Drummer Carmine Appice (Cactus, ex-Ozzy Osbourne) credits Metallica with inventing what we know as heavy metal today. Appice told Pete Pardo of Sea Of Tranquility in a recent interview that there were plenty of hard rock bands that came before Metallica, but that Metallica was the one created modern heavy metal.
"Metallica was not like all these other bands," said Appice. "Metallica I consider the band that really created what you'd call heavy metal. All these other bands — Motley Crue, Blue Murder… It's hard rock — that's not heavy metal. That Metallica sound, that sounds like scratching guitars, that, to me, is what heavy metal is, which turned into death metal and speed metal and every other metal.
"But Ozzy's first album was hard rock. Motley Crue was hard rock. Whitesnake — it's hard rock. King Kobra was hard rock. It was all hard rock. Blue Murder, they detuned a little bit and it was heavy, but it wasn't what I consider heavy metal. Heavy metal was that really scratchy guitar sound."
I can see where Appice is coming from, in terms of looking at the geneses of different genres through the lens of 2020. Though I do wonder where he feels early punk comes into play in terms of helping invent what we know as heavy metal.
