10 Rock Songs Ripped Off From Other Songs

Any rock band worth its salt will always try to be a bit coy when talking about their musical influences. Why you ask? Well, if you happen to be blatantly stealing from your sources, then no one necessarily knows how to pin it on you. Once you hear what James Hetfield was listening to though, it's no secret that Welcome Home Sanitarium might need some financial compensation.

During interviews, Hetfield has always said that the riff came from an act that will remain nameless. If you're a hardcore fan of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal though, the band Bleak House is the clear father of this riff. And it appears that James left it virtually unchanged too, with the original riff from Bleak House's Rainbow Warrior sounding nearly identical to what they did for Sanitarium.

If they wanted to, Bleak House could have made a fortune suing Metallica, and yet they decided to just let the whole thing be. Their argument was that they at least had some hardcore metal fans going back and finding their music, which seems to be enough for them instead of becoming the guys who sued the greatest metal band in the world. Although the royalties for an album like Master of Puppets are crazy tempting, it's all about passing the musical legacy onto the next generation at the end of the day.