If you thought you were a Metallica superfan, you haven't met Doug Brown. Recognized as the largest collector of Metallica memorabilia in Canada, the band themselves were blown away by his collection when they made a stop in Toronto for a special charity show last fall.
Brown was interviewed for the band's YouTube channel before the show at the Opera House, where he took the time to explain his fandom and how he began collecting.
"I started collecting at a very young age. My cousin got me a copy of the Black Album on cassette," Brown recalls in the video. "Then I was interested in the music so much, I wanted cassette singles and I started finding part-time jobs just so I could start buying more and more things."
He continued: "One day I was at [Rotate This] in downtown Toronto and I picked up a vinyl copy of Ride the Lightning, and it looked a little different than my CD copy, and then, all of a sudden, I had two. And then I was, like, 'Okay, I should probably go find a cassette of that, 'cause I don't have that on cassette yet. And that was the point it started to spiral out of control. So I started importing from all around the world. When the eBay factor kind of came into play, I realized I could get promos and I could start getting every single country of origin possible."
Despite his massive collection, the cassette that started it all remains the centrepiece. "That's the very first cassette I ever got when I was eight," Brown said. "It's absolutely worthless and it's beat to shit and I bet it wouldn't even play. I have ten thousand records in my house of all different types of music, but without that one cassette, I probably wouldn't have gone down this journey."
Metallica delivered their double-album Hardwired...To Self-Destruct last year. Watch the interview with Brown in the player below.
Brown was interviewed for the band's YouTube channel before the show at the Opera House, where he took the time to explain his fandom and how he began collecting.
"I started collecting at a very young age. My cousin got me a copy of the Black Album on cassette," Brown recalls in the video. "Then I was interested in the music so much, I wanted cassette singles and I started finding part-time jobs just so I could start buying more and more things."
He continued: "One day I was at [Rotate This] in downtown Toronto and I picked up a vinyl copy of Ride the Lightning, and it looked a little different than my CD copy, and then, all of a sudden, I had two. And then I was, like, 'Okay, I should probably go find a cassette of that, 'cause I don't have that on cassette yet. And that was the point it started to spiral out of control. So I started importing from all around the world. When the eBay factor kind of came into play, I realized I could get promos and I could start getting every single country of origin possible."
Despite his massive collection, the cassette that started it all remains the centrepiece. "That's the very first cassette I ever got when I was eight," Brown said. "It's absolutely worthless and it's beat to shit and I bet it wouldn't even play. I have ten thousand records in my house of all different types of music, but without that one cassette, I probably wouldn't have gone down this journey."
Metallica delivered their double-album Hardwired...To Self-Destruct last year. Watch the interview with Brown in the player below.
