During their M72 tour, metal rockers Metallica held a number of events designed to encourage fans to “pass it on”.
Whether it was a group gathering at a concert venue or fans “giving where they live”; metalheads rolled up their sleeves and gave blood…nearly 40,000 units of the life giving fluid! And another 12,000 units were collected on a drive “Down Under” during the Australian performances.
The donations also earned the giver some Metallica goodies like T-shirts and a chance to win a real electric guitar.
The brainchild of Metallica tour accountant Chris Risner, the idea came while watching a commercial for the Red Cross; adding that the band loved the idea.
Risner said, “all I did was figure out that if you take a match to gasoline, it will ignite. That’s all I did. I know this band, I know their fans. I don’t want to diminish what I helped come up with, but this was a thing where I thought, well, we should do that.”
Metallica used their “All Within My Hands” nonprofit to help spread the word and get the movement started.
The band was surprised to see how motivated the younger crowd was to help out and wanted to help with many of them first time donors…and are continuing to give.
And Metallica has no plans to slow down, the blood drives will continues on future performance stops in Europe and at Sphere this fall.
Risner says that he hopes other “steal” the idea saying, “please steal it and do better than we did, because, you know what, then we’re coming at you and we’re going to do even better than that. It’s just one of those things where good begets good.”