What Happens When You Play Metallica Without Distortion?

A metal fan is making a case that Metallica songs without distortion are just a bunch of surf rock music.

Is Metallica Surf Rock?

Before you completely dismiss this idea, let us remind you Metallica is a California-based outfit. Bassist Robert Trujillo is even a big surfer known for hitting the Pacific Ocean waves when he's not on tour.

TikToker Kainoah Bowman has heard enough. He's convinced surf rock is heavily influencing metal.

"Just here to remind you that metal without distortion is just surf music," Bowman says in the opening moments of a recent video that has racked up nearly 4 million views.

Bowman continues by launching into the opening notes of "Master of Puppets" on his distortion-free guitar. If that song doesn't convince you of his surf rock-to-metal theory, he also give the same treatment to "Seek and Destroy."

The Internet Wants To See More Proof Before Buying Into This

As with most things shared on social media, people were quick to hop in the comments to let Bowman know he hasn't done enough to prove his theory.

"Black metal sounds like surf rock, not Metallica" TikTok user @kayo8559 commented.

READ MORE: 15 Most Expensive Metallica Albums You Can Buy Right Now

Others wanted to see the inverse of Bowman's attempt to prove his point – surf rock with distortion.

In a followup video, Bowman added distortion to surf rock songs "Wipeout" and Dick Dale's "Miserlou," which was actually pretty convincing

TikTok user @forlaughsnotfollows summed the experiment up best in the comments.

"Music is like soup. Throw in some of this and some of that and get a new flavoring/genre of music."