Maybe the novels and movies are right: when it comes to life, you really never know what you're gonna get.

Take the combination of a Clint Eastwood movie, The Scum Club, the University of California-Berkeley, a construction site, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the pollen count in Mecklenburg County. Slam that all together with seven daughters and a special California performance by metal music megastar Metallica and you've got the up-to-date Wikipedia version of the life and times of Dr. Victor Agnello of Huntersville.

This Friday night at The Fillmore in San Francisco, Agnello will be on stage wailing away on drums as the band Laaz Rockit opens the fourth and final show of a special, sold-out 30th anniversary appearance by Metallica. For Agnello, 47, the performance will mark yet another highlighted chapter in a hard-rocking collection of adventures and experiences rivaling anything Huck Finn and Forrest Gump could imagine.

As a California teen in the 1980s, Agnello was a rebellious rocker who, after a two-day tryout, joined the rock group Depth Charge. A name change — directly related to a scene from The Enforcer featuring a dynamic demonstration of the Light Anti-Tank Weapons System (LAWS) — and rabid expansion of heavy metal popularity transformed the small-time band into a red hot commodity.

"It was the thing at the time to alter the spelling and somebody came up with Laaz Rockit," Agnello said Monday during a lunchtime break from seeing patients at the Allergy & Asthma Center of Lake Norman office on Brookway Drive in Huntersville. "Soon after, we had a label and start touring."

From 1982 until early 1989, the leather-clad and long-haired members of Laaz Rockit — a name befitting the band's raw energy and explosive stage presence, according to the era's music reviewers — lived the heavy metal high life, playing all types of venues throughout the United States and metal-friendly Europe. The band produced four albums, including songs recorded live at various exotic-sounding venues like The Scum Club in Katwijk, Holland, and became well acquainted with others in the heavy metal scene, including Metallica.

"Somewhere," Agnello said, "I've got a picture of me and Lars (Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich) and we're cutting up and biting the drummer's callouses you get off each other's hands. Hey, it was the way things were."

Agnello said the years in the band were amazing and one experience from that time still ranks high on his list of lifetime memories.

"Back then, MTV was popular and they had this show called "Headbangers Ball," Agnello recalled with a big smile. "So here I am, in my early 20s at a club and there's a TV showing MTV and, all of a sudden, our video comes on. That feeling was unreal. It was one of the best moments of my life."

That video was for "Fire in the Hole," but by 1989, Agnello's fever for involvement in the band started to fade and he began to consider life after Laaz Rockit.

"I thought the band had plateaued," he said, "and by 1990, I was out."

During the off days from touring, Agnello had done construction work, and those experiences convinced him to expand his opportunities.

"I was hammering up siding one day and it was cold and my hands were hurting and it was just miserable," he said, "and I looked over at the job foreman who was in his 50s and he was doing the same thing I was. I thought about it and an office job started to sound pretty nice."

With savings he had planned to use to buy a house, he financed his education at UC-Berkeley. When his undergraduate studies were complete, he wanted to pursue a career in medicine, but the monetary supply and demand no longer met. He learned about the Health Professions Scholarship Program and the heavy metal rocker's path veered sharply into the military medical corps.

"It's a great program," Agnello said. "They allow you to remain a civilian during medical school and then you have some options on paying back your commitment to the military."

Agnello completed medical school at George Washington University and then completed postgraduate and medical fellowship responsibilities at Walter Reed Medical Center before signing on for five more years of duty at Fort Campbell, Ky.

"All of the medical training and the experience I got through the military was outstanding," Agnello said, adding a boastful reminder that Fort Campbell is home to the 101st Airborne. "I'm proud of that service and glad I was part of it."

The nameplate at his Huntersville desk, in fact, still reads "Maj. Victor Agnello," although Agnello said he resigned as a reservist after seeing a fellow physician lose his practice after being called up to active duty.

"I hated to do that," he said, "but I've got a lot of responsibility here. I just couldn't take that chance."

In addition to the practice, Agnello's responsibilities include wife Emily, whom he met in medical school, and seven daughters ranging in age from 1 to 11. When the family located to Huntersville in 2006, a combination of military pragmatism and rock-and-roll reasoning figured in the decision.

"We ruled out Alabama, where she's from, and California, where I'm from, right away because, I guess, we're both sort of rebels," Agnello said, "and then we really just took a look at the pollen counts. It's high in this area and, while there were a lot of allergy clinics and doctors in Charlotte, there really weren't any in Huntersville. We figured 'find a need, fill a need,' so here we are."

And here is where, after long spells of no word from his old friends in Laaz Rockit, out of the blue and "completely out of left field" Agnello got the call about Friday's show.

"It was absolutely unexpected," he said. "Back in 2005, we got together for a show in Holland and that led to a few shows in Japan and we actually put out a DVD from those shows, but I didn't see this coming."

Laaz Rockit, with some original members and many new faces over the years, has been resurrected several times, but Metallica's plans to feature groups from California's heavy metal revolution in its anniversary performances has put the original group, at least for one night, back in the spotlight.

"I am so excited," Agnello said. "It is just incredible that I get to do this again. It is unbelievable."

Agnello says, at 47, he expects jeans and T-shirts, not leather and chains, to be the costumes for the show, but he also expects the teenage enthusiasm to scream out once the music starts.

"I can't wait," he said. "I'm a little nervous, but I'm not nearly as nervous as I am fired up. I'm looking forward to the whole experience."

And the latest tune in a life-long volume of smash hits.