Here’s Metallica’s Business Card from 1982

Via Ron McGovney's Twitter
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For our younger readers, business cards were sort of like tiny paper LinkedIn profiles that you could hand out at meetings to give other people your information. Back in the ’80s, they also became a showy display of your aesthetics and business acumen (there’s a famous scene in American Psycho where protagonist Patrick Bateman nearly murders a dude for having a better business card than him). But even as early as their founding year, Metallica apparently understood that being a band was a business, as evidenced by this picture of the Four Horsemen’s original business card that was posted by their first bassist.

Ron McGovney was the bassist for Metallica in 1982, before tensions with then-guitarist Dave Mustaine resulted in him being kicked out and replaced with Cliff Burton. On Saturday, Ron tweeted the following photo of Metallica’s original card, which might be an embossed black but in the photo looks full-on Crest Extra Whitening blue.

“Original Metallica business card,” wrote McGovney. “The phone number was the one I had in my bedroom in 1979. I moved to our rental house two doors down in 1981 and took the number with me. That house was where Metallica started. I lived in a condo 1983-1987 and had that same number.”

Minty.

While Burton went on to replaced McGovney, Ron has always been quick to note that Cliff was respectful and gracious to him. As noted by Blabbermouth, in an interview with Talk Is Jericho, McGovney recalled, “I remember at that Palladium show in ’84, I had a pass but it was just like a sticker pass. And I wanted to go in the back and talk to them but [security] wouldn’t let me in. Cliff saw me [and] he gave me his laminate. I walked back there and their tour manager said, ‘Why did you give him that?’ And Cliff said, ‘He was the first bass player for Metallica.'”

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Words by Chris Krovatin

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