Who is Lloyd Grant? Guitarist weighs in on whether he was an original member of Metallica or not

During last month's NAMM's Ultimate Jam Night, guitarist Lloyd Grant spoke about his relationship with the iconic heavy metal band Metallica. In the same interview, which was uploaded on Reality Check TV's YouTube channel on February 2, he said:

" Well, I don't think METALLICA wants to say I am an original member because the band weren't really formed then. It was, like, I was looking for people to play with and we had a magazine, or a weekly that comes out on every Thursday.."

He then continued:

"Lars [Ulrich, METALLICA drummer] put an ad in and I answered the ad. And we started jamming and so forth."

Born in Jamaica, Lloyd Grant is the guitarist who contributed to the initial recording of Metallica's debut single, Hit The Lights, in early 1982. However, he was not a recognized member of the metal band.

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Lloyd Grant was not a recognized member of Metallica

Robert Trujillo, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammett of Metallica (Image via Getty)

Before the famous band settled on its current membership, Metallica's early years were comprised of personnel like Cliff Burton, Dave Mustaine, and Jason Newsted. Guitarist Lloyd Grant was also one of the key players in the band's early days.

He recorded a solo for a pre-released version of Metallica's hit song, Hit the Lights, which was featured on Metal Blade's 1982 Metal Massacre compilation album. However, Lloyd never performed live with Metallica. Nevertheless, the Lloyd version was swapped out for a version the band recorded with Dave Mustaine for later editions of the CD.

Later, in the 1980s, Lloyd was a member of the metal band Defcon. As part of Metallica's commemoration of their 30th anniversary in December 2011, Lloyd made his first live performance with the band.

In 2015, Lloyd Grant discussed his initial involvement with Metallica on the Rockzone Legends show. Grant also clarified that the band didn't really have a definite name at the time and offered some of the backstories of his work with the early iteration of the group.

The interviewer asked how he "got hooked up with an iconic metal band in Metallica," to which he replied:

"There's a lot of different versions of what happened. My version is, me and Lars were jamming down there in Orange County, California, and we jammed with a few people, and we were looking for other people to jam with. And we met through…"

Recalling his collaboration with Metallica, Grant said in a 2015 interview that Lars visited his apartment one day and repeatedly invited him to jam with the band. He added that he was quite busy with other things but still went down and played with James and Lars.

Lloyd Grant then continued:

“That's three of us. James was playing bass, I was playing guitar and Lars was playing drums and we rehearse that Hit The Lights song, but way before that Lars had let me hear that song...”

He further said:

“After that, I went over and jam a few times and he called me and said that they gonna be in this compilation album and he brought over a tape of Hit The Lights recording on a four track, asked me to play some solo for that and they were going to bring the four track down... dump it on the compilation album.”

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Hit the Lights, Metallica's first original song, was recorded for the Metal Massacre compilation at the beginning of 1982. Lars Ulrich played drums, Lloyd Grant was given credit for a guitar solo, and Hetfield sang in addition to playing bass and rhythm guitar.

On March 14, 1982, the band, which now included recently hired bassist Ron McGovney, performed live for the first time at Radio City in Anaheim, California.