Carmen DeBerry is a newly-minted commercial delivery driver in Baltimore, Maryland. She says having this new job has completely changed her life. “It feels awesome,” she said. “You know, I take care of my daughter, and I also take care of my mother.”
The commercial driver’s license, like the type DeBerry got at the Community College of Baltimore County, can cost up to $7,500, money she didn’t have – which is where four kind of unlikely guys from the Bay Area stepped in.
Yes, we are talking about the guys from the band Metallica, one of the most commercially successful bands of all time, with more than 180 million records sold. “I mean, to be honest, I didn’t know when I first signed up that it was through Metallica; they just called it a scholarship,” DeBerry said.
A Metallica Scholarship, to be precise, part of the more than $10 million the band’s charity All Within My Hands has donated to workforce education, mostly in the form of grants through trade schools and community colleges.
“Not everyone is built for college, and not everyone needs college,” said Metallica lead singer James Hetfield. And he should know; he himself is the son of a truck driver, something he’s hasn’t forgotten.
“It was very evident during COVID, you know, when we weren’t able to go out and do our thing,” said Hetfield. “But the plumber, the electrician, the truck driver, the people that needed to help keep America running were there. And thank God for them. You know, my thought is that the next millionaires will be the tradesmen.”
“We all came from, I mean, pretty humble beginnings,” said Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, who worked in construction before he became a professional musician. “At a certain point you realize, like, hey, you know, we’re selling tickets, we’re doing well, the ship’s not sinking. What can we do to make people’s lives better?”
The band’s philanthropy actually began with the simple question of what to do with their leftover food backstage at the sports arenas and stadiums they’d been playing. They started donating it to local food banks; then, they starting donating sizable checks to those food banks as well, which turned into disaster relief.
“It was a bit profound for us because one of the first things that happened was in, maybe 2017, we had the Northern California fires that affected so many people in the Bay Area,” said guitarist Kirk Hammett. When disaster struck in the band’s backyard, that’s when he says it hit home: “And we were able to, like, jump in and, like, really help people right off the bat. And there’s been other instances where there’s been earthquakes, you know, disasters, people in need of food and medicine. And we’ve been able to step up and send money, and not just a pittance, but like enough money that makes a difference to, you know, a good group of people who need it.”
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But actually talking about their charity work publicly? That didn’t come as easily, says drummer Lars Ulrich. “We had never screamed from the rooftops about it,” he said. “I think instinctively you just want to help. I mean, we all depend on each other – you know, if you really want to break it down, then you go, humans are herd animals and really thrive, you know, the flock does better when everybody is doing well.”
Now, if all this doesn’t sound very Metallica-like, well, in a way neither does the annual fundraiser concert that they’ve been putting on in Los Angeles. Last year it raised $3.5 million and brought in some big Metallica admirers, like Aquaman himself Jason Momoa. “They’ve kind of been the soundtrack of my life, man. I’ve kind of discovered them probably when I was ten years old. And I think these are your heroes. These are my heroes.”
It might come as a surprise to some that a band with songs like “Nothing Else Matters” and “Seek and Destroy” spends so much time thinking about how to better other people’s lives. But for Hetfield, it’s a thought process that comes with age.
“It seems clearer that we have a purpose,” he said. “And that purpose is to bring joy to people on this planet, and absolutely still blows my mind that there’s three generations out there, you know, rocking out to ‘Master of Puppets.’ Like, really? You like this song? Okay! That was written when I was 22 years old, and I was pissed off. But beyond what we’ve done in the music thing, as you get older, you start to see the world in a different light, you know? My philosophy is, you’re climbing to the next layer of the high rise. And the older you get, the better the view is of the world, and what you get to see, and where you can be of service. And this is certainly one of them.”
Up until now, Hetfield had never actually met a Metallica scholar, but that changed backstage before a show in Landover, Maryland, when a very appreciative Carmen DeBerry stopped by. “I really think that your scholarship, me telling them about your scholarship, is what got me the job,” she told Hetfield. “Because once I told them that I got the Metallica scholarship, they were like, Whaaaaat? I got an entrance, and they took a chance with me. And I appreciate it.”
“Right on!” Hetfield replied.
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I asked, “You’re about to go out and play to thousands and thousands of people, and yet you just had a moment of getting to talk to somebody whose life has been significantly changed from All Within My Hands’ charity work. What’s that feel like?”
Hetfield replied, “It is so amazing. We get to go make some people smile out there, deliver the goods by playing songs that saved us in our lives. And then to create a foundation that’s giving back to, you know, the blue collar America? We get to go from thousands that are making big noise, that we know we’re impacting, but to get a one-on-one, you know, heart-to-heart with somebody whose life you’ve changed, it changes mine.”
You can stream the album “72 Seasons” by Metallica by clicking on the embed below (Free Spotify registration required to hear the tracks in full):
This Giving Tuesday, December 2, Metallica’s foundation AWMH is partnering with their long-standing supporter, Carhartt, to help provide five million meals through Feeding America. Go to allwithinmyhands.org for more information.
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Story produced by Anthony Laudato. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
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