Lars Ulrich was asked by NPR on how he came up with the name Metallica way back in the day, to which he replied:
“Well, I came up here [to San Francisco], actually, in the spring of 1981 and ended up at a kegger over on Strawberry Hill. And I met a bunch of really cool San Francisco kids.
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“One them was named Ron [Quintana]. And he told me he wanted to start his own fanzine, like a hard rock fanzine, where he wrote about all his favorite bands. And he wanted… he asked me whether he should call the fanzine Metallica or Metal Mania.
“So I suggested that he call it Metal Mania.”
A while back, Ron was asked by Metal Core Fanzine whether he’s angry at Lars for taking the name, to which he replied:
“I was happy to give it to him. I was a metal maniac and so when I named Metal Mania, I named Metal Mania before he used Metallica’s name because I didn’t want to use it.
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“There was already Encyclopedia Metallica, which is a good name, but for me I thought Metal Mania was better and so when he told me he was gonna use the name [Metallica] for his upcoming project, I said good [Laughs] doing something with it.”