Goosebumps moment: Daron Malakian from System of a Down replaced the injured Hetfield at Metallica in 2000.
Daron Malakian, guitarist, singer and co-founder of System Of A Down, still remembers with goosebumps an extraordinary episode in his career: his short-term assignment as a replacement for Metallica’s frontman James Hetfield. In 2000, System Of A Down toured as the opening act for Metallica’s “Summer Sanitarium” tour – before the band broke through internationally with their album “Toxicity”.
From the audience to the stage
In July of that year, Hetfield was seriously injured in a jet ski accident. Instead of canceling the concerts, Metallica looked for a replacement and continued the tour. On Rick Rubin’s “Tetragrammaton” podcast, Malakian recalled: “I’m playing Metallica with Metallica, in front of an audience that three years ago would have had me sitting in the cheapest seats.”
Improvised chaos at the Summer Sanitarium
The situation was completely improvised. Malakian had never met Metallica in person before. “Jason Newsted sang, then they got the Korn guys in and they did like a Cheech & Chong cover. They didn’t know what to do because James wasn’t there,” he said on the podcast. Malakian then turned to his guitar tech and emphasized that he knew “a lot of their stuff.”
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“Master of Puppets” with Kirk Hammett’s Les Paul
Shortly afterwards he was on stage, given a Les Paul – apparently one of Kirk Hammett’s guitars – and played “Master of Puppets” in front of 60,000 people. “I had no idea this was going to happen. I was standing up there playing Metallica with Metallica. And then they said, ‘Hey, get your stuff off the tour bus, you’re flying with us on the private jet now’. Man, I’ll never forget that,” Malakian said.
From shared RVs to separate lives
Last summer, Malakian spoke to “NME” about the reunion of System Of A Down and the dynamic within the band: “In the beginning we all traveled together in a small motorhome. Then we earned enough money so that we each had our own bus. So little by little we built our own lives. We only met on stage.”
System Of A Down will return to Europe in 2025
The band are back on the road this year, completing a major arena tour of the UK and Europe, supported by Queens Of The Stone Age. SOAD will perform in Berlin on July 8th and in Düsseldorf on July 10th.
An unforgettable “goosebumps” moment
For Malakian, the experience of being on stage as James Hetfield’s replacement remains an unforgettable moment: “Even though our band is where we are today, I still get goosebumps when I think about being able to experience that back then,” he said in the “Tetragrammaton” podcast.