Exodus frontman Steve “Zetro” Souza spoke in an interview with The Rasta Show and said that Metallica emulate Exodus in their early days. He said (transcriped by Blabbermouth.net):
“I started Legacy (pre-Testament band), or Eric [Peterson] and Derrick [Ramirez, Eric’s cousin] and myself, we put Legacy together to emulate what Exodus was doing. Metallica came up from Los Angeles to emulate what Exodus was doing. Regardless of who ended up on top in the end, Exodus did it first.
We’re waiting, I’m sure one of these days, they’re gonna go, ‘You know what? Fuck it. Let’s bring ’em out and do it.’ That would be great. It would be so much fun.”
The fans would be, like, ‘See what Metallica is doing? They’re taking out fucking Exodus. They’re not taking out some… They’re not having Andrew W.K. DJ before they come out, they’re actually taking legitimate thrash bands that they used to play with back in the day.’
The crowd is not necessarily our crowd anymore. So the demographic has changed, but I will say this: they mesmerized the crowd — mesmerized them. It was when they were in the round. I think Machine Head was opening for them — 2010 [or] 2011.
I’d seen them in San Jose, and that’s when James (Hetfield) had a mic on [each side] so he could sing all the way round. And I’m watching people just, like, entranced by him — I mean, Jim Jones fucking entranced by that band. And I was, like, ‘Wow!’ And I had not seen them in the longest time — since pretty much, I think, Day On The Green with Body Count and Guns N’ Roses in ’93, was the last time I saw Metallica until this last time. I hadn’t seen ’em in years.“
You can listen the entire interview from below.
