Metallica Superthread -All Metallica discussion goes in here

jack presley

http://loudwire.com/metallica-lars-ulrich-frontman-black-album-best-selling-metal-album-2016/

Thank God the "Lars as singer" discussion only lasted 5 seconds and was quickly dismissed.

However what i found most interesting in the article is the amount their back catalogue still sells. The Black Album is the third highest selling rock/metal album of 2016 so far. I know there haven't been too many big releases but it's still strange to read.

...And Justice

jack presley wrote: »

http://loudwire.com/metallica-lars-ulrich-frontman-black-album-best-selling-metal-album-2016/

Thank God the "Lars as singer" discussion only lasted 5 seconds and was quickly dismissed.

However what i found most interesting in the article is the amount their back catalogue still sells. The Black Album is the third highest selling rock/metal album of 2016 so far. I know there haven't been too many big releases but it's still strange to read.

The black album sells an average of 1million copies per year.

Anesthetize

...And Justice wrote: »

The black album sells an average of 1million copies per year.

The most popular tea coaster in the world apparently

Motley Crue

...And Justice wrote: »

jack presley wrote: »

http://loudwire.com/metallica-lars-ulrich-frontman-black-album-best-selling-metal-album-2016/

Thank God the "Lars as singer" discussion only lasted 5 seconds and was quickly dismissed.

However what i found most interesting in the article is the amount their back catalogue still sells. The Black Album is the third highest selling rock/metal album of 2016 so far. I know there haven't been too many big releases but it's still strange to read.

The black album sells an average of 1million copies per year.

At this stage I genuinely don't know how, I would think a deluxe and remastered edition of this album would be good form, along with perhaps some material that they might never have released from around this period - if such a thing exists

Lithium93_

Metallica: How we made Ride The Lightning.

Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett talk us through Metallica’s classic second album, track by track

Metallica’s second album, Ride The Lightning, was released on July 27, 1984 – just a year and two days after Kill ’Em All. But the musical gulf between the two was immense. Where the debut was a blur of speed and attitude, the follow-up was the work of a band exploding with ideas and confidence. Here drummer Lars Ulrich and guitarist Kirk Hammett talk us through the album that left the thrash metal pack trailing in their wake and pointed the way towards Metallica’s glorious future.

Fight Fire With Fire
After the youthful thrash of Kill ’Em All, the opening track of Ride The Lightning was the most startling thing Metallica had recorded yet: a gentle intro gives way to a relentless sonic assault that was even faster than anything on the debut. The sound of band who knew the future would be theirs.

Kirk: The main riff was around on the Kill ’Em All tour. I remember hearing it on a riff tape, so the seeds were around even then. The acoustic intro was something that Cliff would play on the acoustic guitar all the time – and I mean all the ****ing time (laughs). We weren’t trying to provoke anybody with that intro – it was a natural thing. I didn’t see any limitations to what we wanted to do. The possibilities were sky high. And you have to understand, we were creating our own playing field here. We were going to places that no one else had gone before, and we were happy going there. It made sense to try weird new things out – why not?

Ride The Lightning
Kirk’s slicing guitar intro ushers in a stone-cold classic Metalli-riff in this tale of a death row inmate facing the long walk to the electric chair. The first of many Metallica songs to tackle the big topics: death, claustrophobia and the inescapable hand of fate.

Lars: Ride The Lightning is a song about being trapped in a situation you can’t get out of. Big Brother, The Man, fear and manipulation. Those sort of things became the lyrical tentpoles over the next couple of records.

Kirk: I was the one who spotted the phrase ‘Ride the lightning’. It was when we were recording the first album, when we were staying the house of this guy named Gary Zefting. I was reading the book The Stand by Stephen King, waiting to do my parts, and I read that phrase. It stuck in my head, so I wrote it down and told James. He was, like, ‘Whoah, cool…’

For Whom The Bell Tolls
In which Metallica showed they were capable of more than just heads-down thrashing: a sweeping mini-epic that was loosely inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War novel of the same name. That immortal intro is actually built around a Cliff Burton bass part…

Lars: We often use For Whom The Bell Tolls as a reference point for chasing simplicity. Which we never seem to be able to do any more (laughs).

Kirk: That was a key song for us. Again, that intro was a Cliff thing – he’d play it all the time, and the rest of would stiffen up and go, ‘What the heck was that?’ That was completely his own creation - it's just this weird chromatic thing, the note choice. It's just highly unconventional even to this day. Did anyone ask us to make the intro shorter? No, we were all 100 per cent committed to every single note, every single beat.

Fade To Black
The album’s big left-turn – a brooding semi-acoustic ballad. At the time, thrash purists screamed “sell-out!”

Lars: Everybody seemed to be caught off-guard by the fact we'd done it. We surprised everyone but ourselves. You can hear that the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal inspired the first record. But if you step back further than that, you get to Deep Purple’s Child In Time and Judas Priest’s Beyond The Realms Of Death, even Stairway To Heaven – those big, brooding, epic songs. That kind of song was always in the background for us – we knew in our hearts that was part of the Metallica sound, but we just didn’t have the skill or finesse to tackle it on Kill ’Em All. By the time Cliff and Kirk had come onboard, we felt we had the ability to go down that path.

Why did people react to it the way they did at the time?

Lars: Probably because there was a group of people who had a different view of what Metallica was – that we were a lot more of a one-dimensional entity. Often I feel like there’s two Metallicas. There's the Metallica I live and breathe every day, and then there’s the Metallica I read about. Those are often two contradictory thing. The things that people get caught off-guard about are completely normal in my mind, but maybe we don’t do a good enough job of explaining them.

Trapped Under Ice
Like the title track, it featured ideas Kirk Hammett brought along from his old band, Exodus – in this case the riff in the verse is based around that band’s then-unreleased song Impaler.

Kirk: They came from songs I had written, music I had written. I consider them my parts. I didn’t feel guilty about that, but I did feel guilty about leaving the band I started in high school. I've known Exodus drummer Tom Hunting since I was 16 years old, I've known Exodus guitarist Gary Holt since I was 17. We're all close to this day, but there was a lot of guilt there for a while. A little bit of remorse. But I really felt that Metallica was my calling. I felt more comfortable playing in Metallica than I ever did in Exodus, so go figure.

Escape
Metallica’s attempt to write a hit single. Nowhere near as bad as its reputation suggests.

Lars: It’s become this folklore that I hate Escape. It’s not true! It was the last song that was written for the Ride The Lightning sessions, and it was purposely kept a little shorter than the other songs. We thought of it in the spirit of Iron Maiden’s Run To the Hill or Judas Priest’s Living After Midnight – dare I use the words ‘radio songs’? So instead of turning it into an eight minute Seek And Destroy type of thing, we kept it on the short side. Then it got a bad rap, and I don’t know why. I don’t have a particular problem with it, but it never became a live staple like the other songs on the record. It just goes to show that you’re better off not trying to do things on purpose.

Creeping Death
If Metallica have a signature song, it’s this quasi-biblical epic, complete with the immortal ‘Die by my hand!’ refrain. A staple of the band’s live set for the last three decades.

Lars: Musically it was one of those songs that came quickly, and then became its own thing just as quickly. Lyrically, when I was a kid I was obsessed with the movie The Ten Commandments, with Charlton Heston. We didn't have a VCR, so James and I went down to Cliff's parents house with The Ten Commandments, and we sat and watched the movie. There's a scene where Moses goes back to try and get his people out of Egypt, and when the Pharaoh reneges on that, the firstborn must die. Then this fog appears out of the moon and comes down and starts creeping across the ground, smoke machine-style, and everybody who's caught in it falls over and dies on the spot. That’s where the words ‘Creeping Death’ come from. If you watch The Ten Commandments and read the lyrics, there's definitely a… how can I put this… similarity.

The Call Of Ktulu
The album’s grand finale picked up where Kill ’Em All’s Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth) left off: an epic instrumental that showcased the supreme confidence of a band who had truly found themselves.

Kirk: That’s another song I remember hearing on the Kill ’Em All tour. Was their any resistance to playing something as complex as this? No. We were getting better as musicians, getting better playing with each other. I think the infusion of new blood - Cliff and I - probably helped. It was inspiring for the other two guys. Everyone was had respect for each other, we were moving forward, we could see it happening in front of our eyes. It was a time of discovery. We were doing things that sounded like they came from us. On a real gut level, we knew what was right for us and we knew what wasn't, what was working and what wasn't.

Lithium93_

Lars Ulrich says Metallica will decide 10th album title and tracklist in June

http://teamrock.com/news/2016-05-28/metallica-album-will-be-done-this-summer

Album #10 is finally, finally coming closer to fruition.

scudzilla

My guess on album title........'X'

zcorpian88

scudzilla wrote: »

My guess on album title........'X'

Yeah it'll be something "10" related because 10 sounds official and important and it must make a statement. Looking forward to the next bit of news later in the month.

Hal1

'Magneto of death' and the european tour 2017 or something.

zcorpian88

Hal1 wrote: »

'Magneto of death' and the european tour 2017 or something.

"Preceding Death" they should call it, going by how long it takes them to get an album out I wouldn't be surprised if ended up their last!

...And Justice

Master of justice
Ride the puppets
Justice of puppets
Kill the lightning
Blow me load
Blow me load again
Magnetic justice of lightning
Kill em lightning bastards

Hal1

You forgot 'no life till leather'. Even if it was a demo .

hidinginthebush

Just found this randomly on spotify. It's from a compilation album of those Bridge School Benefit concerts. I though I'd heard all the songs from this, anyhoo... here's Disposable Heroes done acoustically. Definitely different!

https://play.spotify.com/track/40rWYHjkAyzpWkRsYXBAMW

Sorry about the only spotify link in advance.

AllGunsBlazing

...And Justice wrote: »

Blow me load again

Proper lol'd at that one.:D

Lithium93_

The new album is going through the mixing stages.

The band hasn’t talked a lot about Load or Reload in recent years. It has come up in interviews from time to time but how often have they taken a look back at that period of time? I managed to corner Lars and James at HQ before they locked themselves in the control room with Greg Fidelman to start mixing the new album. As Lars told me, he’s always down to give Load some love and both he and James were happy to sit down for a loose conversation about that period of time.

Let’s begin…

Lithium93_

The So What interview Lars & James did.. Long read ahead.

So here we are in 2016. It’s the 30th Anniversary of Master of Puppets and the 25th Anniversary of The Black Album. But I’m sure you’ve had enough about talking about those records. Let’s talk about an album that doesn’t get a whole lot of love. Load. It’s 20 years old and, ****… I guess that means I’m old!

JH: Wait, it’s been 20 years since Load?

LU: Yeah, it came out in June—

Yep – June 4, 1996

JH: And still nobody likes it! *laughs* There’s a Load generation…

There is. There definitely is. Load came out when I was in high school. It was my first big memory of being a Metallica fan – I had never been a part of a new album release before. I bought The Black Album in February 1992 and Binge & Purge on the day it came out, but I followed the making of Load from the second you guys started writing it. The record came out, I saw Lollapalooza that summer, bought the t-shirts, proudly waved the Metallica flag. I genuinely liked the record. So I go back to school after summer break. I walked into my first class proudly wearing whatever tour shirt I bought over the summer. The girl I had a crush on throughout all of high school – who I had never talked to – looks at me. She’s like, “Hey Dan!” The world stopped for a minute. Holy **** – she’s talking to me. “That new Metallica album sucks!”

*laughter*

JH: So we ruined your sex life, huh?

Yes. Yes you did. *laughs* Ok, now with that story out of the way, let’s get goin’. My memories going back to the mid-90s, especially now that hindsight’s kind of 20/20, I always viewed Load as your way of saying “**** you” to everybody. After the success of The Black Album, you basically had a huge crowd of people telling you what to do. Instead of going and making The Black Album II or Master of Puppets II you chose to go down the path that brought us Load. When it came time to start writing, where were your heads at?

LU: The only thing that I vividly remember was sort of what you said. The relationship with Bob Rock during The Black Album was really rocky. It wasn’t great and it didn’t end on a great note. When we parted ways after The Black Album there was no, to my recollection, no kind of thought or vibes or anything about working together ever again. We went through a year of hell with this guy and we sort of all barely survived. We made a great record but there was a lot of carnage left in the wake.

So we went away and then did the touring for a couple years and when we started thinking about it again, it wasn’t like, you know, Bob’s just gonna pick up where we left off. I mean there was none of that. When we started writing and sort of getting back together after the Summer **** tour. It wasn’t like Bob was like a part of the team or anything like that. So Bob’s involvement came much later after we sort of spent some time mending the relationship.

I remember having a conversation where we basically sat there and said, “We can’t copy The Black Album. I mean, we can’t just do The Black Album II,” like you were saying. But I don’t recall there being a kind of a mission statement about what it should be instead. I just remember sitting there going, “We’re not gonna do The Black Album again,” but it wasn’t like, “We’re gonna do this instead.”

There still was a fairly organic element to the songwriting when James and I started in the fall of ’94. We initially started up at my house. I had built a little studio up there. A little later we started splitting between my house and James’ house. When we initially started up at my house there wasn’t a particular this is what we’re doing. I remember the first song that we were writing was what turned into “Bad Seed.”

“Bastard.”

LU: Yes! “Bastard!” But I remember we were sitting up in my house and we just started, literally there were tons of riffs, but there wasn’t a particular mission statement. We just started going through them and—

You just started jamming.

LU: Yeah. You know, finding the best riffs. It felt like a lot of it that we liked were kind of blues based and very kind of melodic riffs but there wasn’t a particular mission statement, at least not to my recollection. I just remember like, I remember we started without Bob and it was kind of like, as long as we just don’t do an album that was just a watered down version of the big one.

JH: Like you said, hindsight 20/20. History makes sense after it’s happened, you know? You’re not out to do something on purpose and, well, some people are, or not. Because every time we’ve tried to do something on purpose, it ends up either feeling or looking contrived, or it ends up being something else. You know, you can’t control that so much, especially, you know, the art part of this. It just happens.

Art just kind of flows. If you are trying to do something specific it can totally look or sound contrived.

JH: I mean it’s life, dude. You know, it’s not like here’s the point in our life where we did this. You know. Here’s where we turned and said, “**** you, we’re cutting our hair. **** you heavy metal! You can’t even tell us what to do!” That’s what it seems like now, but then, we’re just doing the next right thing.

So you started at Lars’ house and worked on a ton of demos—

JH: I think it was two tons.

I’ve seen the shelves in Lars’ vault. Now granted, those were mostly DAT tapes from The Plant, but there’s like five shelves of Shadowcast DAT tapes.

LU: Was Shadowcast the code name for that one?

Yeah – that’s sure what it looked like.

LU: I think this was the last time we used the little Fostex four-track. We were still doing the cassette tape thing. James would come over. It was pre-kids, so my recollection is you’d sorta come over in the afternoon and then we would kinda grind away. This was the first time we spent a significant time apart. We finished The Black Album tour in the summer of ’93 and we spent almost a whole year apart.

Right. You guys got together and did the box set, The Plant…

LU: Yeah, we mixed the Live **** box set but we weren’t sort of working-working, you know. Then we went out and did the the summer tour, which was a lot of fun. I mean I remember that tour—

It was the first time I saw you guys.

LU: Yeah. I remember that tour. That was like, I just remember we did no interviews. There was no agenda. There was no big promotional angle or any kind of, it was literally like, it was almost like a victory lap. It was like, it was just like, “Hey! Here we are.” Then we come back and we had good vibes kind of going into the writing. And I remember, I still hadn’t seen maybe James two or three months after the end of that tour and then he came over and he discovered something new called Bombay Sapphire.

Ooh. That’s when the martinis started, huh?

LU: Yeah – he brought over this blue bottle. It was just James and me in my new house and it was like okay, off to the bar and then start writing. It was kind of the last record that wasn’t made at nine in the morning.

We went and chipped away at it. We’d write a song, put it down on Fostex, then James would do the nah-nah vocals and, I mean, it was all that stuff. We just kept churning away and then after a few months, *looking at James* your studio up at your joint got done and then we would sort of just go back and forth and do like a couple weeks at his pad and a couple weeks at my pad. It was just James and I. I mean Kirk and Jason weren’t really a part of it, at least at first.

Did you walk into it with kind of the intention of, “Hey, let’s do a double record?”

LU: No.

So you wound up at the Plant. You had first recorded there in ’84 when you did “Am I Evil?” and “Blitzkrieg” and then mixed Live **** there. What drew you back? Was it was just the vibe?

JH: It was close.

Yeah, it was close. You guys didn’t have to go to LA.

JH: We didn’t have to, yeah, go to LA or go over into the East Bay. It was close. And we knew them there, and we, it’s like we kinda became the house band there. We just kinda took over and it was always great to just walk in and be like, “Hey, we’re back!” you know? It’s in our back yard so it just felt comfortable.

LU: I think also we cut some sort of deal with him or did something where, didn’t they rebuild like a couple lounges and they—

JH: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

LU: They did some stuff for us. I think they, didn’t they even like expand the big room, or—?

JH: Yeah. They raised the roof on the big room. Because we wanted a bigger room for drum sounds and they didn’t have a big room, so they said, “Hey, if you’re willing to do the next record here we’re willing to do this for you.” They improved the lounges. You know, got rid of the Sly and the Family Stone hot tub and all that stuff that wasn’t really used and took up some of the outside area. They made the lounge bigger and you know, we were, it’s like we’d been in the studio so much we knew what we kinda wanted. We want a bigger control room, we want a taller roof for the drums, and we want a lounge, a hang. So, because we were spending a lot of time there. And they were willing to do it, which was great.

LU: Because it was the first record, I think the common sense around the camp was that we were starting to root and Marin County was where we were rooting. Nobody seemed particularly interested to travel back to LA or go anyplace else. Obviously history showed you that we ended up making four records in a row there for the next, you know, four or five years. We sort of took the whole place over. I mean like especially on Reload I think it got really nutty. We had all four rooms. I mean it basically became, I mean almost like HQ in some way but—

When you moved in and started recording, you didn’t stop writing. You kept writing off the floor. I’m thinking of “Until It Sleeps” in particular because that came from there, as far as I know.

JH: Yeah.

LU: Yeah, I think that was the only one.

Was it? Okay.

LU: I don’t remember. I think we just wanted like one more short, simple song. That was written at The Plant?

JH: Yeah, I remember it. Right on the floor. I mean there was, yeah, the Bombay sessions. We just go. Yeah. That was, I think, one of the first times we actually used Bob as a producer. In the past, obviously we’d have some songs written. We’d say, “Here, what do you think of that?” and then he’d be like, “Oh, ‘Sad But True’ is the next ‘Kashmir.’”

And writing “Until It Sleeps” was, “Hey, we need this,” and he’d say, “Well, let’s try something.” And I’d just start fiddling around and you know, we all go through our phases musically of what we’re listening to and it was my Chris Isaak phase and you know, all of a sudden that came up and Bob was actually helping us run with that, you know? “Hey, how about this?” and “Let’s try that.” So I vividly remember, I mean I can close my eyes and be right there, you know, sitting there and there’s the control room and—

LU: You’re talking about “Until It Sleeps?”

JH: Yeah, um hum. So that’s one of the things I remember about that.

LU: I can, since obviously this is only going out on Metallica media, I would never say this in a real interview. But wasn’t the title “F.O.B.D.?”

Yep – that’s it.

LU: Yeah, do you know what that’s short for?

It’s funny you ask. I have two answers.

LU: Okay, let’s see if you win the—

I have “Fell on Black Days” and I have “**** Off Brian Dobbs.” (Brian was an engineer on the album - ED)

JH: Hm. Brian Dobbs, young ****.

LU: I think both of those are worthy contenders. So since this is not a real interview, then I will say that you know, the first answer wins the prize. Because there was, Soundgarden’s—

Superunknown.

Yeah, Superunknown was like the big record at the time and I just remember sitting around, I mean just like The Black Album was on MTV, it was just blaring constantly in the control room and I remember that we felt that their songs were – there was something like super-concise about them. I remember having this conversation about how the kind of the dynamic between the verses and the chorus musically remained kind of the same and the main thing that was changing as it was moving along was the vocals. That was kind of different than how we wrote. We had a tendency to write very dynamically… like the verse is like this and the bridge is like this and the chorus is like this, and then, you know, drum beats changing and key changing and all this type of stuff and there was a kind of a linearity to some of those Soundgarden songs that we found really unusual. So we were kind of inspired, I wasn’t quite aware of the Chris Isaak thing but I pretty clearly remember the “Fell on Black Days” linear thing that was happening.

What else was influencing you? Alice in Chains was also really big at the time – and I hear a lot of Alice in “The House Jack Built.” Corrosion of Conformity had Deliverance which I’ve always heard throughout Load and Reload. Then there’s Kyuss—

JH: It is, it’s just a cover record. Soundgarden, C.O.C. Chris Isaak.

LU: Good thing this is not a real interview! *laughs*

I know, right?!

JH: No, you’re right. You get influenced by stuff you like. I mean not so much influenced but you digest the stuff that you like. What band doesn’t want to play music that they like?

Absolutely.

JH: And you know, maybe, mix in a little psychology here that musicians tend to be a little insecure so when they hear something they really like they want to do it better. The competitive insecurity is part of the digestion of what’s out there and, I think, in some of the songs trying, singing along with the guitar thing. Bob was really pushing me to expand and go out a little farther vocally. You know, take some risks artistically.

Now “Jack” has always been one of my favorite songs. Obviously never played live. Might not be able to be played live.

LU: That’s not true. We played it in Austria.

Jeff Yeager (Metallica.com Webmaster): No.

JH: We played it at sound check a bunch.

JY: Sound check, yes. We’ve argued about this before.

LU: What was the song that we played for the first two or three shows and then sacked? Do you have the actual set list?

JY: I don’t have the actual set list. I have what’s on the website.

LU: Nobody has a video or audio of Vienna?

JY: I think there’re bootlegs of Vienna.

LU: Bet you it was played. I’ll bet you.

JH: Well, I vividly remember playing it at sound check.

Were you gonna bring the talk box out?

JH: Yeah.

No way!

JH: I know we did it at sound check. I remember having, you know, visions. When you’re in the studio you’re like, “Oh, wow, the talk box, that’s really cool! Man, we gotta get one for tour” and Zach [Harmon – Equipment Manager] loves that stuff. He goes insane and starts building stuff and then we end up not doing the song. It’s one of those “ah ****” moments. It’s like you try and be unique and then stuff just doesn’t end up fitting in the set. Simple as that. Or just isn’t a good live song. There’s so many factors that play into that decision.

Right. I was thinking that maybe it didn’t work live. Now, you played “Ain’t My Bitch” and you played “Hero of the Day” a lot through those tours…

LU: We played “Hero” subsequently after it was released. We didn’t play “Hero” out of the gate.

Right. I think I saw the second or third time you guys played “Hero” in Chicago.

LU: I remember there was one show where our lighting designer talked us into opening with “Overkill.” We were trying. I mean it was the beginning of the seed that eventually came to fruition on the St. Anger tour which was to change the set list every night. And I remember the conversations used to be that if we change the set list then they’re gonna have to re-program the lights and it was like we were still sort of held captive by the production in a way. We’d do production rehearsals and do this, and then you know, the two stages and then this happens and the ****ing cranes and lighting rigs and all that type of stuff, it was very orchestrated. There was very little room for changes. I remember on the places we played doubles, we used to do the “Kill/Ride Medley,” right? And then at that time “Seek & Destroy” wasn’t even a staple in our set every night. We would alternate a “Kill/Ride Medley” with “Seek & Destroy” in the places where we played doubles.

Right. And then you had a tail of “Fight Fire with Fire” at the end so that then you could still use your pyro.

LU: Right. And then I think we would play, when we came out and did the light bulb things we would play one or two different cover songs at that time. Other than that it was quite orchestrated. I do think that, was it “Fuel?” Didn’t we occasionally play “Fuel” even before it came out?

Yeah. “Fuel” and “Devil’s Dance.”

LU: Yeah, because we played “Devil’s Dance” at Donington in ’95.

JH: Yeah, it’s true. The songs were like the soundtrack for the stage. We are the artists, yeah, but –

LU: It was almost more like theater. I do remember our lighting designer John Broderick who not only was instrumental in all our great stage designs, he was a significant part of all that stuff, but he was also somebody that all of us in the band were very close to. He would travel with the band a lot and would kinda hang out. I just remember there was a lot of kind of talk about how we could change up the set list without all the issues of reprogramming lights and ****. Because I mean we were really grinding on that tour. There was a kind of a doctrine at the time, one of Mensch’s things was that if you had a really big record, the tour after the really big record would be really big. So it was almost like all the success of The Black Album, in terms of on the touring side, showed up on the Load tour where we ended up playing like multiple ****ing dates like everywhere. Do you know what I mean, I just remember that ****ing tour went on forever.

Yeah. A, B, and C markets. Two, three shows.

LU: And then all of a sudden somebody says open with “Overkill” which seemed like a good idea at the time.

Speaking of live songs, what happened to “Ain’t My Bitch?” It dropped off the set in ’98 and it’s never been seen since.

LU: I’m not sure there’s a cosmic reason. I certainly don’t remember there being a particular reason—

—where you said “never again!”

LU: It was none of that. I mean you ask an interesting question. I think that obviously the rest of that decade kind of played itself out with, you know, all the cover stuff and all the symphony stuff and whatever. By the time the St. Anger thing started, because we had ignored such a significant portion of the early records up through the ‘90s we went really deep into the early records again and the “No Remorse”s and all that kinda stuff. It just felt like a lot of the stuff from the Load & Reload just got pushed to the side because we played a lot of that stuff so much up through the end of the ‘90s and it was time to, in some weird way, embrace the early records again after kind of ignoring them for so long.

Thinking back, I think it was on the run we did with Kid Rock, the New Year’s Eve run where we actually played “Trapped Under Ice?” And it was like people were going, “Oh my God! They played a deep cut from Ride the Lightning!” People were ****ing freaking out. I mean now we just cycle through all those songs. It’s not a huge thing. But at that time, you know, the early records had been kind of pushed aside for the better part of a decade.

It’s kind of funny how it’s come full circle. Now you break out something like “The Unforgiven II,” a song that you had rarely played, and people are freaking out the same way. So you know, I think people just crave what they don’t hear.

So – moving back to the music, I’ve got a list of working titles here —

LU: What were some of the other ones. *looking at James* Do you remember some of them?

JH: I don’t remember working titles.

LU: “2 X 4.” “2 X 4” was a working title.

“2 X 4” was “2 X 4.”

LU: It ended up being the name of the song.

How about “NC-17?”

LU: Wait, wait. “NC-17” was the one with the tom verse… the “Forgive me father for I have sinned” —

Yeah. “Thorn Within.”

LU: Try me, come on.

All right – here’s an easy one… “Mouldy.”

LU: That was, that’s the single – “Hero of the Day.”

How about “Boss?”

LU: Wait, was “Boss” “Memory?” No, no, not “Memory.” “Bleeding Me.”

“Streamline.”

LU: “Streamline” is “Bad Seed?” No, wait, wait, no… “Wasting My Hate.”

“Dusty.”

LU: “Dusty” was the ZZ Top song…

Yeah – “Poor Twisted Me.”

LU: That was it.

Now for a couple off Reload – “Skimpy.”

LU: “Skimpy.” Oh, that’s “Carpe Diem Baby.”

How about “Fishtank?”

LU: That’s the “Creeping Death” one? There was something about the kids in the playground.

Yeah, yeah – “Prince Charming.”

LU: That’s it.

Back to the record. You wrap it up. You have no title, you have no art, and all of a sudden Kirk turns you on to Andreas Serrano. Do you remember when you guys decided that you wanted to go in that direction, visually – kind of the Achtung Baby vibe with Anton Corbijn—

LU: The point of origin was that, you know… no disrespect to the Ross Halfins of the world but we continued to try to reinvent the wheel a little bit or to bring fresh blood in. And so at that time in rock—

JH: Fresh blood.

LU: At that time in rock, Anton was just, he was kind of the number one guy. I mean, he also shot Bon Jovi. Obviously he was the big Depeche Mode guy and you know, so it wasn’t like let’s bring Anton in so we can take some crazy pictures. We were looking for a fresh eye. A fresh perspective. And then he caught us kind of at a time where we were sort of somewhat game for some different things.

And then the whole thing with the haircuts and all that which was obviously nonsense because you know, Jason cut his hair on The Black Album tour. I remember when he showed up in my hotel room in New York when we were on the road in ’93. But it was all that stuff that just kind of morphed into what it became, and I mean we talked about that a thousand times but we didn’t want to be boxed in and we didn’t want to be repeating what we did. And with this stuff, like it was on The Black Album, we wanted it to be abstract. Let it be mysterious. Let people do with it what they want. You know what I mean. We felt so free. It had been five years and there was this whole thing about feeling, you know. It was like the success of The Black Album had afforded us, not necessary financially, but it just afforded us— I guess kind of circling back to what you said about the big, not necessarily like “**** you” but it was just like we can go here, we can go there, we can go here. We can do this. It was about the possibilities. Do you know what I mean? And that was kind of fun.

You don’t have to parade out there in a Motörhead shirt and a bullet belt all the time.

LU: Exactly, yeah. And that, you know, felt really invigorating and fun, you know?

So James – how fun were the photos?

JH: Honestly, that was a time in my life where I was, you know, just backing off a little bit. I was trying to let things happen and I backed off quite a bit. Obviously the art and the photo shoot and the cover, for sure. I was tired of fighting. So I just kinda let it happen. That’s Lars and Kirk definitely running with Metallica right there, and that’s what it ended up as.

How about the change in the logo?

JH: That was another thing that I was not into, but tried to make the best of, you know? It just seemed like everyone wanted it to be a little more slick, a little more simple… easy to fit on posters or whatever and that’s what came up.

Was that something that Andie Airfix came up with?

LU: I don’t have a recollection of that. I mean it…I’m sure it was Andie. I don’t think there was anybody else involved. But again, we were just looking at different things. I just remember feeling that it was, I mean for example, Kirk coming in and playing rhythm guitar. There was this whole thing about exploring what all the possibilities could be and where it could go and I think at that time there, at least for a few of us, there was no line in the sand. It was a time of exploration.

Were you guys bummed out by the blowback from the some of the fan base?

LU: I was surprised. Obviously at that time there was no internet the way we know it now—

Oh man, could you imagine?!

LU: The whole thing, to my recollection, was literally about the haircuts. And then I just remember hearing myself say like 5,000 times, “Jason cut his hair in ’93.” It wasn’t like we called up like the local San Rafael barbershop. “Can we get a four for one, please? You know, in and out in an hour, four guys, fifteen minutes each.” I remember that became one of the standard answers or whatever in the press tours. You’re in the 23rd German interview of the day and they ask, “Why did you all get into haircuts at the same time?”

Metallica who was just always about being yourself, too. Just do whatever you do and don’t let anyone push you around. And then all of a sudden people are saying, “**** you! You didn’t do what I wanted you to do!” I’ve always thought that was bull****.

JH: That’s where I got on board more with this. Isn’t it about what we stand for, isn’t this about what you can do as an artist? You can’t do art wrong. You might not agree with it but like this or not, it’s what we chose to do. If you don’t like the ****ing haircut don’t look at the picture.

That’s when I realized that it’s okay to be a rebel if you’re doing what the other rebels want you to do. You can’t be a rebel within the rebels because then it blows their mind. You think individually and you stand up for what you believe in then you get criticized for it. I found it ridiculous that people were focusing on a look when that took away from the music. That bothered me the most.

Metallica doesn’t need a look but I guess when you don’t have a look, it’s a look, you know? Your non-look becomes a look, so when you change your look it’s a look. There was so much talked about around that [issue that] nobody even cared so much about the songs. Maybe you did. But what I realized, and I think it’s really great, that Metallica’s history, all of the albums are just, it’s life. This is our life—

— In songs.

JH: In songs, in everything. People join in when it’s their time. So when people, you know, say, “Hey, Load’s my favorite record,” I’m super grateful for that, because that’s what got them into it. So for us, this is like in the middle of it all but there’s always a beginning for somebody. And then there’s always an end… and this was the end for a lot of people too.

LU: Very poetic. Wow.

JH: I should write lyrics.

As I’ve been working on the reissues, I’ve been listening to a lot of the interviews from Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets; it’s funny how you’re talking about not having a look is a look. Because, even back then, you guys were frequently asked about what you used to wear in 1986. It’s like well, “I’m just wearing what I feel is comfortable.” And it is literally always been part of the conversation. Because you know, again, the focus should be on the music, not “I’m wearing a Misfits shirt and haven’t changed my jeans in three weeks. Who gives a ****? So, in retrospect, nothing has really changed at all.

JH: We don’t want to be in a box.

LU: I mean it’s hard doing interviews about Kill ‘Em All and Ride the Lightning in abundance, two or three months ago. You’re kinda sitting there, you got one foot in the new record and you’re sitting in there thinking about the future and then you’re thinking about what you had for breakfast in 1983. You know, “What were you thinking on the day you cut ‘No Remorse’?” And people ask what were you thinking when you did this, what were you thinking when you did that? It’s like I can’t remember what I was thinking yesterday. So you’re trying to put all this stuff into context or whatever.

Then people sit there and say, “Twelve years ago you said this and now you’re saying this.” Huh? What? I try to give you my truth in every moment to the best of my ability but I do ****ing reserve the right to change my mind at any given time because it’s my life, end of story. So you can do what you want in your life, I’ll choose to do what I want in my life, and let’s just say that as the ****ing ground rule. Okay, so if I want to ****ing stand on my head or do this or whatever and then a year later go, “It’s really stupid to stand on your head,” oh, there you go… you got me. Okay? I contradicted myself.

The idea of being pigeonholed was really something that I felt, or have felt over the course of my life and needed to break free from. Because it really just makes me feel like other people are dictating my life and what I should do and how I should do it. Do you know what I mean?

Absolutely.

LU: And that’s something I think all of us can relate to at some level at different points in our lives. If you’re gonna go slightly deeper into the psychology behind some of this, when you’re four nineteen-year-old dudes living in the same ****ing room together, eating and breathing and sleeping and doing all the same things. It’s a lot easier, it’s often less complicated to stay on the same path when you’re like this all the time. Now it’s, you know, fifteen – twenty years later and one guy’s over here and the other guy is over there, and the other guy’s got a house there and some guy goes to, you know, India for six months or whatever happens, do you know what I mean? All of a sudden then you come back and it’s like, well, one guy’s into this, one guy’s into that. As people get older and you start kinda getting away from that gang mentality from when you’re nineteen. Then you still have to sit there and sort of like answer, well, ten years ago you said this. It’s like, well, guess what? I ****ing change. Okay, so there you go.

That’s part of the issues that I’ve had with hard rock in general, is that there’s this thing that I don’t see in other music genres. But in hard rock, if you do it one particular way, then you’re supposed to do it that particular way forever. And, just for myself and the way I view everything around me, that’s not what I signed up for. Do you know what I mean? And that can create some friction with the people at the other end. But I think we’ve tried to do the best we can to be eloquent about that, and I think, I’ve always heard myself say a version of that.

It’s true. I can’t tell you how much I’ve heard listening to an interview from ’86, that I’ve heard in an interview from ’96, that I’ve heard in an interview from 2006. I mean, at the core, you really haven’t changed at all.

JH: That’s the one consistent thing. I love what he’s saying. I mean it’s so true that, not just in music but in life in general. This is called life. I mean, we’re evolving. We’re trying stuff and if it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work, and you go on to the next thing, and in this day and age now, you hear that somebody got busted for this and it’s all forgotten a week later. It’s interesting to hear… people just get so solidified in their opinion about something that they’re not even open enough to listen to it again and rediscover something, or you know, things that are, like you say in this type of music it’s like people don’t want to forget certain things, you know?

Well guys, thank you so much for sitting down to chat. I know it wasn’t a typical interview – I was more interested in just having a conversation. Before I let you go back into the control room, I have one last question… and it’s an important one.

Where do you keep your Grammy for “Better Than You?”

LU: We won a Grammy for “Better Than You.” *laughs*

JH: That’s an odd one, isn’t it?

Some fans that I know literally call the song “Grammy Award Winning Better Than You™” complete with the little trademark symbol. They get a little silly with it.

LU: If we ever play it again maybe James can introduce it that way.

JH: Well, when we re-release this, yeah. Or Reload. It’ll change. I just noticed it wasn’t on Load.

That’s all right. We won’t tell anybody.

JH: I’m consistent with that, too. *laughs*

…and with that, our conversation wrapped up. As deep as I wanted to go into some of the nitty gritty about recording and personal views on songs, we’ll have to save that for another time.

zcorpian88

Just noticed that 10 years ago today was the first time I saw Metallica live and my first concert in general, June 11th 2006 at the RDS in Dublin. Was a great show.

Master of Puppets in it's entirety, Hetfield brought his daughter onto the stage for the crowd to sing happy birthday to her.

And also Hetfield slipping onstage and almost falling over while running back to the mic during Leper Messiah.

Still have my ticket stub and a t-shirt from the concert.

Who else was there?

Hal1

I was meant to go to that :mad:. I first seen them at the point in '91 or was it '92 wherever I may roam tour, then again in '06 I think with slipknot as support. Crazy fkrs .

zzfh

zcorpian88 wrote: »

Just noticed that 10 years ago today was the first time I saw Metallica live and my first concert in general, June 11th 2006 at the RDS in Dublin. Was a great show.

Master of Puppets in it's entirety, Hetfield brought his daughter onto the stage for the crowd to sing happy birthday to her.

And also Hetfield slipping onstage and almost falling over while running back to the mic during Leper Messiah.

Still have my ticket stub and a t-shirt from the concert.

Who else was there?

wow,is that 10 years ago?? holy moley. Slipknot was the support that day wasn't it?

hidinginthebush

zcorpian88 wrote: »

Just noticed that 10 years ago today was the first time I saw Metallica live and my first concert in general, June 11th 2006 at the RDS in Dublin. Was a great show.

Master of Puppets in it's entirety, Hetfield brought his daughter onto the stage for the crowd to sing happy birthday to her.

And also Hetfield slipping onstage and almost falling over while running back to the mic during Leper Messiah.

Still have my ticket stub and a t-shirt from the concert.

Who else was there?

I was at that. Sun splitting the stones, was that when the darkness supported, or was it the slipknot one? Both kind of meld together in my mind, but both were great days.

Coincidentally my first gig was also Metallica. Think it was 99/2000 in the old point? Monster magnet supported, my sister's friends bought me 6 cans of bud, they opened with breadfan, I went crowd surfing, great night!

zcorpian88

Hal1 wrote: »

I was meant to go to that :mad:. I first seen them at the point in '91 or was it '92 wherever I may roam tour, then again in '06 I think with slipknot as support. Crazy fkrs .

Nah you're mixed up, they were at the RDS with Slipknot in 04 alright, I wanted to be at that show but my mam thought I was too young (15 and a half) argued on and off for months over it because two friends of mine were going and I couldn't, even said she could have got me the ticket for Christmas and it'd have been the cheapest Christmas ever for her, and still No. Still annoys me that I wasn't there in 04.

Got to see them in 06, they were here with Alice in Chains, Stone Sour, Avenged Sevenfold, Korn were supposed to play but they had to pull out as Johnathan got ill while he was in England the day before

hidinginthebush

zcorpian88 wrote: »

Nah you're mixed up, they were at the RDS with Slipknot in 04 alright, I wanted to be at that show but my mam thought I was too young (15 and a half) argued on and off for months over it because two friends of mine were going and I couldn't, even said she could have got me the ticket for Christmas and it'd have been the cheapest Christmas ever for her, and still No. Still annoys me that I wasn't there in 04.

Got to see them in 06, they were here with Alice in Chains, Stone Sour, Avenged Sevenfold, Korn were supposed to play but they had to pull out as Johnathan got ill while he was in England the day before

I remember now they had a two stage "mini download" setup that year.

zcorpian88

hidinginthebush wrote: »

I remember now they had a two stage "mini download" setup that year.

That's right yeah, my cousin who was there with me, nearly got turfed out of the tent during Stone Sour for moshing, after we spent 20 mins begging the same guard to let us in!

zzfh

zcorpian88 wrote: »

Nah you're mixed up, they were at the RDS with Slipknot in 04 alright, I wanted to be at that show but my mam thought I was too young (15 and a half) argued on and off for months over it because two friends of mine were going and I couldn't, even said she could have got me the ticket for Christmas and it'd have been the cheapest Christmas ever for her, and still No. Still annoys me that I wasn't there in 04.

Got to see them in 06, they were here with Alice in Chains, Stone Sour, Avenged Sevenfold, Korn were supposed to play but they had to pull out as Johnathan got ill while he was in England the day before

Ah that's it. i was at both 04 and 06,just had them mixed up. Both super warm days. I remember seeing Will Smiths missus' band in the tent with about 30 people at it

scudzilla

zzfh wrote: »

Ah that's it. i was at both 04 and 06,just had them mixed up. Both super warm days. I remember seeing Will Smiths missus' band in the tent with about 30 people at it

i was at Download that weekend, her band were dire, Wicked Wisdon i think they were called.

They played twice over the weekend, a main stage slot and a second stage slot, made a lot of people mad how they were given these slots when bands who work their tits off couldn't get abywhere near main or second stage

She joined Soil onstage to sing Halo, funny as fcuk cos the dumb bitch didn't even know the lyrics...to the chorus!!!

zcorpian88

zzfh wrote: »

Ah that's it. i was at both 04 and 06,just had them mixed up. Both super warm days. I remember seeing Will Smiths missus' band in the tent with about 30 people at it

Wicked Wisdom they were called weren't they? Was that 04 or 06, I don't remember them on the bill of the 06 show. I remember watching them play at Download a few times at home on tv back when Kerrang was decent!!

I do remember we had to choose between Avenged Sevenfold and Stone Sour in 06 because they were on at the same time, think Avenged Sevenfold got promoted to the main stage because Korn pulled out (not sure about that) think there was 2 big tents there and we saw Stone Sour in one of them while Avenged Sevenfold played either in the other tent or the main stage.

zzfh

zcorpian88 wrote: »

Wicked Wisdom they were called weren't they? Was that 04 or 06, I don't remember them on the bill of the 06 show. I remember watching them play at Download a few times at home on tv back when Kerrang was decent!!

I do remember we had to choose between Avenged Sevenfold and Stone Sour in 06 because they were on at the same time, think Avenged Sevenfold got promoted to the main stage because Korn pulled out (not sure about that) think there was 2 big tents there and we saw Stone Sour in one of them while Avenged Sevenfold played either in the other tent or the main stage.

No, it was def 06 cause it was in the tent out the back,they were on very early though. Yeah we chose a7x and tried to get up near the top before Metallica. Funny,if i had the choice again i would of went to Stone Sour in the tent.

hidinginthebush

zcorpian88 wrote: »

That's right yeah, my cousin who was there with me, nearly got turfed out of the tent during Stone Sour for moshing, after we spent 20 mins begging the same guard to let us in!

Haha there must have been something in the air that day... i remember a very agitated security guard starting on the lad in front of us in the queue on the way in, and then my younger brother got turfed out for giving a girl a wedgie when she had her G-string poking over the back of her trousers XD he faked an asthma attack to get back in

zcorpian88

hidinginthebush wrote: »

Haha there must have been something in the air that day... i remember a very agitated security guard starting on the lad in front of us in the queue on the way in, and then my younger brother got turfed out for giving a girl a wedgie when she had her G-string poking over the back of her trousers XD he faked an asthma attack to get back in

Bahahaha, brilliant!

Mushy

zcorpian88 wrote: »

Wicked Wisdom they were called weren't they? Was that 04 or 06, I don't remember them on the bill of the 06 show. I remember watching them play at Download a few times at home on tv back when Kerrang was decent!!

I do remember we had to choose between Avenged Sevenfold and Stone Sour in 06 because they were on at the same time, think Avenged Sevenfold got promoted to the main stage because Korn pulled out (not sure about that) think there was 2 big tents there and we saw Stone Sour in one of them while Avenged Sevenfold played either in the other tent or the main stage.

Alice in Chains got the bump up, A7X got pushed to main sub. AIC should definitely have been in that position though.

Can't believe its been 10 years, was a quality day. Fell asleep in front row during A7X.