by Jon Wiederhorn

Inside a wood-paneled Sausalito, California studio called The Plant, Metallica frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich gaze reflectively at a dust-covered relic sitting in the corner of the room. "This thing's been in the closet for 10 years," says Hetfield. "It was the second guitar I ever owned, and it was the only one I had when we recorded Kill 'Em All." He picks up the cheap, white Flying V copy and begins to pluck out southern rock licks in the vein of Lynyrd Skynyrd. "It still plays pretty good," he beams.

In truth, the guitar has seen better days. The paint across the top has been eroded in a pattern, as if spattered with acid, and the headstock has been snapped in half and glued back together. Below the toggle switch, the words "fuck it" have been crudely etched into the wood, and the neck is scratched and worn. But like an antique with blemishes that reveal its history and character, the battered Flying V is a perfect symbol of Metallica's tooth-and-nail struggle for recognition in the early Eighties. Seven albums and many millions of dollars later, recognition isn't a problem, but Metallica are still struggling to grow and evolve.

At the moment, the band members are letting down their already shorn hair following an intensive studio session for their new record Re-Load. The ringmaster for the session is Bob Rock, who has added his crisp production to the past two Metallica studio albums, and who is presently under the strain of an impending deadline that looks like it will never be met.

Considering how much pressure they're under, Metallica seem surprisingly relaxed. When he's done widdling on the Flying V, Hetfield hands it over to Ulrich, who flips it over, exposing a rendering of a giant, extended middle finger, and an ugly notched gouge that runs across the back of the instrument. "That's from the bullet belt he used to wear!" laughs Ulrich. "James used to beat the shit out of that thing when we were on tour for Kill 'Em All. That was back when he just didn't give a fuck."

In many ways, he still doesn't give a fuck. Since their formation in 1981, Metallica have gone from being a batch of reckless, long-haired speed demons to a bunch of anally retentive, methodical musicians who have forsaken sheer velocity for experimentation. Like last year's Load, Re-Load is a departure from the stomping metal anthems and thrash n' bash barnburners of yore. But while Load embraced boogie-blues licks, swaggering rock rhythms and swirling melodic hooks, Re-Load is even more experimental. Many of the songs are over seven minutes long, and the band favors intricate, sprawling arrangements over instantly memorable hooks. Rest assured, Metallica haven't lost their penchant for crunching distortion and surging power, they've just couched it with more textural and dissonant embellishments.

"Over the past few years we've all really developed our own personalities and our own points of view," says Hammett. "What you hear in the new songs is how those four personalities play off each other. We just throw it all into one big melting pot, and when you pour it out, this is what you get." He pauses to puff a Cuban cigar he smuggled back from a recent show in England, then continues. "The only band that comes to mind that has evolved along the same lines as us is Led Zeppelin. From Led Zeppelin to Coda is a world of difference. I'm not comparing ourselves to Zeppelin, but just in terms of pure evolution, the similarities are there."

GUITAR WORLD: You describe Re-Load as a continuation of Load, but it also seems like a musical progression. It's definitely more diverse and experimental.

JAMES HETFIELD: Living with these songs for two years, the four of us came back with very different ideas of what they should evolve into. The good news was we still liked them, and we wanted to put them out. But we wanted to come up with some newer sounds. A lot of these had guitars before, but they sounded a little dull, so we re-recorded them. We really stretched the limits of what a guitar and amp could do, which was fun.

KIRK HAMMETT: We've grown as musicians since the release of Load, and technology has brought us new things to try in the studio. Also, we've just come off a great tour, so our chops are up.

GW: How did you put together the riffs for Re-Load?

HETFIELD: I think Kirk had a little more freedom on this one, his only instruction was to not play what I played. We wanted a point-counterpoint kind of vibe. And we're really splitting the guitars now to get some real different things going on. Some of the songs evolved through different sounds. You'll sit with a different guitar and a different amp for a while, and it just makes you play different, and you start writing a different kind of song, which is really exciting.

GW: Is choosing which guitar parts end up where a very competitive, stress-producing process?

HETFIELD: Sometimes. There's always a main riff that the song is built around, but the counterpoint guitar is totally up in the air. Whatever could happen, happens. I'm not there when Kirk is doing his stuff. I think it is easier for him to let loose without me looking over his shoulder. It's a little too intimidating when I'm there. A lot of times it's still hard to let go. You think, "I want to be there everyday, this is my song." But you gotta let go sometime.

GW: Throughout Re-Load you experiment with metal, blues, psychedelia, country and southern rock. There's even a spoken word bit on there. Are you trying to redefine the parameters of hard rock?

HAMMETT: Not really. We're just slowly integrating other styles and techniques into our music, which is something any artist does, whether they're a musician or a painter or a race car driver or hairstylist. After awhile, if you're truly devoted to what you're doing, you'll take on a lot of influence and integrate it into your own style to make things less boring.

GW: Do you think some of your old fans will listen to this record and ask, "Have Metallica lost their fucking minds?"

HETFIELD: I hope so. I said that myself when Kirk wore black nail polish to the studio one day (laughs). There's a fucking recklessness to all the new stuff which I just love. In the past, we were pinned down by so many rules that were put there by fans or by heavy metal. It's time to move on.

HAMMETT: If people think we've lost our minds, I think we're doing the right thing. These songs have definitely landed in a place we've never been to before, and that's great. I think it's good for people to expect the unexpected from us. At least you're provoking them and challenging them to think.

GW: A lot of metal bands don't really ever evolve or mature. They just get stuck in a perpetual state of adolescence. Is that because their fans don't want them to grow and change?

HETFIELD: I understand how metal fans don't want metal bands to change. They need a safety zone in their life. Things are so crazy out there a lot of people need that kind of safety. I'm just sick of safety.

GW: Are the changes in your sound symptomatic of your desire to grow as individuals?

HETFIELD: Absolutely. When people don't change they get really stuck and they stop living. I'll go back and see friends from high school or back in the old days. You look at them and go, "Fuck, man, you haven't changed one fucking bit. You're still going to that same liquor store and hanging out at the same places. God damn, man. How about taking a risk and moving forward a bit?" If they're content in what that does to them, that's fine. I think we're a little more challenging as humans. We want to see what can happen.

HAMMETT: Also, we're maturing as musicians. We're not afraid to show different aspects of our musical personalities, and we're not intimidated to try new things, whereas in the past we were. We've broken out of that, and we're slowly spreading our tentacles out farther into different realms of musicality. GW: Are you less bitter and angry these days?

HETFIELD: We're just as pissed, but we're using the anger and hatred in a different way. We're not battling it so much, we're more or less laughing at it. There's things every day that piss me off, but they don't affect me as much in the music. There's better things to think about that some old son of a bitch cutting me off in my car or some shit on the news. All that political stuff is shit that you can't change which is not gonna matter in the long run anyway. I think instead of anger, boredom has become more of the theme in the last few albums. Life is about avoiding boredom, really. You gotta seize the day.

HAMMETT: I think that anger and aggression are just part of our personalities. It's deep rooted, and that's why it was there in the first place. It was never put on, so you can't just take it off. Life is much easier for us now than it was 10 years ago, but god damn, there are still things in my past that really still piss me off. It's too personal to talk about, but I don't think those initial feelings will ever go away.

GW: What kind of gear did you use on Re-Load?

HAMMETT: The real question is what gear didn't we use on this record? We have every fucking modern stomp box out there in the studio. We have every brand of amp, so at any given moment, we could be using any combination of things. I've lost track of what we use when and where. Guitar wise, I've been using my '58 Les Paul, my ESPs, a few old Strats and this old SG of James' that I love to death.

HETFIELD: There's a basic rack with the Boogie stuff. The old Mesa/Boogie IIC+ that we've had forever in the studio. There's an amp called The Wizard, that's become a pretty major part in the main, heavy sound. A Vox AC30 has become a really great, exciting middle sound. The Roland Jazz Chorus has always been part of the clean sound and there's also an old Magnavox amp that I've played. For guitars, lately I got a '59 Les Paul Sunburst that just sounds awesome. I got the same Explorer with the EMG's ESP made me that my sound was built around. There's a '63 SG that Bob gave me on the Load sessions that sounds awesome for middle sounds and really, really dirty, heavy stuff. I've also got a couple of $100 guitars that have character, but that you really can't keep in tune. A few pedals have come into play. The Lovetones are really awesome. We also goofed around with other textures. We used a Mellotron again, which creates a sad, eerie, not right sound. Also, last time people freaked out that Metallica's gone country. They said there was a pedal steel on the record, which there wasn't. But now there really is a pedal steel on the record, so fuck, y'all.

GW: You don't all hang out with each other socially the way you did in the early days of the band. Is the stress of being Metallica starting to pull you apart?

HETFIELD: No, we're closer than ever in that we've let ourselves go, and we've discovered that we need each other. Going to bed thinking, "What if Metallica wasn't in my life anymore" scares the fuck out of me. It's a freaky feeling. One day it might happen, but right now, this is more than a career to us. This is family. A lot of us grew up without real strong families, so we held onto this, and that was why there was this really strong camaraderie in the beginning. But now that we've started to go off and develop our own families, we've realized how important Metallica really is. And I think it has given us a new view on each other, which is a lot stronger than ever.

HAMMETT: Thank god we're not as close as we used to be socially, because we'd be driving each other crazy and we'd be at each other's throats. When you go on tour you share the same breathing space, and that in itself can be very claustrophobic. So for us to be able to deal with that, and still be able to talk to each other and joke around on tour is enough of a feat. When we get off tour, the natural thing for us to do is to pursue other things outside of our professional careers. But because we're able to respect each other's privacy we've actually become more honest and closer to each other. It blows me away that my relationship with the other guys in the band has been the most consistent thing in my life. This band has outlived my marriage and various personal relationships.

GW: What would it take to break Metallica up?

HAMMETT: There's any number of things. Metallica is a very complicated, fragile type of thing. On the outside it's all metal, but on the inside it's very delicate. At this point, it wouldn't really take much. It's probably always been like that though. A band is basically an agreement between four people. That's all it is. If you press the right buttons it can just explode at any second.

HETFIELD: I don't know, man. I think it would take a lot to break us up. We've been through deaths, disasters, fans freaking out, all that kind of crap. I think we're necessary for each other. It would definitely take a lot.

GW: What do you do for kicks now?

HETFIELD: I love hunting. I like hot-rods, that's my new passion. I think from the outside I look pretty simple, but there's some complex shit inside. But sometimes you forget about simple things that just make you happy. You're never satisfied, but that's life.

GW: Do you still like to play the old stuff?

HETFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. Live, it's great. You always update it and you throw some new shit in here and there. You look at each other, and you go, "I remember why we wrote this fucking song, and I feel it."

HAMMETT: For me, it depends what part of the tour it is. By the end of the tour I'm thinking, "Aw, 'Seek and Destroy' again?" In general though, I still love playing all that stuff. I still get off on it, and I think that just goes to show how timely our music is to ourselves.