Metallica have told of the time they were banned from playing "Master of Puppets" and other popular songs because of one line of lyrics in the song.

In an interview on the Howard Stern show this week, Kirk Hammett described how the government screened their material ahead of a show there.

"We had to give them a whole set of songs and they went through all the lyrics and okayed which ones we could play, which ones we couldn't play," he said (via Blabbermouth). "They see a lyric like 'Master Of Puppets' being so subversive that they're not allowing us to play it. It's kind of scary."



But the band say it was worth it when they finally arrived and saw a stunning reaction from 40,000 local fans enjoying their show.

Hammett adds that he still managed to sneak in classic riffs from their banned songs.

"What I did is, I had an open guitar solo thing where I just sit there and riff," said Hammett. "I played the riff for 'Master Of Puppets' and a couple of other songs that weren't allowed to be played. I played just the music, so I kind of snuck it in there."