[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]E[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]ven when Metallica's quiet, they manage to make noise.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]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.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]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.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]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."[/font] [font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]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 hiatus, they were not out of one another's minds. His report:[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]"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 Ulrich's drumming, and Ulrich, whom I interviewed last, responded to several of Hetfield's quotes with scorn.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]"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."[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]PLAYBOY[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: Aside from his natural garrulousness, why did Lars become the band's spokesman against Napster?[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]HETFIELD[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: 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 interviews: "Oh dude, don't say that."[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]ULRICH[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: I said some things that were borderline silly. When Limp Bizkit embraced Napster and took $2 million to play this "free tour" -- it is possible to play free shows without taking sponsorship 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.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]PLAYBOY[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: What sort of things did the fans say to your face?[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]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 into 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?
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]ULRICH[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: 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.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]HAMMETT[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: 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.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]PLAYBOY[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: You guys pissed off a lot of people. On the Metallica Usenet group, there's an ongoing thread called "Kirk and Lars are gay."[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]HAMMETT[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: That just shows a total lack of creative juices. That's like calling someone "fatso."[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]PLAYBOY[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: Maybe you were right on the merits. But it's hard for people to sympathize with the rich.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]ULRICH[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: 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 can we 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.[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]
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 were 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 Jãgermeister, 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'smake 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 proness.
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 highschool 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!"
[/font][/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]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.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]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.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]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."[/font] [font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]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 hiatus, they were not out of one another's minds. His report:[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]"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 Ulrich's drumming, and Ulrich, whom I interviewed last, responded to several of Hetfield's quotes with scorn.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]"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."[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]PLAYBOY[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: Aside from his natural garrulousness, why did Lars become the band's spokesman against Napster?[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]HETFIELD[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: 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 interviews: "Oh dude, don't say that."[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]ULRICH[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: I said some things that were borderline silly. When Limp Bizkit embraced Napster and took $2 million to play this "free tour" -- it is possible to play free shows without taking sponsorship 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.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]PLAYBOY[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: What sort of things did the fans say to your face?[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]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 into 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?
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]ULRICH[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: 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.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]HAMMETT[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: 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.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]PLAYBOY[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: You guys pissed off a lot of people. On the Metallica Usenet group, there's an ongoing thread called "Kirk and Lars are gay."[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]HAMMETT[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: That just shows a total lack of creative juices. That's like calling someone "fatso."[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]PLAYBOY[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: Maybe you were right on the merits. But it's hard for people to sympathize with the rich.[/font]
[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]ULRICH[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]: 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 can we 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.[/font][font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]
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 were 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 Jãgermeister, 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'smake 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 proness.
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 highschool 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!"
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