The Big Four of thrash metal are Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. They earned the title in the 1980s by outselling and out-drawing every other American thrash band, and the name stuck long before they ever shared a stage. That finally happened in Warsaw on June 16, 2010. Below: why those four, the bands with a real case, and Germany’s own version.
The Short Version
- The Big Four: Metallica (Los Angeles, 1981), Slayer (Huntington Park, 1981), Anthrax (Queens, 1981) and Megadeth (Los Angeles, 1983).
- First show together: Sonisphere, Warsaw, June 16, 2010. Last: Yankee Stadium, September 14, 2011.
- The name: Kerrang! writer Don Kaye grouped the four in 1988.
- The strongest outside cases: Testament, Exodus and Overkill.
- Germany’s Big Teutonic Four: Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and Tankard.
Who Are the Big Four of Thrash Metal?
Metallica came first. James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich formed the band in Los Angeles on October 28, 1981. Kill ’Em All followed on July 25, 1983, on Megaforce. It didn’t reach the Billboard 200 until 1986, after Master of Puppets, a slow start for the band that would outsell everyone.
Slayer formed the same year in Huntington Park, California. Kerry King, Jeff Hanneman, Dave Lombardo and Tom Araya released Show No Mercy in December 1983, five months after Kill ’Em All.
Anthrax was the East Coast member. Scott Ian and Dan Lilker started it in Queens in 1981, and Fistful of Metal came out on Megaforce in January 1984.
Megadeth grew straight out of Metallica. Dave Mustaine was dismissed from Metallica on April 11, 1983, formed Megadeth in Los Angeles that year, and released Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good! on Combat in 1985.
Metallica
Los Angeles, 1981. Start with Master of Puppets (1986), then Ride the Lightning (1984).
Why Those Four Bands?
The short answer is sales and reach. Wikipedia’s thrash metal history credits MTV’s Headbangers Ball and the metal press with pushing album sales of “the genre’s ‘Big Four’ and similar bands” in the late 1980s. Everyone else, it says, “never achieved the same level of success.”
The 1986 run made the case. Metallica’s Master of Puppets came out in March, Megadeth’s Peace Sells... but Who’s Buying? in September, and Slayer’s Reign in Blood on October 7. Our piece on thrash metal’s greatest year covers all three.
Anthrax had no album that year, and its place was settled in 1987. Wikipedia says Among the Living “warranted them a place in the ‘Big Four’,” and it became the band’s second gold record.
The name itself came from the British press. Wikipedia credits Kerrang! writer Don Kaye with grouping the four in 1988, in several articles that placed Anthrax in the “Big Four of Thrash Metal” alongside Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer. It says the metal community accepted the title, and it stayed with Anthrax for the rest of its career.
Anthrax
Queens, New York, 1981. Start with Among the Living (1987), then Spreading the Disease (1985).
The Big Four of Thrash, Ranked
Ranked by influence on thrash, with sales as the tiebreaker:
- Metallica. More than 163 million albums sold worldwide as of 2023, a 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and the template record in Master of Puppets. Nobody else is close.
- Slayer. Reign in Blood is the shortest, fastest and meanest of the 1986 records, and still the benchmark for thrash aggression. Slayer also won two Grammys, both for songs from Christ Illusion.
- Megadeth. The best guitar band of the four. Rust in Peace (1990) went platinum, and Countdown to Extinction debuted at No. 2 in 1992.
- Anthrax. About 10 million records sold worldwide, a gold record in Among the Living, and the most open-minded of the four. It put the rap-metal track “I’m the Man” on a B-side and cut “Bring the Noise” with Public Enemy in 1991.
Slayer
Huntington Park, California, 1981. Start with Reign in Blood (1986), then South of Heaven (1988). In Fort Worth on October 24, 2026, for the album’s 40th anniversary.
Who Else Had a Case?
Testament has the best one. The Berkeley band debuted with The Legacy in 1987. Its second and third albums, The New Order (1988) and Practice What You Preach (1989), “nearly gained them the same level of popularity as the ‘Big Four’,” per Wikipedia. Its estimate of 14 million copies sold worldwide as of 2016 is higher than the figure it gives Anthrax.
Testament
Berkeley, California, formed as Legacy in 1983. Start with The New Order (1988), then Practice What You Preach (1989).
Exodus has the history. It formed in Richmond, California, in 1979, before Metallica existed, and its founding guitarist Kirk Hammett later joined Metallica. Bonded by Blood (1985) is the Bay Area record to start with.
Exodus
Richmond, California, 1979. Start with Bonded by Blood (1985), then Tempo of the Damned (2004).
Overkill is the East Coast case. It started in New Jersey in 1980, and Megaforce, Metallica’s and Anthrax’s first label, released Feel the Fire in October 1985. Wikipedia says that debut “cemented the band’s position as a driving force of the East Coast thrash metal movement.” Overkill signed to Atlantic in 1986, one of the first thrash bands on a major label.
Overkill
New Jersey, 1980. Start with Feel the Fire (1985, Megaforce), then The Years of Decay (1989), the darker, more ambitious end of its 1987–89 peak.
Wikipedia’s Exodus entry also counts a wider “Big Eight” that adds Testament, Exodus, Overkill and Death Angel. Asked in an Óčko interview about a new Big Four, as Guitar Player reported in September 2026, Mustaine answered:
“I think Testament, I think Overkill, I think Exodus, and maybe Trivium.”
He hedged on Trivium, which he said is “not really a thrash metal band,” and called Overkill “really important on the East Coast metal scene.”
When Did the Big Four First Play Together?
Not until June 16, 2010, at the Sonisphere festival on the runway of Bemowo Airport in Warsaw. Blabbermouth reported a crowd of 81,000. Anthrax opened the Big Four sets with Joey Belladonna back on vocals, and Metallica closed.
Most fans put the long wait down to Mustaine’s 1983 exit from Metallica, as American Songwriter notes. Metal Hammer’s Joel McIver quoted Mustaine that day: “I said some stuff in the past, and I’ve tried to make amends for it.” Kirk Hammett put it more bluntly: “In 1988 this show never would have happened.”
Megadeth
Los Angeles, 1983. Start with Rust in Peace (1990), then Peace Sells... but Who’s Buying? (1986). The 2026 album Megadeth went to No. 1, and Mustaine says the band ends when its tour does.
“The energy was insane: we all kept saying to each other, ‘Can you believe we’re actually doing this?’”
That was Scott Ian, also to Metal Hammer. Six more European shows followed that summer. The June 22 show in Sofia went out live to more than 450 U.S. cinemas, and its DVD went double platinum in the U.S.
The U.S. got two dates in 2011. The first was April 23 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, where Blabbermouth reported a capacity crowd of more than 50,000. Exodus guitarist Gary Holt covered for Hanneman, who was recovering from arm surgery and came out for Slayer’s encore.
The last Big Four show was September 14, 2011, at the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Members of the other three bands, plus Holt, joined Metallica for Motörhead’s “Overkill.” Hanneman died on May 2, 2013, and Blabbermouth still called Yankee Stadium the last Big Four event in 2020.
Who Are the German Big Four of Thrash?
Germany has its own Big Four, usually called the Big Teutonic Four: Kreator from Essen, Sodom from Gelsenkirchen, Destruction from Weil am Rhein, and Tankard from Frankfurt. All four formed in 1982.
They were rawer than the Americans. Wikipedia credits Kreator, Sodom and Destruction with helping pioneer the death and black metal that emerged in the mid-1980s, while Tankard’s songs center mostly on alcohol. Kreator’s Pleasure to Kill (1986) is the record to start with.
Kreator
Essen, Germany, 1982. Start with Pleasure to Kill (1986), then Extreme Aggression (1989).
Sodom
Gelsenkirchen, 1982, fronted by Tom Angelripper. Start with Persecution Mania (1987), then Agent Orange (1989), one of the first thrash albums to make the German charts.
Their big year was 1987. Kreator released Terrible Certainty, Destruction Release from Agony, Sodom Persecution Mania and Tankard Chemical Invasion. Wikipedia says those albums “cemented their reputations as top-tier German thrash metal bands.”
Destruction
Weil am Rhein, formed as Knight of Demon in 1982. Start with Release from Agony (1987), then the debut Infernal Overkill (1985).
Tankard
Frankfurt, 1982, started by classmates. The beer-themed member of the four. Start with Chemical Invasion (1987), then the debut Zombie Attack.
Not everyone accepts four. Wikipedia’s Teutonic thrash entry notes that the label is often disputed because Tankard’s influence and popularity were thought to be far smaller. Those fans speak of a “Teutonic Trio” instead.
The German four also took a long time to share a stage. Blabbermouth covered all four at Beastival in Geiselwind in 2013, and on July 20, 2024, they played their own festival, Klash of the Ruhrpott, at Amphitheater Gelsenkirchen. In the announcement, Sodom’s Tom Angelripper said a meeting of the four “cannot be surpassed in terms of cult status.”
How the Big Four Shaped Texas Thrash
In mid-1980s Texas, the Big Four were the bands local thrashers learned from. The Rotting Corpse timeline has Walt Trachsler spending 1984 hunting for musicians who knew Exciter and early Slayer. When he called John Perez, the band list he read out included Metallica, as the band history tells it.
The covers show it. At Sneakers in San Antonio on May 10, 1986, the band played Slayer’s “Die By The Sword,” the earliest surviving Rotting Corpse footage. The July 18, 1986 tape from the Cameo Theatre, on the media page, runs nine songs, with Slayer’s “Hell Awaits” and Metallica’s “Fight Fire With Fire” among them.
The Cameo Theatre Closed
Built in 1940 as a cinema for San Antonio’s Black community, the Cameo became a live room in 1980, and its owners list Metallica among the acts it hosted. Rotting Corpse’s “Texas Reign of Terror” show here is the show the venues page says most people name as the band’s best. A pastor held a church service there in March 2015, and Google now lists it as permanently closed. We found no source for the year the concerts ended.
Flyer: Rotting Corpse archive
Two of the four shared a Texas stage this fall. On September 29, 2026, Anthrax and Megadeth opened for Iron Maiden at the Alamodome in San Antonio. KNAC counted more than 53,000 fans at the tour’s final U.S. date and relayed Bruce Dickinson’s claim that it was Iron Maiden’s biggest Texas show ever.
Where to Hear It Live
As of October 2026, these are the confirmed dates, Texas first.
- Slayer, October 24, 2026: Sick New World Texas, Texas Motor Speedway, Fort Worth, celebrating the 40th anniversary of Reign in Blood. Tickets.
- Metallica, May 18, 2027: Sun Bowl Stadium, El Paso, on the M72 world tour. Tour announcement.
- Metallica, May 22, 2027: Alamodome, San Antonio, same tour.
- Megadeth: no Texas dates left on the farewell run. The tour page lists New Zealand and Australia in November 2026, then Japan, the UK and Europe through April 2027.
- Anthrax: nothing announced after the San Antonio date. Watch anthrax.com and the band’s Bandsintown page.
For the club-sized version of this music, the Rotting Corpse shows page lists the band’s own dates.
Start with “War on Drugs” (1986)
On the 1986 Cameo Theatre tape it sits between the band’s Slayer and Metallica covers, and the studio take from Demo One shows what the Big Four sounded like filtered through Arlington.
Sources
- Metal Hammer (Louder): The Big Four’s first show together
- Blabbermouth: First “Big Four” show comes to a close (June 16, 2010)
- Wikipedia: The Big Four: Live from Sofia, Bulgaria
- Blabbermouth: “Big Four” American concert debut, Indio (April 25, 2011)
- Blabbermouth: The Big Four perform “Overkill” at Yankee Stadium (September 14, 2011)
- Blabbermouth: Metallica at the last “Big Four” concert (2020)
- American Songwriter: On this day in 2010, the Big Four’s first concert
- Wikipedia: Thrash metal
- Wikipedia: Metallica
- Wikipedia: Kill ’Em All
- Wikipedia: Slayer
- Wikipedia: Megadeth
- Wikipedia: Anthrax (American band)
- Wikipedia: Among the Living
- Wikipedia: Testament (band)
- Wikipedia: Exodus (band)
- Wikipedia: Overkill (band)
- Guitar Player: Mustaine names four bands for a new Big Four
- Wikipedia: Kreator
- Wikipedia: Sodom (band)
- Wikipedia: Destruction (band)
- Wikipedia: Tankard (band)
- Wikipedia: Teutonic thrash metal
- Blabbermouth: German “Big Four” announce Klash of the Ruhrpott
- Blabbermouth: “The Big Teutonic 4” perform at Beastival
- Cinema Treasures: Cameo Center, San Antonio
- Texas A&M-San Antonio: The History of the Cameo Theater (2020)
- Megadeth: Tour dates
- KNAC: Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Anthrax in San Antonio, TX
- Live Nation: Sick New World Texas lineup
- Blabbermouth: Metallica announces spring 2027 North American tour
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are the Big Four of thrash metal?
Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. All four formed in 1981 to 1983, released their debuts between 1983 and 1985, and became the best-selling and most widely known American thrash bands of the 1980s.
When did the Big Four play together?
The first show was June 16, 2010, at the Sonisphere festival at Bemowo Airport in Warsaw, Poland, in front of about 81,000 people. The four bands played more European dates that summer and in 2011, plus two U.S. shows: Indio, California, on April 23, 2011, and Yankee Stadium on September 14, 2011, the last Big Four event.
Which bands could have been in the Big Four?
Testament, Exodus and Overkill have the strongest cases. Testament’s second and third albums, The New Order (1988) and Practice What You Preach (1989), nearly matched the Big Four’s popularity. Exodus formed in 1979, before Metallica, and Overkill led the East Coast scene from New Jersey. In September 2026, Dave Mustaine named Testament, Overkill, Exodus and, with a hedge, Trivium for a new Big Four.
Who are the German Big Four of thrash?
Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and Tankard, often called the Big Teutonic Four, though some drop Tankard and speak of a Teutonic Trio. All four formed in 1982, and all four released key albums in 1987. They shared a bill at Beastival in Geiselwind in 2013 and played their own festival, Klash of the Ruhrpott, in Gelsenkirchen on July 20, 2024.
