Stereo Warning

Phil said in Some Kind of Monster that your work then was gonna pay off not on St Anger, but on the next album, which is this one. Is that true and if so what that say about your future work?
It's certainly true because this record was a lot less of a burden, a lot more stress free. Rick Rubin has a very calming aura around him that he shares with everybody. He's a pretty chill guy to be around. But I also think because James and me made a decision to let go of the reins a little by bringing Rick in. What we did back then (during SKOM) was an investment in the future. I think right now the future looks great, certainly from a mental point of view. The great unkown is the physical point of view. I just don't know how long we can do this physically. I think creatively and in terms of getting along this band can go on forever but at some point the necks and the legs and the backs might break or give out.

Do you see yourself play in a later age holding back a little and not slaming the drums so much?
It's kind of difficult not to play like that when I'm up on stage in front of 20,000 people. We'll have to see. I just don't know if it's possible to do this 20 years from now.

What would you do without Metallica?
I've got a whole laundry list. I'm pretty sure I'd probably start off in the movie world, most of my friends either make or produce or write movies. I'm not so interested in acting, Connie (Nielsen) can do that. Writing, producing... directing is more challenging, maybe I'll leave that for later. But I'd love to sit down for 6 months and write a movie. There's not shortage of things to do, I'm not scared about what's gonna happen on the other side of Metallica. I just hope I get to all the things I could do.

Any ideas of what kind of movies you might write?
I got things stored up in my head. There are more film people that come over to the house for dinner than musicians. It seems natural to go that direction.

Have you thought about writing your biography?
Briefly, when I get asked about it in interviews. I really am a proponent of the truth and if you're gonna do these things you have to give it all and can't hold back. This shouldn't be a gray area. In order to write that kind of book properly it would be so many things in there that maybe should not be told and you'd probably incriminate a few other people. There were 5-6 musicians biografies that all came out right before Christmas last year: Clapton, Dio, Nikki Sixx, Slash and I read every one of them. There were a few of them that were really watered down, because I know these people. So to me if you're gonna do it then you should do it full on. I think it's probably better to not do it because you might hurt people or piss people off or maybe your kids shouldn't know what happened in that room in Portland Oregon in 1992. I might change my mind but it's not something I'm itching to do.

Is there anything you'd change in your career?
I probably would've chosen not to wear a white leather jacket in the summer of 1992.

That's right, the jacked from the "A Year And A Half In The Life Of Metallica" video! Where is it now?
Locked away safely in the attic, trust me. I also wish I might have been more preapred for the backlash on the Napster thing. Obviously I wish I could change the accident that took Cliff Burton. But other than that I'm not a guy that spends to much time in the past. If anything I'm guilty of spending too much time in the future. In the last few years I feel like I've been in the present more. I wish I'd done it earlier on cause I missed out on a lot of things that were going on around me because I was always so occupied with long-range planning.

You were right about Napster and most people would probablly admit it now, but you took a lot of heat at the time. Was it a PR mistake to take on those guys then?
No, it was the right thing to do but we should've been better prepared. But that's Metallica, man, we just jump and we don't know where the fuck we're gonna land most of the time. And that's a beatiful thing to do but once in a while you also hurt yourself when you land. They were brilliant because they set us up against our fans. It wasn't true that Metallica was suing the fans, we never sued any of our fans. We said please take us off the server, they said we can't do that, we don't know who's downloading your music. We said that's bullshit. So we called up some company and they got the names of everybody. It was as easy as putting milk on your cereal. So we said here they are, and they said Lars is suing his fans. They were very smart. I wish we'd been more prepared. It was annoying that it was so misunderstood and still to this day, 8 years later some people remember that 'Metallica is about money.' It wasn't money, it was control. It wasn't supposed to be a big thing. The way I look at Metallica this is a footnote. but to some people Metallica are the guys that went after Napster.

COME BACK TOMORROW FOR THE LAST PART OF THIS INTERVIEW. HEY, IT'S LONG AND I DON'T FEEL LIKE TYPING IT ALL AT ONCE, OKAY? HE HE HE!
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