Almost Love Songs Metallica’s Not Getting Soft, Mind You, But They Are Letting Some ‘Subtleties’ Slip Into The Music They Play
What’s love got to do with it?
Absolutely nothing. At least, that would be Metallica’s answer to that question if asked throughout the first 15 years of their existence.
War, death, destruction, executions, rage about injustice, retribution, the folly of following false prophets - now you’re talking. That has been the main meat of lyricist-singer-guitarist James Hetfield and Metallica. Chew, spit and devour. Let the guitars rip and roar.
Now? “If you asked James now, I don’t know what he’d say,” says bassist Jason Newsted, “but while we were making the new record” - “Re-Load” - “he was saying, ‘All the songs are about murder except two of them.”’
Newsted laughs as he imagines his response. “‘OK - thanks, buddy.”’
Lyrics are always the last piece of the Metallica puzzle. “You know,” says Newsted, “we have to wait, like everybody else, for the lyrics to come in. Finally we get to see them and there were things like ‘Lay beside me”’ - in “The Unforgiven II” - “and it was like ‘Yeah, oh, cool man!”’
The band has not gone soft, as the head-banging leadoff track “Fuel” (“Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire!”) makes clear. There’s still a song, “Devil’s Dance,” that should get under Pat Robertson’s skin. The hangman comes a-calling in “Bad Seed.” The music pounds hard, and Hetfield still enjoys lurching down a dark road.
“But not so much” as before, offers Newsted. “There’s certainly that spot. There will always be these spots. The guy’s lived what he’s lived.”
“Almost love songs,” says Newsted, backing away from commitment. “Words you’ve always wanted to express, that everybody feels, no matter what language you speak. There’s actually, I’m not going to say pleasantries - not gonna say it - but some kind of subtlety.”
Metallica, born in San Francisco in 1981 with Dave (Megadeth) Mustaine then in the fold, helped saved heavy metal from the scourge of lightweight “hair metal” and paved the way for scads of speed, or thrash, metal bands. “We created something, like, almost a legend,” says Newsted, on the phone. “The Zeppelin kind of thing.”
They created classic rip-snorting speed king albums like “Kill ‘Em All,” “Master of Puppets” and “Ride the Lightning.” Metallica’s world was vicious, cathartic, hard-edged, take no prisoners: Kill ‘em all, let God decide. (They hung the “Kill ‘Em All” banner in the studio while recording “Re-Load.”)
The band - rounded out by drummer-songwriter Lars Ulrich and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett - stepped back from devotion to the god of speed with “Metallica” (a.k.a. the black album) in 1991, and continued this direction on 1996’s triple-platinum “Load” and now “Re-Load.” They started getting more serious about not getting messed up as much around 1989, limiting the self-abuse of, as they called themselves, Alcoholica.
The shock to Metallica fans - used to long waits between records - is the lack of down time. In fact, “Re-Load” was written during the “Load” sessions and there were once plans for a double-album. As it turned out, they passed on that idea, opting to headline the 1996 Lollapalooza tour. Following that, they returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock aboard again for the 13-track “Re-Load.”
“We’re trying to make everybody realize Metallica does have a record out there this quick after the other one,” says Newsted.
“These are in no way B-sides or the B-section or anything like that.
They just happened to be the ones that didn’t have lyrics yet or didn’t have a solo yet. So, I can probably say they’re more listenable. We have used the technology at hand to make it better. We went into it with all the pre-production work already done. We had the songs memorized. We already had quite a few of the blocks of the foundation in place.
“Coming in with that confidence, having the 16 months in between of reading books, listening to more music, letting everything go through your filter and then taking that to the music you know, we were able to enhance it.”
Newsted, formerly of Flotsam & Jetsam, joined in 1986, after Metallica suffered a tragic van accident that resulted in the death of founding bassist-songwriter Cliff Burton. At their first U.S. concert after Burton’s death, in Providence, they played against a backing scrim of cemetery crosses. This was business as usual, not related (except ironically) to Burton’s death.
Newsted was the “new guy” back then. Still is. “I like that, though,” he says. “I hold onto that, I almost embrace it now. It helps keep the hunger - I guess that’s the word that people like to hear - and the fire.”
Hetfield and Ulrich are the primary songwriters - Newsted says they put in five times the amount of work - but the group is more democratic these days. They’ll give Newsted the root note of the melody and tell him to create his bass lines. Newsted co-wrote and sings on the long, ominous closing song, “The Fixxxer.”
As time goes by, Metallica adapts. Metallica recently performed a first-ever feat - acoustic Metallica - at Neil Young’s Bridge benefit concert in San Francisco. (Some in the crowd shouted requests for a Lynyrd Skynyrd song, so they played one.) Metallica cut their shaggy manes two years ago; they’ve used eyeliner; they’ve employed a feather boa as a concert prop. They used to have fall-apart lighting beams and KISS-like explosives. (Well, they still have the explosives.) Some in their core audience have screamed, “Alternative rock sellout! Where’s my old Metallica?”
Newsted isn’t going to argue with them. “That’s OK with me. As long as they’ve got an opinion, and they’re not being sheep. Certainly, if you like fast stuff, then, right on, man, there are tons of bands that go fast and please support ‘em, eat it up. But don’t forget the guys that laid down the blueprint.”