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Metallica have kicked of their reissue series with a No Life 'Til Leather cassette tape.
Following in the footsteps of Guardians Of The Galaxy, who released Awesome Mixtape Vol.1 in the same manner, the band will release the 1982 demo on 18 April. The limited edition throwback drops on record store day before a series of CD and vinyl editions due for release this summer.
"This is the second demo that we made and circulated," drummer Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone. "I sat in my bedroom and wrote on the J cards and went to the post office and sent it around to all the tape collectors around the world. Now, 20, 30 years later, it has become synonymous with the pre–Kill 'Em All era."
"I don't remember being particularly goal-oriented then, but I assume the intention was to get signed," he went on. "We always felt we were having so much fun and doing so much, after being loners for years, it made us feel like we belonged to something. It was just being in a gang, playing music, having fun, living and breathing hard rock and heavy metal, 24/7. We quickly realized we were the opposite of what was going on up in Hollywood at the time."
Listen to No Life 'Til Leather below
"It just sounds so fucking innocent and so instinctive," he added. "When we're sitting here, writing our new songs and getting to a point now where we're getting close to pre-production, James Hetfield will play, like, 34 ways a song could be better, and I just sit there and my head turns into Linda Blair from The Exorcist because they all sound great and at some point, we gotta pick one.
"The No Life 'til Leather stuff just sounds so effortless, like it was all put together in an afternoon, which it was," he continues. "As a 51-year-old living, breathing human being, you just sit there and go, 'What the fuck do I have to drink to get that back? It's just four kids who you're playing without thinking about it."
When asked whether they will release the band's other demos, such as the four-song Power Metal, Ulrich says that he has a whole heap of unreleased material he's sifting through. He also said to stay tuned for more details on future reissues.
Metallica headline this year's Reading and Leeds Festival, supported on the day by Royal Blood and Bring Me The Horizon.
Reading Festival takes place at Little Johns Farm on Richfield Avenue, while Leeds Festival takes place at Branham Park - both during the Bank Holiday weekend of 28-30 August. For tickets and more information on Reading Festival visit here, and for Leeds visit here.
