METALLICA are heading into the California Hall Of Fame. California governor Gavin Newsom unveiled the institution's 20th class this week, and the Bay Area thrash giants are on it alongside a long list of cultural, sports and political names. The honorees will be formally enshrined in December at a ceremony at the California Museum in Sacramento.
The governor's office cited the band's career numbers: more than 125 million albums sold worldwide and over 17 billion streams. It also pointed to two milestones: METALLICA's induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2009, and the band becoming the first act to play all seven continents after their 2013 show in Antarctica.
The band's California story runs through the whole state. METALLICA formed in Los Angeles in 1981, when James Hetfield answered Lars Ulrich's classified ad, and relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1983 — the move that brought in Cliff Burton and put the band at the center of the Bay Area thrash scene that defined their early records.
The 20th class is one of the largest in the Hall's history. Besides METALLICA, it includes musicians Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt and Huey Lewis, director Guillermo del Toro, actors Robin Williams, Edward Asner and Diane Ladd, filmmakers Rob and Michele Reiner, former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, chef Dominique Crenn, artist Shepard Fairey, author Maxine Hong Kingston, politician Nancy Pelosi, civil rights leader Felicitas Méndez, park ranger Betty Reid Soskin, winemaker Andy Beckstoffer and entrepreneur Susie Tompkins Buell.
"20 classes in, the California Hall Of Fame continues to showcase that California's greatest strength is its people," Newsom said, adding that the class honors "both those who continue to lead and inspire us today and those we have lost."
Launched in 2006, the California Hall Of Fame recognizes people who have shaped the state, the country and the world in arts, business, entertainment, food and wine, literature, music, public service, science and sports. Inductees are picked each year by the governor and the first partner.
The news lands while METALLICA keep rolling out pro-shot footage from their M72 run at Sphere in Las Vegas — most recently "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and "Sad But True".
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