Armored Saint’s John Bush recalls the time he turned down a job as Metallica’s lead singer: “It just was not my destiny to be the singer of Metallica”

Some time ago, metal giants Metallica’s James Hetfield spoke on his SiriusXM radio show about the times when Metallica was looking for a singer. John Bush of Anthrax and Armored Saint fame was asked to be the singer, but he turned the job down.

Now Bush himself recalls those days in a recent interview with Waste Some Time.

“I’ve been talking about this for many years now. I’m always gonna be completely super flattered about the fact that I was asked to join Metallica back in the early ’80s. It just was never meant to be my destiny, is what I always say. There’s no other singer that should have been the singer of Metallica other than James Hetfield. That was meant to be, and that’s kind of the way I see it. Like I say, I’m always flattered that I’m always connected to the history of that band — it’s a huge feather in my cap, so to speak — but at the end of the day, it just was not my destiny to be the singer of Metallica. I had a different fate in store.”

According to Hetfield himself, Bush had told him that he was so busy with his own band that the plan fell through.