Fassbender's heavy metal dream

Michael Fassbender has admitted that he wanted to be a rock star … but his musical ambitions ended after a disastrous first gig.

The star of Prometheus, Shame and X-Men: First Class tried to form a heavy metal band while he was a teenager in a small town in Ireland, but it ended up with only two members who both played lead guitar. Their first – and only – gig was a disaster and Fassbender was forced to give up his musical dream and become an actor instead.

He told US TV host Jimmy Fallon: "I wanted to be a musician, I was into heavy metal, I wanted to be a lead guitarist in a heavy metal band. I loved Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer... There was just one other guy in my band and he played guitar also. It's always hard to find a drummer and a bass player in a small town, we couldn't find the back-up so we just went out as we were.

"We only played one gig. It was in a little pub, it was lunchtime trade and there were middle-aged people and we were trying to play Metallica and they kept telling us to turn it down."