Even when Metallica's quiet, they manage to make noise. On a mid-January morning, in the middle of the longest respite from touring and recording the band had ever taken, Metallica issued a terse but emotional press release, in which bassist Jason Newsted announced his departure from the group because of "private and personal reasons and the physical damage I have done to myself over the years."
A few hours later; a source close to Metallica told PLAYBOY that Newsted's
decision had capped a nine-and-a-half-hour band meeting the day before at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in San Francisco, the sequel to a similar marathon caucus a week earlier. Newsted's resignation, the source said, had been "very well discussed" by the band. In some ways, it was just the usual tumult for Metallica, who spent much of last year waging an assault-or, they might say, a counteroffensive-against Napster. The website drew an estimated 38 million
users in its first 18 months by allowing fans to trade sound files without paying any tariff; in short, by providing free music. Metallica sued for alleged copyright infringement and racketeering, and on July 11, drummer Lars Ulrich - whose press campaign against Napster was full of typical bravado-testified against the website before the U.S. Senate. Between politicking and press conferences, Metallica played music, too. I Disappear,a new song on the Mission Impossible: 2 soundtrack, was nominated for five MTV Video Music Awards. The
band released S&M, a two-disc concert album recorded with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. They toured during the summer with Kid Rock, who handled some lead vocals when singer James Hetfield missed three shows because of a Jet Ski accident. Even VH1 embraced these one-time scourges, profiling the band in a particularly bloody Behind the Music. The year 2000, says bassist Jason Newsted, "was possibly the highest-profile year for Metallica ever." Of the thousands of bands that have crawled out of rehearsel garages into recording
studios, only seven have sold more albums in the U.S. than Metallica has. Of those, two are long-gone legends (the Beatles and Led Zeppelin), and the others - Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones and Van Halen-are nostalgia acts, grandpas past their expiration dates or culturally inconsequential. Among rock's most epic groups, only one-Metallica-is still touring, still vital and still not in need of Rogaine. When Hetfield and Ulrich met in Los Angeles in the spring of 1981, united by an ad in a local rock magazine, they had little in common except a shared fanaticism for the most extreme mutations of rock. Lars's father; Torben Ulrich, was a great Danish tennis player; a bohemian and a jazz fan; Lars' godfather was jazz great Dexter Gordon. Lars had a privileged, expansive childhood, full of travel and freedom.Hetfield, a product of a broken home headed by a father who followed the restrictive Christian Science religion, was working dead-end day jobs and had seen little outside of suburban LA. Ulrich and Hetfield relocated an early version of the band to San Francisco to secure the services of bass overlord Cliff Burton, and added guitarist Kirk Hammett, a Bay Area native who, like Hetfield, embraced loud rock as a refuge from teen misery. The bands that inspired Metallica are pretty obscure, unless you know European thrash pioneers like Diamond Head and Blitzkrieg. But Metallica spread pure metal to the mainstream. They did it by touring with an almost demented determination, earning the nickname Alcohollica as they floated from town to town like marauding vodka Vikings. They did it by avoiding metal cliches (after discarding their spandex tights, that is) such as singing about chicks and sex, instead giving voice to raging, almost biblical parables about warfare and brutality. And they did it, beginning with 1991's Metallica (also known as the Black Album, for its unadorned cover), by working with Bon Jovi producer Bob Rock to add expermentation and melodic appeal. Where he once vowed "volume higher than anything today" (on the band's ear-blasting Kill 'Em All debut), Hetfield began to expose the vulnerability that always lies under anger. On Enter Sandman, he sang about a child's nighttime terrors, an allusion to his own convulsive youth. "Now I see the sun", he sang hopefully on Unforgiven II. And Nothing Else Matters, a ballad, brought Metallica into territory they'd never explored: love and satisfaction. We sent freelance writer Rob Tannenbaum to interview the last of the big rock bands. He found that although the band members were out of touch with one another during the hiactus, they were not out of one another's minds. His report: "I wasn't surprised that Jason Newsted quit Metallica. Just two months earlier, I'd spent a day with each of the four, and I've never seen a band so quarrelsome and fractious.
Most of the barbs were cloaked in humor - Newsted mocked Hetfield's singing, Hetfield mocked Urlich's drumming, and Ulrich, whom I interviewed last, responded to several of Hetfield's quotes with scorn. "But genuine tension was evident in these interviews- the last ever to be conducted with this Metallica lineup- because they shared one trait: Each talked about his need for solitude. Paradoxically, this is a band of loners, and the conflict between unity and individuality was pretty clear. Because they weren't speaking, I became a conduit of information.
"How were Jason's spirits?" Kirk Hammett, 38, asked anxiously when we met at his home in the Pacific Heights section of San Francisco, an haute Gothic masion full of dark wood and crucifixes, with a stuffed two-headed sheep in the parlor."And how was James?"
Hetfield,37,invited me to his house, behind a secured gate in a town less than an hour north of San Francisco. It seemed odd that he lived in notoriously mellow Marin Country, but Hetfield set me straight about the neighborhood."This is more a kind of Losertown,"he said with a deep chuckle. "I'm more up for that vibe." The den where we talked felt like a rurual lodge-abouve a fireplace, the walls were decorated with the heads of nine animals he'd killed, including a boar, an antelope and a 1600-pound buffalo he took with four shots of a rifle. Hetfield, who earned the nickname Dr. No for his control of the band, often talks in animal metaphors, which shape his decidedly Dawinian perspective. "It's a pretty difficult time for us right now," Hetfield said in a rare somber moment. But when his wife, Francesca, and three-year-old daughter; Cali, came into the room, the author of 'Seek and Destroy' jumped up and yelled, "Big hug!"
When I met Lars Ulrich, 37, he was separated for his wife Skylar and their child, and was living in a downtown New York hotel suite while mixing an
album by Systematic for his label, TMC. Ulrich is the band's bustling businessman-as he ranted and scoffed, his cell phone rang constantly-as well as its emissary to nonmetal worlds: He's friends with Matt Damon and Courtney Love and plays tennis with John McEnroe. Affectionately referred to as 'The Danish Midget' by some in the band's circle, Ulrich somehow manages to be friendly and disputative at the same time, as though arguing were just another way of saying hello.
The most unhappy Metallican was Newsted, 38, whom I met at a Marin County recording studio. Newsted, who joined the band after Cliff Burton died in a bus accident while the band toured Sweden in September 1986, was straining at Hetfield's restrictions which kept him from releasing a solo album. He jokingly dismissed Hetfield's singing, saying, "At least we call him a singer now, instead of a screamer or a shouter. Five or six years ago, they would have called him a shouter." Newsted gradually admitted that he felt 'almost stifled' in Metallica. But when I asked if he was unhappy enough to quit the band, he turned grave: "I would not leave Metallica for another band. If I ever happened to choose that path, I would do it to live my life, not depart to play in another band." A source within the Metallica camp told me Newsted is 'not 100 percent healthy, and has been playing in pain' - the bassist also told Playboy he would quit 'when the day comes that I cannot perform' with his accustomed ferocity. According the source, Newsted (who declined further comment) said he might move to Montana and not touch a bass for two years, although that's hard to imagine such inactivity from a guy who suffers anxiety attacks 'if I even try to go six days without playing music with somebody.' Newsted may have retired purely for health reasons, though the source admits that the bassist's clash with Hetfield was 'precipitating factor.' Soon, Metallica will end their hiatus and return to the studio as a trio to record a new album. Metal bands aren't supposed to evolve: AC/DC, Black Sabbath and MotorHead sounded basically the same on their first record as on their lastest. But Metallica is motivated by 'a fear of repetition,' Ulrich told me, so it'll be interesting to hear their next move. Then they'll hire a new bassist and go back on the road, as loud as ever."
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PLAYBOY: You spent much of last year fighting Napster. Now it's gone
into business with BMG and is changing from a free service to a pay
service. Is the therat over? Or will a similar site pop up?
ULRICH: There are all sorts of mini-Napsters out there. But Napster
is successful because it's Computer 101-with some of the other
companies, the software becomes really complicated. And they're not
going to get out of the gate in the same way Napster did. Now
everybody has their guard up. With every new technology some
19-year-old kid can come up with, somebody five minutes behind can
come up with a way of blocking it. It's never going to go away. But I
think it can get to a point where it becomes sort of
nuisance,comparalbe to,say,bootlegging and piracy.
PLAYBOY: What did you accomplish by going after Napster?
ULRICH: What we've accomplished most is to bring an awareness to the
American public. It turned into the first big issue of the 21st
century. People seemed to be more passionate about it than the
presidential thing. Obviously, this has been the fucking wake-up-call
of the millennium to everybody who has anything to do with
intellectual property. There's this whole circle of older ladies who
create sewing patterns. All of a sudden, these sewing patterns are
being stolen and traded on the Internet. And these litlle old ladies
aren't getting their royalties.
PLAYBOY: So now Metallica is allied with a bunch of old ladies.
ULRICH:[Rolls his eyes]There's your sound bite.
PLAYBOY: Some of your fans took Napster's side, instead of
Metallica's.
HETFIELD:[Grins]Because they're lazy bastards and they want everthing
for free. I think Napster won the press war. It hurt the fans' perception of us - they see
Metallica as some big bad guys who wanted to take their free stuff
away. I like playing music because it's a good living and I get
satisfaction from it. But I can't feed my family with satisfaction.
PLAYBOY: So Napster damaged Metallica?
HETFIELD: I don't want it to read "Napster has damaged Metallica".
It's pretty difficult to hurt us. They did damage to how Metallica
fans perceive us.
ULRICH: I don't agree. We've taken hits from day one: between
haircuts and using Motley Crue-Bon Jovi producer Bob Rock, to headlining Lollapalooza to writing ballads to making records with a symphony orchestra. That's part of being an
instigator and a forerunner.
PLAYBOY: Aside from his natural garrulousness, why did Lars become
the band's spokesman against Napster?
HETFIELD: My wife and I were giving birth to a second child [son
Castor, born May 2000]. And family is number one. So Lars had to run
with the torch, and there were a few bad moves. You know, Lars can
get really mouthy and be a snotty-nosed kid at times. I cringed at
certain interview: "Oh dude, don't say that."
ULRICH: I said some things that were borderline silly. When Limp
Bizkit embrazed Napster and took $2 million to play this "free
tour"-it is possible to play free shows without taking sponsership
money, because we do that - I said it was total bullshit. I know a
lot of people hate Fred Durst, but I think he's really fucking
talented. Me and Fred kissed and made up. When I open my mouth, most
of the time something somewhat eloquent comes out, and once in a
while I talk a bunch of fucking bullshit. I'm aware of that.
PLAYBOY: What sort of things did the fans say to your face?
HETFIELD: Some fans said, "Leave Napster alone, dude"-if they were
suicidal[laughs].But that was after"Metallica rocks,dude". So you would turn your "thanks" into a "fuck you". I've gotten in plenty of arguments with fans who just wanted to 'discuss' it. This poor girl in Atlanta, I made her cry. She felt
money was evil. Why don't you go live in Canada or some socialist
country?
ULRICH: If you'd stop being a Metallica fan because I won't give you
my music for free, then fuck you. I don't want you to be a Metallica
fan.
HAMMETT:I'm still shocked at the reaction people have. I thought it
was so obvious: People are taking our music when they're not supposed
to, and we want to stop them. Computers make it seem like you're not
stealing, because all you're doing is pressing a button. The bottom
line is, stealing is not right.
PLAYBOY: You guys pissed off a lot of people. On the Metallica Usenet
group, there's an ongoing thread called "Kirk and Lars are gay."
HAMMETT: That just shows a total lack of creative juices. That's like
calling someone "fatso."
PLAYBOY: Maybe you were right on the merits. But it's hard for people
to sympathize with the rich.
ULRICH: Yeah, it is. So it becomes about "these greedy rock stars."
But understand, 80 million records later, I don't know what the fuck
to do with all the money I have. So now we can talk about what the
real issue is? The real issue, for me, is choice. I want to choose
what happens to my music. It's pretty clear that the future is selling
your music online. But common sense will tell you that you cannot do
that if the guy next door is giving it away for free.
PLAYBOY: When you stated the campaign against Napster, did you know
it would drag on so long?
ULRICH: Didn't have the foggiest fucking idea, no. This whole Lars
Ulrich-poster-boy-for-intellectual property isn't something I sought
out.
PLAYBOY: Were you surprised when you got booed onstage last September
at the MTV Video Music Awards?
ULRICH: I was unaware of it while I was up there. I got offstage, and
people were like, "Wow, you handled the booing really well." I was
like, "What booing?"
PLAYBOY:That's surprising, because you looked really uncomfortable.
ULRICH: I was kind of drunk. It was the worst awards show, hands
down, that I've ever been to. I left, I went out to dinner with some
friends and had some cocktails.
PLAYBOY: When Napster creator Shawn Fanning came out in a Metallica
T-shirt, they cut to you in the audience, and you looked aghast.
ULRICH: You have to understand, the whole thing was planned. They
asked me to present an award to Shawn Fanning. The day before the
show, Napster's lawyers pulled him out of it. They thought I would do
something rude or obnoxious to him. MTV asked, "Do you have any
problem with him walking out in a Metallica T-shirt?". I was like,"Go
for it." I knew about all that - I was just pretending to be sleeping
.I had my hand over my face, nodding off. It was sort of contrived.
PLAYBOY: What would it take for you to drop your suit against
Napster?
ULRICH: They have been inquistitive about trying to settle. The only
thing we were after was getting our lawyers fees paid. And we believe
they have the ability to block access to whatever band wants it
blocked.
HAMMETT: Criticism is something we've always dealt with, since day
one. When Kill 'Em All came out, there was nothing like it. When the
second album came out, we had slow songs, for God's sake! Even our
fans fucking criticize us. We have bulletproof vests on when it comes
to criticism. To tell the truth, we feed off it.
HETFIELD: Metallica loves to be hated.
HAMMETT: Love to be hated, absolutely. Even before we were in the
band, we wew outsiders-so that mentality sits really fine with us.
PLAYBOY: Now that you're superstars-not only on MTV but also on
VH1-it's easy to forget how unpopular you were at first.
HETFIELD: When Lars and I hooked up, we liked a kind of music that
was not acceppted, especially in Los Angeles. We were fast and heavy.
Everything about LAS was short, catchy songs: Motley Crue, Ratt, Van
Halen. And you had to have the look. The only look we had was ugly.
PLAYBOY: Hey, but you were not immune to dressing LA style.
HETFIELD: We had our battles with spandex, that's for sure. You could
show off your package. "Wear spandex, dude. It gets you chicks!". On
the first tour through America, my spandex - I fucking hate saying,
"my spandex". It's a pretty evil phrase. They were wet from the night
before, and I was drying them by the heater. A big hole melted right
in the crotch. It was like, "They're like pantyhose."I just opted to
keep my jeans on, and that was the best thing that ever happened.
Lars wore spandex up through the Black Album tour; though he might
tell you different.
ULRICH: We were very much the outcasts in Los Angeles. The first year
or so, it was pretty lonely.
HETFIELD: We did some shows where if our girlfriends weren't there,
there'd be no one in the audience besides the bartender. Then a few
diehard fans would follow us around, and they became crew members.
"Maybe that guy wants to lug some gear around so I don't have to."
PLAYBOY: Where did the medieval, Dungeons-and-Dragons theme on the
early records come from?
HETFIELD: Judas Priest was a band we all dug."Oh, he writes about
that. OK, then. That's what you do to be metal." Then it got into
more, "Let's write about what we do": Whiplash, Hit the Lights and
Seek And Destroy, which was just about smashing shit up. We worked at
day jobs. After that, we'd throw parties, take the furniture out of
the house and smash the joint. We smashed dressing rooms just because
you were supposed to. Then you'd get the bill and go, "Whoa! I didn't
know Pete Townshend paid for his lamp!" Come back off the tour and
you hadn't made any money. You bought furniture for a bunch of
promoters.
HAMMETT: We would drink day in and day out and hardly come up for
air. People would be dropping like flies all around us, but we had
the tolerance built up. Our reputation started to precede us. I can't
remember the Kill 'Em All tour-we used to start drinking at three or
four in the afternoon.
HETFIELD: Smashing dressing rooms was all booze related. The worst
was A Day on the Green. A buddy and I, completely ripped on
Jagermeister, got it into our heads that the deli tray and the fruit
had to go through a little vent. "The vent is not big enough. Let's
make a hole!" The trailer was ruined. Bill Graham - R.I.P. - was the
promoter. I was summoned to his office. Like, "I have to go see the
principal now." He said, "This attitude you have, I've had the same
conversation with Sid Vicious and Keith Moon". It was like, "Cool!
Oh, wait-they're dead. Not so cool. Maybe I should get my shit
together". I realized at that point there was more to being in a band
than pissing people off and smashing shit up.
PLAYBOY: James, what did you think of Lars after that first jam
session?
HETFIELD: Lars had a pretty crappy drum kit, with one cymbal. It kept
falling over, and we'd have to stop, and he'd pick the fucking thing
up. He really was not a good drummer. To this day, he is not Drummer
of the Year. We all know that. When we were done jamming, it was,
"What the fuck was that??" We stiffed him on the bill for the studio,
too[laughs]. There were so many different things about him. His
mannerisms, his looks, his accent, his attitude, his smell. He
smelled - he smelled like Denmark, I guess. They have a different
view on bathing. We use soap in America.
ULRICH: American kids, there was this sort of compulsive thing about
four showers a day.
PLAYBOY: Well, did you wash?
ULRICH: Often enough for me. OK?
HETFIELD: We ate McDonald's - he ate herring. He was from a different
world. His father was famous. He was very well off. A rich, only
child. Spoiled-that's why he's got his mouth. He knows what he wants,
he goes for it and he's gotten it his whole life.
ULRICH: I'm an only child. I come from about as liberal an upbringing
as you can imagine. I traveled all over the world with my father. So,
yes, James Hetfield and I come from incredibly different backgrounds.
And as we grow older, we probably become more different.
HETFIELD: He introduced me to a lot of different music. I spent a lot
of my time at his house, listening to stuff. I couldn't believe the
size of his record collection - I could afford maybe one record a
week, and he would come back from the store with 20. He bought Styx
and REO Speedwagon, bands he'd heard of in Denmark. I would go, "What
the fuck? Why did you buy Styx?"
ULRICH: I have an obsessive personality. When I become interested in
something, I have to learn everything about it, whether it's Danish
chairs from the great modern era between 1950 and 1956, or
Jean-Michel Basquiat, or Oasis. When I was nine years old,it was all
about Deep Purple. I would spend all my time sitting outside their
hotel in Copenhagen, waiting for Ritchie Blackmore to come out so I
could follow him down the street.
PLAYBOY: Since you love Denmark so much, why were you in LA?
ULRICH: I finished school in Denmark and moved to America to pursue a
tennis career. We ended up in Newport Beach, which is like the
snottiest fucking area of LA apart from Beverly Hills. There's all
these kids in their fucking pink Lacoste shirts, and I'm in my Iron
Maiden T-shirts. I guess there was a hatred for all that, a bit of an
alienation. James Hetfield was the king of alienation. So there was a
bit of a brotherly thing that brought us together.
PLAYBOY: How alienated was James when you met him?
ULRICH: I'd never met anyboday that shy. He was really withdrawn,
almost afraid of social contact. He also had a bad acne problem.
HETFIELD: There wasn't much to say, I guess. When I met Lars, my
mother had just passed away. Everyone was the enemy back then. I
wasn't the best at talking - that came just from growing up in the
environment I was in, kind of alienated. I was tired of explaining my
religious situation. Once the band formed, I thought, I don't have to
talk anymore. Lars can say it all. The no one really understood what
the hell songs were about[laughs].
PLAYBOY: So, what was you religious situation?
HETFIELD: I was raised as a Christian Scientist, which is a strange
religion. The main rule is, God will fix everything. Your body is
just a shell, you don't need doctors. It was alienating and hard to
understand. I couldn't get a physical to play football. It was weird
having to leave health class during school, and all the kids saying,
"Why do you have to leave? Are you some kind of freak?". As a kid,
you want to be part of the team. They're always whispering about you
and thinking you're weird. That was very upsetting. My dad taught
Sunday school - he was into it. It was pretty much forced upon me. We
had these little testimonials, and there was a girl that had her arm
broken. She stood up and said, "I broke my arm but now, look, it's al
better." But it was just, like, mangled. Now that I think about it,
it was pretty disturbing.
PLAYBOY: Did you ever run away from home?
HETFIELD: Once, me and my sister split. Our parents caught us about
four blocks away. They spanked the shit out of us, pretty much.
PLAYBOY: So do you believe in spanking your kids?
HETFIELD: Spanking my friends, and their wives. Yeah, as a last
resort. But with the spanking comes a huge explanation why.
PLAYBOY: What was your parents' relationship like?
HETFIELD: It was my mom's second marriage - I have two older half
brothers. I didn't really see any turmoil. They didn't argue in front
of the kids. Then Dad went on a "businness trip" - for more than a
few years, you know? I was beginning junior high. It was hidden, that
he was gone. Finally, my mom said, "Dad is not coming back." And that
was pretty difficult. There were some bad times-my mom needed to be
home when we kids were home, or I'd have killed my sister. We beat
the living hell out of each other. I remember burning her with hot
oil, and that was, "Wow, it went too far". My mom worried a lot, and
that made her sick. She hid it from us. All of a sudden, she's in the
hospital. Then all of a sudden, she's gone. Cancer got here. We went
and lived with my stepbrohter Dave, who's 10 years older. My sister
was being unruly, and she got thrown out of the house. I finished
high school, then, "See ya, everybody."
HAMMETT: James comes from a broken home, and I come from a broken
home, and when I joined the band, we kind of bonded over that. I was
abused as a child. My dad drank a lot. He beat the shit out of me and
my mom quite a bit. I got ahold of a guitar, and from the time I was
15, I rarely left my room. I remember having to pull my dad off my
mom when he attacked her one time, during my 16th birthday - he
turned on me and started slapping me around. Then my dad just left
one day. My mom was struggling to support me and my sister. I've
definitely channeled a lot of anger into the music.
I was also abused by my neighbour when I was like nine or 10. The guy
was a sick fuck. He had sex with my dog, Tippy. I can laugh about it
now-hell, I was laughing about it then.
PLAYBOY: It does seem that heavy metal attracts a disproportionate
number of people who've been abused.
HAMMETT: I think heavy metal is therapeutic - it's music that blows
the tension away. I think that's why people who have had really bad
childhoods are attracted to heavy metal. It allows people to release
aggression and tension in a nonviolent way. Also, heavy metal has a
community feeling - it brings outsiders together. Heavy metal seems
to attract all sorts of scruffy,lost animals, strays no one wants.
ULRICH: I've always had issues with that, because I don't feel I had
major psychological damage in my life. Why is that limited to metal?
If you go to an Elton John concert, people have the same emotional
baggage. If you lined 10 Metallica fans up against the wall, you
would get 10 different stories.
PLAYBOY: And three of them would piss on the wall.
ULRICH: And one of them would knock his head against the wall, yeah.
I'm not so comfortable embracing those types of cliches.
PLAYBOY: At the beginning, did you consider any names other than
Metallica?
ULRICH: We had a list of 20 possible names: Nixon, Helldriver,
Blitzer. I was really keen on Thunderfuck.
PLAYBOY: When did you start to draw female fans?
HAMMETT: Girls were always at the shows. It's just that they didn't
look much different from the guys.
ULRICH: Girls would come on the bus and just blow the whole bus.
Like, "OK, here's two girls, everybody get in line." People would
say, "Eww, she just blew that other guy..."So? You don't have to put
your tongue down her throat.
HETFIELD: They enjoyed what they did. And, heh-heh, they were good at
it. Back then, we all shared stuff. "I did her. Dude, here! Have my
chick." Lars would charm them, talk his way into their pants. Kirk
had a baby face that was appealing to the girls. And Cliff - he had a
big dick. Word got around about that, I guess.
ULRICH: We used to have this thing called tough tarts - it was
fucking great. We'd come offstage and there's be like 10 naked girls
in the showers.
HAMMETT: I couldn't figure out why all of a sudden I was handsome.
Did I wake up looking different? A fat bank account will make you
look like handsome. No one had ever treated me like that before in my
life.
PLAYBOY: Who was the biggest slut in the band?
ULRICH: We all had some pretty slutty moments. I don't think there's
anybody in this band who hasn't had crabs a couple of times, or the
occasional drip-dick.
PLAYBOY: What do you remember about the night Cliff Burton died?
HETFIELD: I remember getting awakened with shit flying all over the
place. I busted out the emergency window in my underwear, 20 degrees,
and Cliff was missing. I remember seeing his legs sticking out from
under the bus. He had the whitest, skinniest legs. I knew he was gone
then. The bus was right on him. We were all in the hospital, and our
tour manager said, "Let's get the band together and go." When he said
the word band - it wasn't the right word. "Shit, we're not a band
anymore". We went to the bottle and started drinking.
HAMMETT: Cliff was a very smart guy, a reader, very eloquent. I just
don't understand why he went, and not one of us.
NEWSTED: Cliff Burton was my God. He was the guru. I mean, no one
before him and no one since him has played like that. People have
copied him, but nobody ever had his feel of his prowess.
PLAYBOY: So you were a big fan back in Arizona?
NEWSTED: Metallica was the hugest influence for my band, Flotsam and
Jetsam. We played mostly around Arizona, at clubs and for desert
parties.
PLAYBOY: What is a desert party?
NEWSTED: You borrow from your parents, put together 80 or 120 bucks,
and rent a generator for the day. Get some tables from the high
school to make a stage, and you rent a fog machine. You get some
dudes to buy a keg, and you say, "Once people come, you're going to
give us 40 bucks." You get the U-Haul stuck in the ditch, pull out
some of the tables, put them under the tires and smash 'em up to get
the truck out. The dudes that are buying the keg are already
drinking. It's one o'clock in the afternoon. They've got .44 magnums
on their sides. In Arizona, if you have your gun showing, you can
wear what you want. Drunk as fuck already, and you find out that they
robbed a Safeway last night. "Oh yeah, we're going to get money out
of these guys." Then set up and play for an hour or two and the
Scottsdale cops come out and bust everything up and that's the end of
it. I didn't make any money playing until I joined Metallica. The
most I remember making - for what we tought was a huge gig - was $26
between five of us.
PLAYBOY: Do you ever miss that?
NEWSTED: I miss being grimy. I miss the hunger. I miss the excitement
of taking off work early to set up the gear at the club. And seven
people show up but you still play like there are 700. There was a
Burger King rigt across from the main club we played - we took down a
mountain of 29-cent burgers. Happy about it! "I'm going to get a
Coke." "No, man, that's two more burgers! Fuck that! We'll steal beer
from a back room, dude." Because otherwise it'd be boiled potatoes
with ketchup stolen from Burger King.
PLAYBOY: Had you seen Metallica while Cliff was alive?
NEWSTED: Yes. In Phoenix, with Wasp, before Master Of Puppets came
out. Front row. Right in front of Cliff Burton, worshiping. Drooling.
Banging madly. Fourteen bucks for a shirt, which was all the money in
the world at that time. We only went to see Metallica. As soon as
Metallica was done, we walked out. They just crushed it, and we knew
everything they did by heart.
PLAYBOY: How did you hear he'd died?
NEWSTED: A friend woke me up at six in the morning. He said, "You've
got to get the paper, dude."I remember tears hitting the paper and
watching them soak into the print. We wore black armbands when we
played our next gigs.
PLAYBOY: After you heard Cliff was dead, how long before you started
to think, Hmm, Metallica is going to need a new bass player?
NEWSTED: I daydreamed that day. Just like, What if, what if, what if?
PLAYBOY: The brought you to San Francisco for an audition. Were you
nervous?
NEWSTED: That whole week, I didn't sleep. I might have lain down a
couple of times. For five days I stayed up and played as long as I
could. Blisters on blisters broke. When I could feel the nerve inside
as I played the string, I stopped for a little while. A couple of my
friends got together some money to pay for a $140 plane ticket to go
do my audition.
PLAYBOY: Pretty cheap that they didn't pay your airfaire. Where they
tough on the people who were auditioning?
NEWSTED: One guy comes in, he's got his bass signed by the guy from
Quiet Riot or something. And James just goes, "Next!" Like that,
before the guy even got to plug in. Guys were, like, crushed.
PLAYBOY: Tell me about the first year with them.
NEWSTED: Hazing. And a lot of emotional tests.
HETFIELD: We were mourning through anger. "You're here instead of
Cliff, so here's what you get."It was therapy for us.
NEWSTED: One time, it's four in the morning, they're hammered and
knocking on my hotel door when we were in New York. "Get up, fucker!
It's time to drink Pussy!" You know? "You're in Metallica now! You
better open that fucking door!" They kept pounding. Kaboom! The door
frame shreds, and the door comes flying in. And they go, "You should
have answered the door, bitch!" They grab the mattress and flip it
over with me on it. They put the chairs, the desk, the TV stand -
everything in the room - on top of the mattress. They threw my
clothes, my cassette tapes, my shoes out the window. Shaving cream
all over the mirrors, toothpaste everywhere. Just devastation. They
go running out the door, "Welcome to the band, dude!"
PLAYBOY: Did you know they were telling people you were gay?
NEWSTED: No. I mean, dude, there was so much, that's like a minor
detail.
PLAYBOY: Why did they do that and why did you put up with it?
NEWSTED: Because it was Metallica, it was my dream come true, man. I
was defintely frustrated, fed up and kind of feeling unliked. They
did it so see if I could handle it. If you're going to fill the shoes
of Cliff Burton, you have to be resilient.
PLAYBOY: OK,guys,who was the biggest drinker in Alcohollica?
HAMMETT: James. He would drink half a bottle of Jagermeister by
himself, as well as drinking Vodka.
ULRICH: James Hetfield. If me And James started drinking at the same
time, six hours of hard liquor later, I would be passed out. For
quite a while, he was embracing alcohol at a different level from the
rest of us.
HETFIELD: I was. I had to have a bottle of Vodka just for fun. I'm
surprised I'm still alive.
NEWSTED: That's a tough call. Fist for fist, I think Lars. He can
take it to a different place, because he's Danish. They get
conditioned real early.
ULRICH: [LAUGHS] I had much more of the binge mentality; I'd go every
night for three days, then I wouldn't touch a drop for the next four.
NEWSTED: James is the only one that ever drank so much he couldn't
show up for a rehearsal or for photos. He is the only one who ever
actually poisoned himself.
HAMMETT: Jason's not so much of a drinker as the rest of us are. He
likes to smoke pot.
PLAYBOY: People who like fast music usually like fast drugs. Did the
band get into speed?
HAMMETT: Speed is a bad word in our camp. But speed freaks love us.
ULRICH: James is the only one who never really engaged in any kind of
drug abuse. Me, Jason, Kirk and Cliff were always experimenting with
different things to a higher degree.
HAMMETT: Cocaine has definitely been in our lives. You hang out with
other musicians, and next thing you know, you have five guys crammed
into a bathroom stall. I had a bad coke problem on the And Justice
For All tour, but I pulled out of that, because it makes me
depressed, basically. I tried smack once. I was so thankfull that I
hated it.
ULRICH: I tried acid once; I was shit-fucking scared. The only drug
I've ever really engaged in is cocaine. It gave me another couple of
hours of drinking. A lot of people use it as a way to get closer to
you, and you fall for that. I go through cycles where I say, "OK,I'm
going to pull away for a while." And then I take six months away.
PLAYBOY: Jason, as time went on, did the band stop hazing you?
NEWSTED: They actually got tougher as time went on. The second and
third years were the most brutal. Instead of fraternity pranks, there
were things that cut deep and were based on disrespect.
PLAYBOY: What did they do that was disrespectful?
NEWSTED: Turning the bass down on And Justice For All. Not listening
to my ideas, musically.
PLAYBOY: Is Jason even on And Justice For All?
HETFIELD: His picture is on it [big laugh]. Someone sent me a joke
CD, with a sticker on the outside that says, "And Justice For All -
now with bass!"
ULRICH: It's the only record of ours that I'm not entirely
comfortable with. It became about ability and almost athletics,
rahter than music.
PLAYBOY: Bands are usually like families, and it sounds like this
familiy fights a whole lot.
HAMMETT: There are a lot of soap operas and petty dramas that come
with being in this band. I find myself playing referee. I've been the
buffer between James and Lars, I've been the buffer between Lars and
Jason.
HETFIELD: Lars' name keeps getting brought up, doesn't it? [laughs]
He's usually the instigator, with his mouth. He can be a real ass at
times, and pull attitudes. I punched him onstage once - probably our
third gig ever. We agreed we were going to play Let It Loose for our
encore, and he went up there and started a different song, Killing
Time, because it started with drums. I turned back: "You
motherfucker!" I couldn't remember the lyrics, it was a complete
failure.
ULRICH: I started the song I wanted to play. I don't remember why -
maybe I felt it was a more suitable encore. And then he punched me.
HETFIELD: I remember throwing him into his drum kit a couple of
times, throwing some cymbals, cutting his head open.
ULRICH: I've gotten into a couple of fights with Jason.
HAMMETT: I've never hit anyone in the band. I practice a lot of yoga
now, and read a lot of Eastern philosophy. I'm a huge believer in
karma: no meat, no beef, no swine, no fowl.
HETFIELD: I'm definitely not the smartest guy in the band, so winning
an intellectual argument is not going to happen. Resorting to
violence used to work. And intimidation.
HAMMETT: When James comes at you screaming, he can be intimidating.
PLAYBOY: A lot of things have happened to Metallica. Does that mean
the band has bad karma?
HAMMETT: Quite possibly. Goddamn it, we've been through a lot of
things. It has to be karma. I don't know if it's the energy our songs
release. People channel the energy of our music - 90 percent of the
time it's good, but maybe 10 percent of the time it's bad. I've heard
stories of skinheads listening to our music and fucking tattooing
song titles on their arms with big swastikas underneath. Maybe it's
just personal karma. Maybe the reason James has had so many accidents
is because of his own personal karma, and it affects the band.
PLAYBOY: How would you describe the change that came after And
Justice for All, starting with the Black Album?
ULRICH: The earlier records were about brute force, stuff like that.
As James became more comfortable, elements of vulnerability and
confusion came across, with less banging-on-the-chest type of stuff.
Instead of "It's fucked up and I'm going to kill everything in my
wake", it was more like, "It's fucked up and I'm really suffering
from it."
HETFIELD: On the Black Album, when I went to write lyrics, I didn't
know what the fuck to write about. I was trying to write lyrics that
the band could stand behind - but we are four completely different
individuals. So the only way to go was in.
PLAYBOY: Of all the stuff you wrote James, what was the song you most
hesitated ove recording?
HETFIELD: Nothing Else Matters. That was a huge turning point. It was
sensitive.
PLAYBOY: In theme, Nothing Else Matters is kind of like the Styx song
Babe.
HETFIELD: Fuck you. Fuck you very much [smiles]. I didn't think the
band would like it. But they were really supportive about it.
HAMMETT: All I could think of at the time was, James wrote a fucking
love song to his girlfriend? That's just weird.
NEWSTED: At first, it didn't sound very much like Metallica to me. I
like the fast heavy stuff. I don't think Metallica should do country.
We came pretty close to it on Mama Said (from Load). I don't think
that tasted very good to me.
HAMMETT: James always wants to be perveived as this guy who is very
confident and strong. And for him to write lyrics like that - showing
a sensitive side - took a lot of balls.
Lars, Jason and I were going through divorces. I was an emotional
wreck. I was trying to take those feeling of guilt and failure and
channel them into the music, to get something positive out of it.
Jason and Lars were too, and I think that has a lot to do with why
the Black Album sounds the way it does.
PLAYBOY: Before, you had been one of the more popular heavy metal
bands. But with the Black Album, you became mainstream.
NEWSTED: Once we hit MTV, better-looking girls started coming to the
shows. Just overnight.
HAMMETT: It sounds like a cliche, but girls like melody, they like
soft, pretty songs. And if that's what it took to bring them into our
little trap, more power to it.
PLAYBOY: Do you think-
HETFIELD: No. I like to not think.
PLAYBOY: Only a few albums have sold more than 10 million copies. Do
you think the Black Album is the band's best record?
HETFIELD: There are some songs on there I don't like. Through The
Never was a little wacky. Don't Tread on Me, probably not one of my
favorite songs musically. Holier Than Thou was one of the sillier
songs, more the old style of writing.
PLAYBOY: When Load came out next, you guys had short hair and were
wearing makeup and trendy clothes. It was quite a change from the
denim and mullets.
HAMMETT: It was just a phase. It was the zeitgeist of the moment. Who
knows? We might do something even more complex in the future.
PLAYBOY: Like Hetfield in a dress?
HAMMETT: I think that would be extreme [laughs].
HETFIELD: I let Lars and Kirk take over a little on the image front.
I really don't like looking at it now. Our fans go, "What happened to
Metallica, the rebel, longhair, greasy biker, fuck-you band?" Now it
was U2 or Stone Temple Pilots, or some band relying on an image. What
the fuck did we need that for? That was just stupid. Jason and I were
really not into it - Kirk and Lars were gung ho. You either laugh
about it or you get wound up. I'm doing both, actually.
PLAYBOY: You guys were kind of handsome without the mullets.
HETFIELD: Come on! Mullets rule. Dude, I wanted to have long hair and
short hair at the same time.
HAMMETT: I never had a mullet, OK?
NEWSTED: I'm not going to fess to the mullet for more than like three
months in 1987.
ULRICH: It was probably only James who had a mullet.
PLAYBOY: Well, it sure looks like a mullett you're wearing on the
inner sleeve of Garage INC., Lars. What if James grew back his
mullet?
HAMMETT: If he does, I'm going to dye my hair pink. "You can have a
funny haircut? So can I!"
PLAYBOY: James, you're progun and proenvironment. Did you vote for Al
Gore?
HETFIELD: No. I'm afraid of someone taking my guns away.
PLAYBOY: Then did you vote for Bush?
HETFIELD: No. You have to go into the city to vote. So I'm not going
to vote.
PLAYBOY: You describe drinking and performing as therapeutic. Have
you ever been in real therapy?
HETFIELD: [Nods] Around the time of Load, I felt I wanted to stop
drinking. "Maybe I'm missing out on something. Everyone else seems
so happy all the time. I want to get happy." I'd plan my life around
a hangover: "The Misfits are playing in town Friday night, so Saturday
is hangover day." I lost a lot of days in my life. Going to therapy
for a year,I learned a lot about myself. There's a lot of things that
scar you when you're growing up, you don't know why. The song
Bleeding Me is about that: I was trying to bleed out all bad, get the
evil out. While I was going through therapy, I discodfvered some ugly
stuff in there. A dark spot.
PLAYBOY: So did the biggest drinker in Alcohollica stop drinking?
HETFIELD: I took more than a year off from drinking - and the skies
didn't part. It was just life, but less fun. The evil didn't come
out. I wasn't laughing, wasn't having a good time. I realized,
drinking is a part of me. Now I know how far to go. You can't be
hungover when you got kids, man. "Dad, get the fuck off the couch!"
Well, they don't say that - yet.
PLAYBOY: Did you ever go to AA?
HETFIELD: I wouldn't say I'm an alcoholic - but then, you know,
alcoholics say they're not alcoholics.
PLAYBOY: By then, you were spending more time with your father. How
did that go?
HETFIELD: It started off really bad. Very mad at him for making the
family the way it was. It was never a real father-son kind of thing
again.
HAMMETT: James used to be a raging, out-of-control drunk, alway
fighting, always getting into trouble. He's a lot more patient now. I
think a lot of that had to do with the passing of his father [in
1996, during the Load tour]. After that, he was just a lot more
appreciative, thoughtful and compassionate.
PLAYBOY: James strikes us as kind of an enlightened redneck.
HAMMETT: I'll agree with that 100 percent. He lives a certain
lifestyle that's easy to poke fun at: He lives out in the country,
drinks a lot of beer, has a bunch of guns, goes hunting.
HETFIELD: I eat vegetables, too, man. They're just too easy to kill.
Carrots don't get a chance to run. I think animals are there for us.
We're on top of the food chain.
PLAYBOY: Maybe you should have a hunting trip with one of the bands
that supports PETA, like the Indigo Girls.
HETFIELD: Which one should I kill first? Oh, them hunting with me?
PLAYBOY: Are you uncomfortable with the degree of homophobia in
metal?
ULRICH: Totally. Ultimately, why do me and Kirk stick our tongues
down each other's throat once in a while in front of the camera? The
metal world needs to be fucked with as much as possbile. When the
band started, everybody would sit around proving their
heterosexuality by gay-bashing and stuff like that. Like, "Oh,
fucking faggot." Does that elevate you to some greater he-man status?
I never understood that.
PLAYBOY: We've heard James use the word fag jokingly. Does that mean
he's homophobic?
HAMMETT: Um, probably. James hasn't had a lot of experience with gay
people, and that's a large reason for being homophobic. He needs to
be enlightened in that area.
ULRICH: I know he's homophobic. Let there be no question about that.
I think homophobia is questioning your sexuality and not being
comfortable with it.
PLAYBOY: For the first time in years, there are a lot of metal bands
on top of the charts. Most of them are pretty bad, aren't they?
HAMMETT: There's a lot of fucking crap. A lot of regurgitated stuff,
too. That Papa Roach song (Last Resort), the main riff is from a
fucking Iron Maiden song called HAllowed By Thy Name.
HETFIELD: Limp Bizkit seems a little cartoony to me. I don't like some
guy just yelling. Like Rage Against the Machine - it wasn't
singing, it was just some guy kind of pissed off, telling you his
opinion.
HAMMETT: To me, Limp Bizkit sounds like a second-rate Korn. Korn has
a much better vocalist who is somewhat intelligent. A lot of these
bands get the right ingredidents, the right formula, and - voila -
they have a metal band. A band like Godsmack is just a cross between
Metallica and Alice in Chains, with a bit of Korn thrown in.
HETFIELD: Queens of the Stone Age is unique. This band Rocket From
the Crypy makes me feel good.
PLAYBOY: Three of you are married, two of you have kids. What has
changed?
NEWSTED: Five years ago, the band took priority over all other
things. Now, families comes first. I understand that. A family is
more important. I'm the only one who's not married, and music still
plays the biggest part in my life. I mean, Black Sabbath is my number
one band of all time, but Metallica has done more for metal.
Metallica is the biggest heavy metal band there has ever been. I want
to keep that strong. But Metallica is only one part of my musical
life, OK? Those guys will be happy taking six months away from the
music. They have other things on their minds. If I even try to go six
days without playing with somebody, I have anxiety-type things
happen.
PLAYBOY: It sounds like this sabbatical is frustrating to you.
NEWSTED: Yes. James and Lars started this thing together. They came
through all of the hardshpis. And they have serious, written-in-stone
feelings about the band, about how it needs to be run. That's very,
very hard to swallow sometimes. I guess our understanding is that we
don't want to be like other bands, where people go off and do side
projects. I have made some incredibly wonderful music with other
musicians. It would just floor people - it has floored people. But I
just can't release it.
PLAYBOY: James and Lars won't let you?
NEWSTED: It's not Lars.
HETFIELD: We just disagree about side projects. Fans have always
viewed Metallica as something they can rely on: We're always there,
always strong. We've been the same guys since day one, essentially.
The only way you can get out of this band is if you die. When you say
Metallica, you know who that is: Lars, James, Kirk and - uh, what's
that guy? Jason [laughs]. When someone does a side project it takes
away from the strength of Metallica. So there is a little ugliness
lately. And it shouldn't be discussed in the press.
NEWSTED: James Hetfield is the heart and soul and pride of Metallica,
the protector of the name. I'm not out to disrespect him.
PLAYBOY: But he could respect you by letting you release the album?
NEWSTED: We're getting really close to some things we shouldn't be
talking about. I would like him to see that this music is truly a
part of me, like his child is a part of him.
PLAYBOY: What did James say when you told him that you wanted to
release the album?
NEWSTED: I won't go there. We have to change the subject.
HETFIELD: Where would it end? Does he start touring with it? Does he
sell t-shirts? Is it his band? Thats the part I don't like. It's like
cheating on your wife in a way. Married to each other.
PLAYBOY: So what is Jason supposed to do during the hiatus?
HETFIELD: I don't fucking know. I'm not his travel agent.
HAMMETT: I just hope we can survive this in one piece without tearing
each other's fucking throats out.
PLAYBOY: Lars, do you think that Jason should be able to release his
album?
ULRICH: I wouldn't be able to look him in the eye and go, "You can't
put that record out." That's not who I am as a person. That's pretty
much all I have to say. I just can't get caught up in these
meltdowns. I've got some issues in my family life, with my wife, that
are a little more weighty than, like, whatever James Hetfield and
Jason Newsted are bickering over.
PLAYBOY: What if Jason were to put it out anyway?
HETFIELD: I don't know. I would disappoint me a lot.
PLAYBOY: How is the record?
HAMMETT: It's a great album.
ULRICH: It's a nice record, very bluesy, like a poppier version of
Stevie Ray Vaughan's stuff.
HETFIELD: It's respectable.
HAMMETT: I've spoken with Jason for hours on end. I'm upset for him.
James demands loyalty and unity, and I respect that, but I don't
think he realizes the sequence of events he's putting into play.
Jason eats, sleeps and breathes music. I think it's morally wrong to
keep someone away from what keeps him happy. That album will always
be available in some format - whether it's on Napster or in stores,
people are going to hear it.
PLAYBOY: Wouldn't it be funny if Jason released his album on Napster?
HAMMETT: It would be fucking ironic as shit.
HETFIELD: I don't mind being looked at as the asshole in the band.
Well, within the band. As long as the fans think Lars is the asshole,
that's fine [laughs].
NEWSTED: James is on quite a few records: In the South Park movie,
when Kenney goes to hell, James is singing, and he's on just about
every Corrosion of Conformity album. That's a shot at him, but I'm
going to keep it. I can't play my shit, but he can go play with other
people.
HETFIELD: My name isn't on those records. And I'm not out trying to
sell them.
PLAYBOY: You want loyalty and unity in the band, but if you're too
much of a dictator, you can end up losing band members. We've got
three words for you: Guns n' Roses.
HETFIELD: Those are three ugly words[laughs].They were a prime
example of egos out of hand. We're definitely not in a Guns n' Roses
situation. It would never get like that. I'd kill us all before that
happened.
Playboy: It's three against one here: You're the only one against
letting Jason release his record. Can this conflict be worked out?
HETFIELD: Some of us are just going to have to bend a little.
Playboy: Or bend over.
HETFIELD: My back hurts, so it won't be me.
Playboy: Do all these conflicts actually help the band?
ULRICH: You've used the word conflict a lot in the last 15 minutes.
Ultimately, we have a love and respect for each other that supersedes
the bickering. The key thing is, we're fucking still here. And we're
the only ones that are still here. For whatever conflicts you keep
talking about, we still find a way to exist as a working unit, and
pretty much at the drop of a dime go onstage and kick everybody
else's ass.
PLAYBOY: Is this just the usual tension within Metallica, or is it
worse now?
ULRICH: That's a great question. It's an interesting time to
interview the four of us separately. You're hearing people get things
off their chest - almost using you as the middleman. Like, James and
Jason won't call each other, so they're having a conversation through
you.
Playboy: You and James haven't talked, either.
ULRICH: I haven't spoken to him for a while, that's true.
HETFIELD: He hasn't called me. I'm sure he'll say I haven't called
him.
ULRICH: It's a little bit of the rock star stubbornness. Like, "He's
not calling, so I'm not going to call him. Fuck him."
HETFIELD: We both need time away; me and that fucking guy have been
togheter for 20 years, man. It's an extreme love-hate thing, you
know?
ULRICH: We've been in this scenario a hundred times before. On the
road sometimes, we don't speak to each other for a week. Me and James
Hetfield are the two most opposite people on this planet.
Playboy: Your wife, Skylar, used to date Matt Damon, and he made her
the model for the female lead in Good Will Hunting. A few years ago,
Matt described you as "a fucking rock star who's got $80 million and
his own jet - a bad rock star, too."
ULRICH: He said that before we met. And he's apologized about a
hundred times. The first five times I saw him, he would spend 10
minutes apologizing profusely. He really is a sweetheart.
Playboy: And you're an art collector, which is an unusual hobby for a
metal drummer. What schools do you collect?
ULRICH: Abstract expressionism, the Cobra movement, art brut. I own a
lot of Basquiat, a lot of Dubuffret, a lot of de Kooning. I have the
best collection of Asger Jorn on this planet. I have what is
universally considered as one of the two greatest Basquiat paintings;
I spent a year and a half chasing it down. Hanging out backstage with
Kid Rock is an amazing turn-on, no less so than sitting and staring
at my Dubuffet for an hour with a fucking gin and tonic.
Playboy: Tell us about the summer 1992 tour with Guns n' Roses, when
a pyrotechnic explosion set you on fire during a show in Montreal.
How bad were the burns?
HETFIELD: It was down to the bone. My hand looked like hamburger. No
matter how much water you poured on it, the pain came back instantly.
The most painful part was the physical therapy - they would scrape
off the skin with a tongue depressor. It was brutal. I was on pills,
too, and it still hurt like a motherfucker.
Playboy: Speaking of pain, do you ever get headaches?
HETFIELD: Are you saying it's too loud? It's got to be loud. You're
supposed to feel it all over.
Playboy: Metallica toured a lot less than usual last year.
NEWSTED: We did maybe 30 or 40 shows, and that's probably the least
we have ever done. Metallica usually does from 150 to 250 shows in a
year.
HAMMETT: I have no qualms about not doing yearlong tours anymore.
ULRICH: Ten years ago, we wanted to play as many gigs as possible and
have as much debaucherous fun as possible. Now, playing 200 shows in
North Dakota is not as stimulating as it used to be. Sometimes it's
great being onstage, and other times the show themselves become
totally mediocre and you're just sort of floating through them. The
older we get, and the shorter we tour, the better we are.
Playboy: How much longer can the band go on, given how physical the
music is?
NEWSTED: It's limited. People won't ever see me weak, won't ever see
me just standing there onstage. When the day comes that I cannot
perform, I will bow out. That's it.
HETFIELD: A gray mullet would look all right.
PLAYBOY: Are there any tricks to writing a Metallica song?
NEWSTED: About 90 percent of Metallica songs are in E minor, because
of James' vocal range is limited - although he's developed by leaps
and bounds.
PLAYBOY: Any chance Metallica will follow the rap-metal direction?
NEWSTED: No. No rap in Metallica.
ULRICH: The chances of James Hetfield going in a rap direction are
probably between zero and minus one.
PLAYBOY: From your perspective as a Metallica fan, Jason, it must be
interesting to see James continue to evolve since Nothing Else
Matters.
NEWSTED: Where there was darkness before, now theres's a lot of light,
since James' children entered the picture. The darkness will always
be there, because of the damage done, but there's a big bright spot
now.
HAMMETT: We can't sing about flowers and happy shiny days, you know?
PLAYBOY: So, James, will the next batch of songs be happy?
HETFIELD: Yeah, I'll start writing about my house and family and dog.
Look, there's always got to be some turmoil to write, and now, within
the band, there might be some pretty good fuel.
PLAYBOY: On the next record, we can expect a song called -
HETFIELD: Side Project [laughs]. There's always something that's
going to piss you off. Something you'd like to change. Something that
confuses you. All I have to do is go to San Francisco for one day - I
get pissed off enough for a week.
PLAYBOY: You're happily married, the father of two, you've been to therapy. You even wrote a love song. Can you still find the dark spot?
HETFIELD: I know it's there, and how it got there. I can visit it and
leave again. It's a dark spot you can't wash off.