Metallica was featured in the November 2016 issue of Billboard to talk about Oldchella, playing Shoreline, the making of their new album, and the inevitable aging process.
Says Lars Ulrich:
“Whether we’ll be able to play ‘Master of Puppets’ in our 70s, I just don’t know. With Metallica, there’s a physicality and a weight that has to be part of it. You can play it less heavy, slower — or you can realize that the music deserves that physical approach, and if the physical delivery isn’t there, then maybe it’s better not to do it.”
James Hetfield and guitarist Kirk Hammett are both 53, and Ulrich and bassist Robert Trujillo are 52. Who are their idols of aging? Says Hetfield: The Rolling Stones, Lemmy of Motorhead, Bruce Springsteen, and most of all…
“Angus Young [of AC/DC] — that guy blows my mind. That guy sweats so much every night. I can’t believe his head is still on his body.”
Ulrich notes things are bleaker on the drummers’ side. There’s Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones…and that’s about it.
For now, with their latest album Hardwired recorded and set to release November 18, the band keeps at it. Hetfield describes what recording was like:
“The tuning room is pretty much our couch therapy session. You can tell where everyone’s at. Sometimes we’ll goof around — I love playing drums, and I’ll hit the kit while Rob comes up with some funky thing that we’ll never use. Lars is ritualistic to a fault, but he knows what works for him.”
There he refers to the way the group always wraps up by playing the track that will start with for the upcoming show, a tradition Ulrich enforces.
There’s been downtime for Metallica too, especially when it comes to Marin county residents Hetfield and Ulrich. The latter has been enjoying domestic life with his family, while Hetfield has dove into outdoor activities. A week before they played Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit at Shoreline, in fact, he went hunting elk. While camping he became terrified of the high winds that threatened to blow him over or knock him out with a branch. But for a metal-bending, rock pioneer like Hetfield, it’s supposed to be like that:
“It’s nice to go out in the wilderness and get scared once in a while. You get right-sized again.”
Feature photo: Metallica at the X Games in Austin, TX. 2015 Ralph Arvesen, via Flickr.