Mike: I'm here with the fan-proclaimed greatest metal band in the world, Metallica. Now in the past few years Metallica has gone under fire for changing their style and also the dispute with Napster. However, the band holds together and is as heavy as ever. And with that, I will begin the interview. Here with me is James Heitfield and Lars Ulrich.
Where do you two see Metallica going next in relation to musical style?
Ulrich: Well obviously we haven't stuck with the same sound on every record. I think that's crucial to a band making it without killing eachother.
Hetfield: People have always called us sellouts from the beginning because we played a balad, or put a melody into a song. It kind of makes you angry, but after awhile you get used to it and that was one of the things I got to deal with in therapy.
Ulrich: Yeah it's always the same thing after a new record with us. The true fans love it and everyone else is on one of two sides. One side thinks we sold out and the other likes it for a bit and then thinks we sold out.
Hetfield: We always just play what we want and what we think sounds good. The real fans that have been with us through the years realize that and they'll continue to listen to whatever we come out with.
Mike: Do you ever regret not sticking with the sound you had on say Kill Em' All?
Hetfield: No. We always knew that would be the only album that sounded like that. If a band doesn't grow it dies.
Ulrich: Right, we try to evolve our sound without sounding like what everyone else is playing. I think it's worked out well so far. For our next album, I don't see us repeating anything we've done already. We have some tape of stuff we did back in '01. But I don't want to let too much out about what our next move will be. I'm sure everyone will download it from Napster before we release it anyways.
Mike: Is there still some resentment about Napster? I heard you and Fred Durst had cleared up your differences on that.
Ulrich: No. I'll always have a problem with anything like that. People say well you used to tape trade back in the 80's. If anyone had even heard what a lot of those tapes sounded like they would see the difference between tape trading and pirating music off the internet.
Hetfield: Yeah (laughs) The only way we ever understood what was going on is because we were always so drunk.
Mike: Do you see the overwhelming amount of negative opinions of so-called fans after Load came out as a backlash?
Hetfield: A backlash to what? We have pretty much had new fans for each album. We put out a new record. We get new fans and the old fans don't like it so they call us sellouts. It's the same thing every time.
Ulrich: You could say we were sellouts from the beginning. We don't care though. That's what everyone doesn't get. We do this for us, not for anyone else. In the past few years, the money has become a little more important than it was before.
Mike: Is that the reason why you went after Napster?
Ulrich: Of course. I didn't go after Napster because I care about our music being heard. I cared about the money we were losing.
Hetfield: I hear the movie industry is starting to do the same thing. The internet is good, but a lot of people are using it too much to their advantage. I think that'll be a strong topic for one of our next songs.
Mike: Do you still think it's ok for bootlegs to be sold and traded?
Hetfield: We've never told our fans not to. That's been something since we first started that we agree with.
Ulrich: It's when they start selling our new album before we've released it that bothers us.
Hetfield: Yeah. I have fans that come up to me with live shows from '82 when Ron and Dave were still in the band. I tell them to make me a copy and send it to me.
Mike: Do you ever listen to the old shows?
Hetfield: I try not to. When I have before I end up trying to write material that could have come off Lightning or Puppets.
Mike: One final question for you guys and then we'll be done. Do you think if Cliff were still in the band that you would have written the last five albums, not include Garage Inc., like you did?
Ulrich: No one can say if we would have or not. We can speculate, but what good is that?
Hetfield: Cliff's input when he was in the band gave us a lot of our sound. But we always kind of knew he wouldn't stick around forever. If you read some of his interviews you can see that he looked at us as a stepping stone. A lot of our fans thought it would be Metallica and Cliff forever if he wouldn't have died.
Mike: Well thank you very much for your time guys. To all of you true fans out there, Metallica is still the greatest metal band in the world.C 2001 - Mike Tremonte
Nein ich werds diesmal nich zusammen fassen alle die kein engisch können haben pech gehabt lohnt nich...
Echtheit auch wieder nich bewiesen darf jeder selber für sich herausfinden...