METALLICA Back To The Garage

METALLICA: Back To The Garage

FEATURES

by Judy Wieder

"I’m real glad when I hear people say we influenced a band like Metallica. They’re a really great bunch of players who do fast rock ’n’ roll proud!”

—Lemmy Kilmister, Motorhead

Although they’re not interested in spandex or technicolor hairdos, Metallica are rapidly becoming kings of the ’80s metal heap. These spontaneous, free-thinking, headbanging princes are everything today’s defiant, jean-clad thrash fans have ever dreamed about. They’re young (average age 23). They’re voraciously energetic. They’re endearingly honest. They stand on the opposite end of rock superstar glitz. Best of all, they can play the thunder-crunching hell out of anything!

Formed during the early ’80s in San Francisco, when Danish tennis-proturned-drummer Lars Ulrich met guitarist James Hetfield, Metallica seamlessly combined the speed and energy of the underground European sound with the gymnastics of their own radical metal vision. After a brief and bitter alliance with (Megadeth’s) Dave Mustaine, Metallica added bassist Cliff Burton and guitarist Kirk Hammett to the fold. They’ve been going for the jugular ever since. With the release of three LPs, Metallica spawned, an army of fans without once joining the yup-tripe hooey of MTV or the toxic waste of rehash radio. They did it themselves, by word of mouth, fan by fan, concert by concert, album by album. But just as the stardom they so deserved was near, disaster struck. During their ’86 European tour, Metallica’s bus lost control and sent the sleeping Cliff Burton out of an open window. The bus rolled on top of the bassist, killing him instantly. The tragedy left the remaining threesome in a state of shock.

“With this band, we try to keep a lot of thought or pondering to a minimum,” says Lars Ulrich, attempting to escape the grim memory of how Metallica got through those early weeks after Cliff’s death. “At first it was just too unbelievable to be true. We were dazed. We kept thinking that it was not happening, not true. Then, as it really started to sink in, we went straight back into playing and auditioning bass players. We just could not sit around and think about Cliff. And I don’t mean any disrespect to the guy, either. Today we think about him and talk about him all the time. He was such a character, such a personality. He was like one in five billion people on this earth, and we were never even tempted to try to come up with anyone like him. But at the time of his death, it would have destroyed us to dwell on him. We had to go on... ”

Like their music, Metallica want their decisions to be “instant and instinctive,” based on guts, not brains. And so—where others may have teetered—Lars, James and Kirk moved like lightning. Within a month, they had a new and eager member, ex-Flotsam & Jetsam bassist Jason Newsted.

“We needed someone who was as strong as Cliff in personality, energy and playing,” explains James Hetfield, “but also someone who had his own style. Jason fit in right off. Some bassists came to the audition and tried to impress us by doing Cliff’s solos and shit, and we said: ‘AAHHHH! Never! Out!’ Jason had all the things we were looking for. He wrote a lot of songs in his other band and his playing was real tight.”

For Jason Newsted, coming into a growing legend like Metallica was both thrilling and frightening. “I’m still adjusting,” he admits today. “I joined about a year ago, exactly one month after the accident. I’d always looked up to Cliff Burton and spent hours learning his stuff. I didn’t know him personally, however. The rest of the guys have really made me feel at home, although I’m still the one who gets picked on. It comes with the job, I guess. I think the fans are really beginning to accept me now. Cliff’s are big footsteps to follow in. At first, I was just kinda living in a dream. I would do what I was supposed to do and try not let anything else bother me. Just play my best. Do my thing.”

Currently holed up in a soundproof rehearsal room in the garage of Lars’s San Francisco home (“It’s real comfortable and nobody knows where it is. It’s all ours and it’s a smelly, sweaty old locker room!” says Jason), Metallica admit to feeling nervous about how and when they’ll deliver their next album. Known to take forever in the studio, the band has cleverly stalled some of the inevitable pressure by releasing an EP of cover tunes entitled Garage Days ReRevisited, as well as a long-form home video featuring a compilation of bootlegged videos.

“Basically we got our hands on about eight different videos with Cliff in it,” Lars says, trying not to show a ray of sentimentality in his ruffian armor. “It’s the only visual thing we have of the three-and-a-half years he was in the band. It’s for all the people who have been following the band for a long time and want something to remember Cliff by. It’s.. .for us, too.”

The boys have also been pulling out piles of tapes with scattered riffs and melodic ideas as the writing process evolves in the studio.

“I used to carry my little four-track recorder with me on the road, but once I dropped it at the airport so I never did that again!” James laughs. “Here, we can just pretty much get together with all our littje riff tapes, and maybe I’ll take one of Kirk’s riffs and add a little thing. Or one of Jason’s or Lars’s. But it’s always pretty much a band thing.”

“In this band, drugs are not allowed. Alcohol is a different thing.., ”

—Jason Newstead

Drugs are one “tool” you’ll never find at a Metallica recording session. That may put a blow-torch to still another rock ’n’ roll myth, but it’s true nevertheless.

“I know the whole popular thing now is to not do drugs,” says James,‘ “but I’ve felt that way since high school. They freaked me out pretty much. I couldn’t hang. I was with some friends in an earlier band, and we did a bunch of pot. I’d only done it a few times before. I puffed, and we started jamming, and I really freaked out! It was like, ‘Goddamn! This song is pretty long. What is this? Didn’t we play this part already?!’ I was totally paranoid. I couldn’t handle it, so I just said I ain’t going to even try. As far as getting into a drug habit—it’s unhappening!”

“In this band, drugs are not allowed,” Jason echoes. “Alcohol is a different thing,” he grins quickly. “We don’t drink when we perform. But when we go out to a comedy show or something, everybody probably has a few beers. But as far as any of that other kind of crap, it doesn’t happen in this band. It doesn’t go over good in this band at all, and I’m really happy about that. I’m glad James enforces that.”

And what about the other symbol of that longtime battle cry: “Sex, drugs & rock ’n’ roll”? What about sex? After all, the image of the lordly metal dude surrounded by scantily-clad women used to be a given of the rock star dream. Today, however, bands like Metallica are living in the age of deadly diseases. AIDS does not go away with a shot of antibiotics...

“I am not afraid to talk about this,” Lars insists. “First of all, I am very lucky in that I have a lovely girlfriend that J’ve been with for over a year now. Everybody in the band has steady girlfriends now. Yes, we’re all old and washed-up at 23. But, seriously.. .it was cool fun for the first couple of years, out roaring around on the road, having a lot of fun. Then after awhile, some of the stuff with girls becomes a bit blah, it’s nice to have a steady thing going with somebody. So I guess deadly diseases are not something that really bother me now.

“But for a lot of people out there, they are going to be very sorry,” he continues, gagging a bit on anything that sounds too preachy. “I guess you can look at it in different ways. It depends on what your priorities are. If you just want to have fun and do whatever and not care what the consequences are, that’s up to you. I suppose you can say, ‘Live now and die tomorrow, or have a boring day and live for the next 10 years.’ There are a lot of different ways you can look at it. I think each person has to decide what their own priorities are. They should be informed, however, so that they can make whatever decision they make.”

Yes, we’re all old and washed-up at 23. ”

—Lars Ulrich

Hetfield, who hasn’t been much of a family man since the death of his mother, whom he still greatly misses (“The worst part is she missed the band’s success, and that really pisses me off!”), is equally concerned about this new menace to his sex life.

“I don’t really know about all this shit, but one time and you’re dead! Wow! Yaahh... I guess it’s inevitable the way some of the bands carry on. We’ve been pretty bad in the past but on the last tour it was like: ‘No way! Screw that!’ Some of the roadies are pretty sick. I guess you can’t be careless now. As for using rubbers, I don’t know. I’d never done that before. But who wants to die?”

“It hasn’t changed my lifestyle much,” Jason adds. “That’s because I’ve never really been promiscuous. I’ve had the same girlfriend for a long time, and we got a cool thing going, so I don’t really screw around.”

Monogamous, drugless and still able to play the most raucous, ferocious rock ’n’ roll in today’s over-populated music scene. How bizarre? Not really. After all, Metallica have built a career around the unexpected while clashing bravely with the format... any format. ®

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