Metallica ‘M72 Tour’ Blood Drives Leads To 40,000 Donations For Red Cross

In what must be a perfect combination of feel-good partnership demonstrating the power and passion of music fandom, recent blood-drive efforts led by Metallica on multiple continent have led to almost 40,000 units of blood donated for the Red Cross. Fans could participate in many ways — in a group setting, often at the actual concert venue before the show, or at home as part of the “give where you live” co-campaign — and get exclusive goodies like t-shirts and a chance to win other goodies like a custom guitar.

Most of all, the band’s legion of fans got to feel good while giving to a worthy cause, supporting their favorite band and, hopefully, starting a new positive habit of donating again.
Largely behind the initiative is Chris Risner, the band’s tour accountant of the last 18 years, who said he merely put two and two together when spending some time with the band and seeing a Red Cross commercial on TV, jogging his memory. The band loved the idea immediately.

“All I did was figure out that if you take a match to gasoline, it will ignite.” says Risner, whose time in the industry dates back to Cleveland working with longtime area promoters the Belkins. “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.”

Maybe not quite that simple, but, having done blood drives in Cleveland with the Red Cross previously, Risner partnered with the organization’s Darren Irby to help formulate an idea of how to make an impact. The band, through its All Within My Hands nonprofit, helped spread the word, and most of the rest was merely allowing the fans to participate.

“It was amazing to see so many folks that were giving for altruistic reasons but also just so happy to wear their fandom of Metallica while identifying as a blood donor at the same time, it was super special,” says Irby. “One of the things we were really surprised by was that it was young people that were really motivated. They really leaned into wanting to do good and wanting to do that through Metallica.” Many fans were first-time donors, with many already becoming repeat donors or going on to donate the more invasive and time-consuming platelets, which are also in dire need.

Logistics were sorted to make use of existing spaces outside or onsite at most venues on the band’s “M72” tour, in both the United States and Australia — Down Under donations accounted for an additional 12,000 or so units of blood — allowing fans to feel like part of the action onsite, often watching the show being built or – in the case of Blacksburg, Virginia, hearing the marching band perform a special rendition of “Enter Sandman,” one of the football team’s usual hype songs.

Metallica looks to continue the blood drive efforts with European dates this spring and its upcoming Sphere dates in Las Vegas kicking off in October.

“Darren and I have a fantasy of another band stealing this idea,” Risner says. “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.”