Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe. You know them as iconic rock bands, but did you know they got their start in the classified ads of an underground L.A. newspaper?
For those too young to know, classified ads were concise requests placed in the back of physical newspapers back in the 1970s and ’80s, long before the term TikTok-famous was even breathed into existence. If you were a musician in Los Angeles looking for bandmates, rather than posting on social media, you might be inclined to post an ad in the classifieds.
Enter ‘The Recycler’
The Recycler started in 1973 and was run by a couple who just wanted to help people buy and sell stuff. It was originally titled EZ Buy EZ Sell. The classifieds inadvertently became a cultural phenomenon in L.A., printing over 100,000 ads a week! It wasn’t just a paper; it was how communities were built long before TikTok, Reddit, or even Myspace.
What bands got their start from the classifieds?
LA’s very own underground newspaper was used by a lot of musicians at the time: Dead Kennedys, The Bangles, Hole, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In 1981, a Danish kid named Lars Ulrich placed an ad looking for other metalheads to jam with. That ad caught the eye of a young James Hetfield. They went on to found the one and only Metallica.
This isn’t the only classic rock band that got its start in the classifieds. Ever heard of Guns N’ Roses? Duff McKagan answered a Recycler ad that said, “Bass player wanted. Call Slash.” They met and formed a band called Road Crew. It wasn’t Guns N’ Roses just yet, but it certainly set the stage for the hard rock band
Then there was Mötley Crüe. Mick Mars put out an ad that said: “Loud, rude, aggressive guitarist available.” That ad got him a spot with Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee – and the rest is metal history.
Simpler times! In 1988, The Recycler had an approximate readership of 540,000 in stores across L.A. The publication was purchased in 1997 by the L.A. Times, whose reorganization of the business, some say, negatively impacted the rapport of the paper. And with the decline of print media in recent years, The Recycler scaled down to a website in 2010. The iconic publication officially shuttered on August 29, 2025.
Should we go back to the age of newspaper ads? Time will tell…
Written by Taylor Henderson, Ian Aaron Stokes