Doug Brown, a man from Toronto, is acknowledged as the largest collector of Metallica memorabilia in Canada. The legendary rock band was “blown away” by his collection when they made a pit stop in the nation’s biggest metropolis for a charity show last autumn.
The band released a video interview with Brown yesterday (Feb. 22), wherein he describes how his obsession began with the Black Album.
“I started collecting at a very young age. My cousin got me a copy of the Black Album on cassette,” Brown says 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.”
Brown’s collection includes 850 vinyl and CD variations and up to 3,000 pieces of Metallica memorabilia that he has gathered from all over the world.
"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."
Metallica released their 10th studio album Hardwired… To Self-Destruct last year and are currently touring in South America. They will play several Canadian dates in July.
Watch the full interview below: