Carmen DeBerry is a newly minted commercial delivery driver in Baltimore whose life was completely changed by four unlikely guys from the Bay Area. She’s talking about Metallica, one of the most commercially successful bands of all time with more than 180 million records sold. The band’s charity All Within My Hands has donated more than $10 million to workforce education through grants to trade schools and community colleges. Lead singer James Hetfield is the son of a truck driver and says not everyone is built for college or needs college. He believes the next millionaires will be the tradesmen who helped keep America running during COVID when the band couldn’t go out and do their thing. Bassist Robert Trujillo, who worked in construction before becoming a professional musician, says they all came from pretty humble beginnings and realized they should use their success to make people’s lives better.
The band’s philanthropy began with a simple question about what to do with leftover food backstage at sports arenas and stadiums. They started donating it to local food banks and then started donating sizable checks as well, which turned into disaster relief work including the 2017 Northern California fires. Drummer Lars Ulrich says they never screamed from the rooftops about their charity work because instinctively you just want to help since humans are herd animals and the flock does better when everybody is doing well. Their annual fundraiser concert in Los Angeles raised $3.5 million last year and brought in admirers like Jason Momoa who says Metallica has been the soundtrack of his life since age ten. DeBerry told Hetfield that once she mentioned getting the Metallica scholarship during her job interview, employers said “Whaaaaat?!” and took a chance with her. Hetfield says getting to go from making thousands of people smile by playing songs to having a one on one heart to heart with somebody whose life you’ve changed is amazing. The commercial driver’s license that DeBerry received can cost up to $7,500, money she didn’t have until Metallica stepped in to help her take care of her daughter and mother. For Hetfield, it’s a thought process that comes with age where you start to see the world in a different light and realize where you can be of service beyond just the music.
