell guitar world “That pissed me off so much!” “I was like, 'Fuck you! I'm the writer here!' But that was the first challenge from someone else and it made me work harder."
Hetfield would change the lyrics to write the song about childhood nightmares with him telling Uncut in 2007 "I wanted more of the mental thing where this kid gets manipulated by what adults say. And you know when you wake up with that s--t in your eye? That's supposedly been put in there by the sandman to make you dream. So the guy in the song tells this little kid that and he kinda freaks. He can't sleep after that and it works the opposite way. Instead of a soothing thing, the table's turned." The title Enter Sandman had already been kicked around by the band for nearly half a decade.
Released as the first single on Metallica’s self titled or black album on July 29, 191 it would usher in a new era for Metallica. Gone were the long epic metal tunes and init’s place were more simple rock n’ roll songs, something much more accessible to mainstream audience. The song would prove to be Metallica’s highest ch