Thanks to a shift in sound and image, Metallica’s mid-90s period was the most divisive era of their career to that point. But in this classic interview from the Metal Hammer archives, originally published on the eve of the release of 1997’s Reload album, we found drummer Lars Ulrich in defiant mood – and ready to push back against the haters.
To say that life has been pretty hectic for Metallica recently would be something of an understatement. The all too familiar last gasp dash for the finishing line that seems to have accompanied the majority of the band’s recording sessions over the years has been undertaken (and acheived – just_, albeit with the self-imposed hurdles of weekend of festival dates and the small matter of James Hetfield’s wedding, and the band are already behind with the video shoot for new single The Memory Remains.
Thus when, after being asked how he’s doing, Lars Ulrich replies: “I’m still breathing!”, you can almost sense the genuine relief behind the tongue-in-cheek flippancy. “I’m in an airport in LA in the midst of a video shoot,” he continues, battling the combined effects of static interference and a failing transatlantic mobile phone signal. “So if I’m suddenly called away. you’ll have to excuse me...”
Absolutely. The Metallica promotional machine is picking up speed and, like time and tide, it waits for no man…
The reason for all this palaver is Reload, the band’s new album. Now in the general scheme of things, we’re lucky if two new Metallica albums appear in the same decade, but Reload is the second in as many years, following last year’s Load. Was that a pig I just saw flying past the window?
“We went into the studio in the summer of 1995 to record our sixth album as a double album; we had 27 songs that we had written and we recorded all 27 of them in the summer and fall of 1995, around the Donington gig.” explains Lars. “Then in January of 96, Peter and Cliff [Mensch and Burnstein, Metallica’s management duo] came out to San Francisco and told us that Lollapalooza were interested in having us play their festival, and at that time, we’d been in the studio for seven or eight months and we were getting kind of bored and a little restless.
“So we said, ‘Okay, instead of finishing all this material and making it a double album, why don’t we just divide it into two different records, put one out in the summer, go and play Lollapalooza, have a quick nip around the world, go in and finish the rest of the songs, and put another record out next year?’ That was the plan we made in January 1996 and that’s the plan we stuck to, it’s really that simple. Load and Reload, as far as I’m concerned, is just the double album spread out over a year and a half. It is two records of equal weight, of equal substance, of equal importance. It’s not an ‘A’ record and a bunch of leftovers put on a ‘B’ record or anything like that. It’s 14 songs and 13 songs that are all interchangeable with each other. The cover’s interchangeable, the pictures are interchangeable, the whole layout, everything. The best example would be to say if [Guns N’ Roses’] Use Your Illusion II had come out a year after Use Your Illusion I, it would be that type of thing. That’s what it is.”
Was there any pressure for the band to write a new set of material altogether, due to the fact that although Load sold a very healthy seven million records, it was still only half that of the Black Album?
“Yeah, but here’s my theory: if Reload sells the same as Load, then we’ve pretty much done much the same as the Black Album on the Load records! That was kinda always what I was hoping.”
That’s easy to say now, Lars!
“No, I expected Load to do about half of the Black Album,” he replies sincerely. “I think if the Black Album came out today, I don’t think it would do as well as Load did, I don’t t think there’s as many people that listen to rock music as in 1991, 1992, 1993. That’s a fact. Rock music is a dying breed, it’s that simple. All in all, about a year ago, I know I sat there and said that I expected it to do about half of what the “Black Album’ did, and it did. There was no pressure from anybody - we don’t get pressure from anybody.”
With hindsight, did you make the right choice splitting the material into two albums? How do you think the last year and a half would have gone if you had released Load as a double album?
“That’s a very interesting question -I’ve never really thought about that. Probably another reason that we wanted to split the records up is that we wanted to try to get away from the trap we felt stuck in, which was that we would put out these records and then we would go on these never-ending tours.
“What we wanted to try and do, to save Metallica and continue Metallica for a long time, was try and make more records more often and less touring less often. More records and shorter tours, trying to put a record out every year and only going on the road for eight or ten months or whatever to give us a better sense of balance, instead of making a record every five years and then trying to go out and survive a three year tour. It was a good thing to do, because that way, we make all the portions smaller and they become easier to digest.”
Realistically, given Metallica’s track record, do you think you’ll be able to do an album a year?
“Realistically? We’ll have a shot at it! We’re gonna try!”
But to be fair, you were under pressure finishing Reload on time and you’d written most of the songs on it two years ago anyway!
“What we do is, we sit down and figure out how much time we need and execute it, it’s that simple. We made a decision to finish this record at home - and That’s the first time we’ve ever finished a record at home - and there was a bit of slacking off which kind of caught up with us the last couple of weeks. But we’ve been through this circus before of trying to finish records and all that shit, and I think we’re fairly good at it. Admittedly, this time it was pretty fucking close and there were actually one or two times where I was getting ready to call Peter and Cliff and say, ‘Errr… missed it!’, but we pulled it together.
“I’d say we have a fair shot at putting a record out next year – it doesn’t necessarily need to be new material, if you catch my drift. There are certain projects and certain things we have that are waiting in the wings, so we will kind of see what happens. But my goal is to put out one project, one idea, one type of something every year, and I think that we have a good chance of making that happen.”
Did you ever consider just halving the amount of songs that you recorded in the Load sessions and putting them out on the one record? A best of the session as it were, ensuring quality control.
“I’m an artist, I don’t write shitty songs-remember that, okay?” replies Lars with a hearty chuckle. “It’s the syndrome all artists suffer from, we will never cop to that, okay? No, we don’t write bad songs. All our songs are good and all those songs will be released - whether you like it or not! We’re very full of ourselves, but at least we know that up ahead of everybody else! And I want those sarcastic overtones translated across 9,000 miles,” he adds.
This sarcastic overtones have suffered somewhat in translation recently. In the wake of Load. The drummer’s sometimes facetious replies to the constant barrage of questions regarding haircut, image, clothing, etc have got him into a fair amount of trouble.
“I’m kind of surprised at how much all this stuff still matters,” he sighs. “Il cover both sides when I do interviews, I sort of take the piss sometimes and say these really stupid things. Then I’ll sort of go into these somewhat semi-serious explanations and it seems that no matter which position I take, people still get very wound up about it.
“It is actually kinda funny that the press, especially in England, say all these things and get everybody really wound up, cos it just proves how silly everything is. I said something in Melody Maker a few months ago that the new album will sound like the Spice Girls and I’ve heard about that quote in about 25 different interviews since. The only reason I say bullshit like that is to fuck with people and obviously, it does fuck with them, and That’s why I say it. If nobody took notice of it, then it wouldn’t be any fun.”
You’re obviously just too good at taking the piss, Lars.
“If you want to be serious about it for a second, if anything, what it does is kind of give you a little bit of an idea of how meaningless I consider a lot of this stuff is. You have a bunch of music and, at the end of the day, that is all that you’re gonna stand and fall on, the music. Everything else, whether it’s videos, photographs, what you wear, how you look, how long your fucking hair is or the fucking thickness of your penis or whatever, all those things are completely irrelevant or should be completely irrelevant- to the one main thing, which is the music.”
How thick is your penis, by the way?
“It ranks about second in Metallica.”
Uh-huh.
“I just find it so peculiar that hard rock is the one world where all that matters,” he continues, “and that is what I have such problems with, That’s why it’s really fun to push those envelopes. Of course I know we’re a hard rock band and we make heavy music and I’m really fucking proud of that, nobody questions that, but it’s all the other stereotypical things that I can’t deal with as a person. I hate to be boxed into any areas or parameters of what anybody else wants from me or the music – and I’m so proud of that, cos I know what it is that we do. But everything else that comes in the keel of the music can be, should be and will be fucked with [laughs].”
Had you hoped that all the fuss surrounding the band’s image change would have died down by now?
“I’ve stopped calculating anything,” he says resignedly. “I can’t predict or hope or wish any more for anything. I don’t know what anybody else is thinking about anything! I think the only difference between me now and me a few years ago is that I’m a lot less concerned with what people think and I’m also a lot less interested in defending Metallica or trying to get people to understand my way of looking at it. I used to, as you probably know, spend a great deal of time explaining the way we looked at certain things and all this type of stuff, and I am not so bothered about doing that anymore.”
Ina recent biography, Oasis’ Noel Gallagher expressed a concern that the fame game and his band’s offstage antics were in danger of over shadowing or trivialising the thing that really matters, the music. Is that also a concern for Metallica?
“Umm, no,” considers Lars. “We’ve been around 16 years, Noel Gallagher’s been around for three. I think that our history and all our accomplishments, whether good, bad or indifferent, speak for themselves. I’ve been doing Metallica since I was 18 and we’ve grown up in public, if you know what I mean. When you go through all those years in public, especially the younger ones, there’s two ways you can choose to go: you can guard yourself against everything and pretend that things are a different way, or you can be as naked and as pure as possible, and make sure that everything that happens inside you is not fucked with and is shared with everybody around you.
“We’ve chosen the latter path, which is that everything is pure, everything is open, all the changes that happened to us as people happen and continue through our music and everything That’s going on. I think that if anything, hopefully Metallica will be looked upon and remembered as a band that didn’t have the same kind of guard up as a lot of the other hard rock bands and that we went through all these different metamorphoses, whether people liked it or not, but that it was pure and it was natural, it was the really honest thing to do.
“I am a little miffed at the fact that there were so many people that looked at the pictures of Load and did not give the music a chance. Did it really make a difference in my life? Not really, but I’m surprised at that narrow-mindedness, That’s all. I’m not hurt by it, cos the record’s sold about as many copies as I thought it would, and the state of Metallica internally is stronger than at any point after the Black Album, so none of those things really matter that much to me. I am surprised at that type of attitude and I am surprised at people’s surprise over some of the things that happened to us over the last couple of years, because I thought we always wore all those potential changes and that stuff on our sleeves. Us going away for five years – what the fuck did they expect?”
So can we take it from your indifference at people’s reactions that you won’t lose any sleep if Reload gets a slagging in the press?
“That’s a really difficult question to answer 100 per cent pure. I walk a thin line on that. I gotta tell you that the days of me sitting down and reading every interview and wondering what so and so was saying about me and what so and so was writing about me do not exist for me anymore. Like anybody who does any kind of creative work, I’m always curious to see how people react to it, mostly cos I want to see if it’s how I feel about it.
“I gotta tell you that I do actually kind of dwell on all people’s hatred of what we’re going through, because it is making us internally stronger and I kind of like it. I kind of like to push some of those buttons anyway, I like to incite that. I like the fact that people have a problem with what we’re doing, because it causes debate, and when debate starts, then people sit and talk about all different types of things and then hopefully, something good will come out of that
“I kind of welcome that and I think is really healthy in an incredibly stagnant hard rock scene in 1997, and if we’re the ones that end up pushing those envelopes and get people to look at some of these things – not necessarily agree with some of those points, but at least respecting or acknowledging different points of view, then I think tat’s really healthy.”
With reference to the post Load feeling in the media, James said in a recent interview that “it’s nice to be hated again”. Has that helped you combat complacency? Has it instilled a new fighting spirit in Metallica?
“There’s definitely a sense that, compared to those years of the Black Album, where we could definitely do it all wrong, there’s a good energy that comes from this type of thing. The main difference is that in the past, when we said, ‘Oh, we don’t give a fuck’ or ‘it’s nice to be hated’, I’m not sure that that was a 100 per cent pure statement, because before the Black Album, there was a little bit still of a wanting or chasing of a kind of acceptance
“Now there isn’t that anymore, because with the Black Album, all that just happened to be fucking abandoned – I’m happy to be alive and happy to have survived that whole thing! Now I don’t think I’ve ever felt this thick skinned before, and there definitely is some kind of cool energy that comes from being at the centre of a shitstorm! I actually kind of like that part of it.”
So, getting back to the music, is this Load era sound the one you’d ideally like for Metallica at the moment or are there other directions that you’d like to have seen it develop in?
“The best thing about this record, as far as I’m concerned, is that when we came back to these songs, they sounded very fresh and very relevant. We were afraid that if we left them for years and years, they might start getting dated, so we got back to them as quick as we could, we finished them off and made them sound as relevant and strong as we could in 1997, and I love it.
“My favourite record by far that Metallica have done is Load and this is the other 13 songs, so the Load years are complete now. The 27 songs we wrote, the vision that we had, is out of our systems and is now yours to dissect and do whatever you want with. There’s this great sense of relief to have it all out, I’ve been waiting for a long time to get the rest of these songs out.
“All the feedback I’ve had from people who have heard the record say it’s equal to, and in some cases better than, Load. I won’t pass judgement – I think the two records are equal, but there’s nobody That’s heard this material as scraps and B level material, and That’s important for me.”
It’s funny you should say you made the songs sound as relevant to 1997 as you could, because to me, you seem to be hitting almost a retro sound, a really classic, bluesy, hard-edged rock band vibe.
“That’s fair, yeah,” agrees Lars. “I gotta tell you, I mastered the record in New York last week and it’s not quite out of my system yet, I don’t quite know what to think yet. I haven’t sat back and heard the record with neutral ears yet, but I think that what you’re saying fits in with the whole Load package.
“The only major difference that I’m aware of is that James is a little more experimental with his vocals on Reload, he was trying different microphones, trying some different techniques, effects and stuff like that. Maybe that makes it a bit more melodic. Everybody’s got a different opinion, what the fuck do people care what I think?”
Does it bother you that you’re quite a way away from what passes for cutting edge music these days?
“That is a very fair thing to say.”
In the 80s, Metallica was a state of the art band. Now you’re well removed from that status. Does that bother you? Is it an intentional move?
“It doesn’t bother me, cos I think it’s very true. All I think about is just being comfortable where we are in our own little bubble; how we relate to everybody else is pretty irrelevant to me: When you put us down next to Sepultura or something like that, I know we sound like old men, but if there’s one thing I can tell you, it’s that live, we can wipe the fucking floor with any of these bands. I know that for a fact. But the way we should make records and stuff like that? How they compare is irrelevant to me, because we just make records the way we hear them. But live, I’ll take on anybody, cos I know we can fucking wipe the floor with them.”
At this point, Lars is called away to film a sequence for the video. The phone rings again a short while afterwards, Metallica’s publicist informs me that we can grab a few more minutes with Lars while he’s in make-up.
“I’m not having my make-up done! Real men don’t wear make-up!” burbles Lars, aping Korn singer Jonathan Davis’ controversial sentiments in the Hammer last year. “I’m having purple eyeliner put on. I think James and Jason are wearing all the make-up!”
Earlier in the conversation, you mentioned that the spirit in Metallica was stronger than it had been for years. Does this put an end to all the rumours concerning Jason’s predicament then?
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here,” replies Lars with a giggle, “but I think he might actually be enjoying himself! Reload was probably the least we’ve ever argued. The vibe there was better creatively than I think it’s ever been. Jason seems to have gotten his head out of his ass and he’s like a normal person now – I’m sure he would say the same about me – and we came through this record with an incredibly respectful working relationship. We never really argued, we’d sit and talk with Bob Rock and balance things out. Me and Kirk are just me and Kirk. It’s very solid at the moment.”
So now that Metallica are so mind-numbingly huge, do you have any more ambitions left to fulfil as a band?
“Nope. It just becomes a state, like a fly. Like, ‘Now I’ve achieved my goals, I’m just gonna fly around here and buzz until I just don’t wanna buzz any more. I’ll make you aware that I’m here and you can choose to ignore me if you want to.’
“But in terms of goals, no, there are no more goals left. The last goal was to survive the Black Album and stay alive through all that. We survived that and everything from now on out is easy street. Now it’s just about us and the music, and as long as we get along and we have fun, then we’ll go along forever. When it stops being fun, we’ll knock it on the head, it’s that simple.
“Touring is gonna be scaled down a lot, because touring isn’t as much fun as it used to be, but I think we still have quite a few records in us and we’re really starting to enjoy making records a lot more. Financially, I’m set for two lifetimes and now it’s just about being content inwardly, and as long as we get along and make good records and have fun with it, then fine, and if we don’t, then fuck it, there’s too many other things.”
Do we still need Metallica, though?
“You fucking need Metallica more than ever!” replies Lars in quickfire fashion, barely able to contain his laughter. “That’s the answer.”
So what do you need out of it? Why aren’t you just sitting at home counting your money?
“That’s what I should be doing, instead of talking to you! God knows there’s a lot to count!”
And with that, we leave Lars, safe in the knowledge that Metallica will be fucking with us for a good while to come yet.
Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 45, September 2007
