Metallica: Near-collapse, therapy and rebirth

Metallica played their first British show in five years at Download Festival, but almost didn’t make it by a number of fate’s hurdles. It was a long and painful road to ‘St Anger’ but, in the end, the 5,000 fans who managed to squeeze into the Scuzz tent, were treated to a display of power, vitality and renewed energy. ‘St Anger’, the band’s first album in seven years, proved the band to be in touch with its roots, without ditching the latterly acquired music interests.

During the period of enforced hiatus, they lost their bassist, Jason Newsted, which necessitied the album’s producer Bob Rock to handle the four-stringed instrument, but not before singer James Hetfield had to take some drying out time and to rediscover his music-making wish. Metallica went through a prolonged period of rumours-galore of going the dinosaurs way, but they regrouped, got themselves a new bassie, Robert Trujillo, (ex-Ozzy’s man), released ‘St Anger’ and brought back old fans without alienating the newer converts.

Following the turbulent period in your career, recording ‘St Anger’ must have been different?

JH: “Building ‘St. Anger’ from scratch is what we did, and it was ego-less, we weren’t attached to the outcome so much. We knew we wanted it good, but it was such a freeing, natural kind of exposure of our own emotions to ourselves. We created this Frankenstein Monster together, it came out naturally, we recorded all and then picked the magic moments from it.”

What’s changed over the troublesome time?

JH: “Communication for me, it was just not there. It was hard to connect with people. Lyrically I could get it out. Well, we got down to the bones of what makes us be a band. You have to leave to find out where the home is. It wasn’t only a question of getting back together out of duty but needed to explore our musicality.”

Was there ever a time when you thought there may not be another Metallica album?

LU: “I would say, in my mind, there certainly was... But, a year and half later I'm happy to report things have taken a 180 degree turn and now we have a great record, great line-up, and all these great things happening.”

KH: “Well, after Jason left it was just James, Lars, and I. Then, while we were going through all of this stuff with a therapist, a group therapist, that James kind of realized, for him to move forward with the band, he needed to go into rehab. And after he announced he was going into rehab it was just Lars and I, and that was a very, very scary thing. We went from four to two in the course of six months. And it freaked me out, it freaked Lars out, it freaked everyone out.”

“Lars and I tried to hold it together as best we could but I began insulating myself to the possibility of there not being a band to go to. For the first time I prepared myself for the possibility that the ride might be over. Lars and I were so happy to have him back and especially as he came back wanting to make music. We had to catch up on 20 years of being a band rather than being friends! And, socially…”

“James Hetfield on alcohol was very unpredictable. Remove the alcohol and you'd have a very even-keeled James Hetfield. Which was something that I think we all welcomed. Not only that James is so much clearer now, so much more understanding, there's so much more compassion in James now and he listens to people and wants to be heard on a completely different level. So much so that when people meet him that have known him in the past, they'll remark, wow James is just a different person. He’s warm, he’s open, and he’s friendly.”

After such a trying period in the band’s career, are you more in-tune with the band’s mortality?

JH: “The way we see it is that Metallica doesn’t need to end unless we say it needs to end. We’ve been through tons of rough stuff, but we survived it all. Those things breath life into Metallica, and they challenge us. There is absolutely no reason to stop, even if we’re in a damn wheelchair. Whether it’s with Metallica or not, I’ve got no reason to stop writing music. I pretty much know the other guys answers too, there’s no reason to stop, it feels good and it’s what we do.”

“Feels like old times, we’re aware that we're brothers, love them or hate them, we’re there and we’re supporting each other. It sounds like old stuff with experience, all the experience we've gain over the last eight albums, 22 years, funnelled into 11 songs.”

Metallica are booked for summer festivals around Europe – Reading and Leeds in the UK – before hitting the USA, Australia, Japan and South American dates and then re-visit Europe for a headlining tour in the spring of 2004.