A top four immense, towering boulders, smoke billowing around them, the members of Metallica are grimacing through the umpteenth playback of "The Unforgiven II," their heavy, country-flavored rock ballad. For eight hours on a day in mid-December, the group mimes its way through the song as director/cameraman Matt Mahurin -- who directed the first video, "The Memory Remains," from Metallica's latest album, Re-Load, as well as videos for Bush, Sarah McLachlan and Soundgarden -- shoots reel after reel of film. The new album. Yes, that is blood and piss on the cover. Mahurin rides a track back and forth in front of the set. He swoops in close, then pulls way back, suspended from a crane. He places his camera
right in singer James Hetfield's face. Each time he completes a take, he shouts out, "Beautiful, beautiful," followed quickly by, "Let's do it again."
  When they aren't needed on the set, the band members hang out in a couple of dressing rooms in Stage 7 at a Culver City, Calif., studio, chatting it up on cell phones or cooling out. It's during this downtime that, one by one, the guys sit for interviews
in a large, unused room. Onstage and on record, Metallica are one scary band.But offstage, they're friendly and businesslike, seasoned professionals who are comfortable talking about their music, their image and anything else that happens to be on their minds.
 Addicted to Noise: Yesterday Epic Records contacted a college kid who had posted on the Web a bunch of nearly CD-quality songs from Pearl Jam's forthcoming album -- they asked him to remove the songs.
James Hetfield: How nervy.
ATN: Which the kid did. What do you think about this kind of thing?
Hetfield: You know, live stuff doesn't bother me. There's tons of bootleg stuff out there anyway. I think the coolness is that some kid can record the show and get himself singing on it and [have it] for his own personal use, which is cool. Bootleg or not, I think Metallica fans are gonna buy the official stuff anyway. So if there's bootleg stuff out there, it's keeping your name around, keeping it exciting and keeping you kinda relevant all the time, when you're off tour for a year or whatnot. Onstage and on record, Metallica are one scary band, but offstage they're friendly and business-like.But putting out someone's studio album before it's released is very uncool. It kinda takes the spark and the magic out of getting that CD, putting it on, putting your headphones on and looking through the whole package that has been put together for you. Hearing a little of
what's coming up is OK, but getting a whole album and basically pirating the thing is not cool.I think it's also kind of a bummer to feel that you're restricted in a way. As a band, you can't just go jam on some new stuff at a club before
you actually go into the studio. That's what you used to do. People on tour would try the material out, get their chops up and try out new things live, and then go in the studio and record it. Now it just won't happen, really, unless you're not too worried about people getting your stuff before you're ready to present it. Metallicaerobics.
ATN: Over the past year, various right-wing and conservative groups have been trying to shut down Marilyn Manson. You guys got some flak before you did the free show in Philly, authorities tried to stop a Rage Against the Machine concert in the Northwest ... What do you think is going on right now?
Hetfield: Well, without getting really political, I think there have always been people who have been afraid of music and its
potential for, I guess, social breakouts, or whatever you want to call it. You know, young kids are looking for something to grasp onto, whatever it may be. When you're that age, there's a lot of that feeling of needing to belong, whether it's wearing black lipstick and cutting the ass out of your pants, or whatever -- people are looking for things to grasp onto.I'll stand behind any band that wants to do what they want without causing a political uprising. We're not a political band, and I don't think the
two [rock and politics] should be mixed together. Obviously, it does help some people get popular. I just think you're really
limiting yourself if you do start talking about politics, like Rage Against the Machine. You know, I don't like their music, what they stand for, what they sing about. I dig the aggressive nature of the sounds they come up with -- the guitar player's amazing. But when I listen to the lyrics, I want to turn it off. So it limits your audience, really. If you sing about some things that are a little more universal, it might please a few more people. I have some pretty intense feelings, but I'm not
wearing them on the outside all the time. I'm pretty vague about them. I can write a song and I know what it means, but someone else will take the song and get something completely different out of it. That's the kind of universal coolness of lyric writing. But I'll stand behind any one of those bands that want to do what they want to do. Music should be about freedom,
and that's the bottom line.
ATN: Kirk, what do you think about Wal-Mart and Kmart stores pulling the Prodigy album "The Fat of the Land" because of the song "Smack My Bitch Up"?
Kirk Hammett: I don't think that stores should have the power to dictate what people shouldn't listen to or read. But you know, on the other hand, you need some sort of person who's in a position to police that sort of thing. It's hard to really put in simple terms. Freedom of speech is basically what it comes down to, and I think that these stores are wrong to
say, No, you can't listen to this. I don't think it's the right thing.
ATN: I assume you've heard that song. Do you think it actually is ...
Hammett: Misogynistic?
ATN: Or encourages domestic violence?
Hammett: Who's to say?
ATN: Have you guys ever been asked to change a lyric or to make an alternate version of something or change cover art so somebody could get it into a Wal- Mart or a Kmart or those stores?
Hetfield: Yes, absolutely. Our first album. That was our introduction to the world of record companies and record making
and the business part of it all. It was a little discouraging right off the bat. We did want to have a toilet with a fist and a sword coming up out of it, Metal Up Your Ass. That was our idea. I'm not saying it was a brilliant idea. But that was what we wanted, and that was it, man.That was us at 19 years old. And we wanted it that way or screw you. So the Kill 'Em All cover came out of that. We discovered that no one was really going to put it in their record store. So we just basically said, "Aw,
screw them all, but kill 'em all." So that became the title of the record. That was pretty much directed toward the distributor and toward the business already -- so we were introduced to that right away. Bodily secretions make for the best album covers. From then on out, I think we didn't worry much about it. If you worry too much, it kinda backfires on you. Having the word "fuck" or all the words you're not supposed to say on a record -- we did that on Master of Puppets. We put a big sticker on the front saying, "If you're offended by cunt, fuck, cocksucker, motherfucker, all this stuff, then don't buy this record." It was as simple as that. Then we kinda decided there are a lot of people in the middle of the country who are big-time Metallica fans, who can only buy the record in Kmart. They're in the Bible Belt, and that's the way it is. And if our music can't get to these people, that's a shame. Also, it became less necessary to say words like that in our
music, because we matured, possibly, or because we're getting our point across a different way, without being so blatantly rude about things. But you sneak one through here and there on "Saturday Night Live," and they don't catch it.
ATN: You now share a management company, Q- Prime, with Madonna. Any contact with her yet?

Hammett: No, not yet, but Jason drew a really funny logo for Madonna. He basically redesigned Madonna's logo so that the "M" and "A" of Madonna had Metallica barbs. Because, you know, Metallica, Madonna, we sit right by each other in the record store. We have similar letters, so Jason was able to do [the logo] so that it looked just like our old logo. It was
kinda funny.
ATN: So what do you think, would Metallica and Madonna ever do anything together?
Hammett: Hey, at this point, I'm not gonna ever say no, because I really liked Marianne Faithfull, but if you asked me five years ago if we'd ever do something [together], I'd have said, "Hell no! What? Are you crazy?" And now here we are in 1997, and Marianne Faithfull is performing with us [on "The Memory Remains"]. It's a crazy thing.
ATN: What's that a picture of on the cover of Re- Load?
Hetfield: Well, the first of the Load twins was sperm. It's a mixture of sperm and blood for the Load Metallica album cover. I
wouldn't have thought that would happen one day, but there it is. With Reload we wanted to keep the same artist [Andre Serrano], the same kind of feel to both of them. So instead of sperm and blood, this time it's mayonnaise and ketchup, or something like that, Dijon mustard. Really, it's blood and piss. Urine. That's about it. There's not much to say.
What's the cover? It's blood and piss. What's it stand for? Blood and piss, you know. I'm not a big art guy. Andre Serrano is definitely one strange dude. Some of his other work is really out there, and I don't agree with some of it. But in the freedom of art, it's out there. Basically, we had to get him again to tie these albums together. They were kinda Kirk and Lars' idea,
really. They're more the eclectic art collectors.
Hammett: There's a million ways you can look at it. With Load, sperm and blood. You can look at it as, like, a life- giving
thing, a life-affirming thing. But with Re-Load, piss and blood just conjures up images of anger and aggression and waste products.
ATN: Don't you think those covers, which have a dark, strange feel to them, fit the music?
Hetfield: Well, without having an image, we came up with a huge image over the years. It was pretty weird. We weren't trying to go for anything. All the covers [have] a lot of imagery on them, with the crosses, the scales of justice -- a lot of in-your-face, here-it-is [imagery]. Kinda like you're trying to decide what the hell this cover is and what it means to you. That's kind of fun. Again a vagueness to it. So people can interject, or take out what they really want and apply it to
themselves. We had it pretty easy on the "black record," because it was black. [Laughs.] Is that the right shade of black?Yes, it's just the right shade of black.
ATN: What, at this point, does Metallica stand for?
Lars Ulrich: I think Metallica stands for individuality -- what we do musically is our own thing. I don't think we fit into any
categories. I don't think we really belong with anybody else. I think it's aboutindividuality and freedom. I think we occupy our own bubble somewhere in the musical universe. It's just kind of floating around by itself. We have the liberty and freedom to do whatever we want, and as we get more and more comfortable with that, we'll take it in many different directions. If you
want it in a kind of sound bite, I think Metallica stands for musical freedom, musical maturity and musical individualism.
Hetfield: Rebel spirit. We're going places and doing things we're not supposed to do, especially being heavy metal. Over the years,that started to become a restricting word for us. There are a lot of rules that go along with heavy metal. I love heavy music -- whether it be heavy subject matter, heavy guitars or just heavy sounds -- but a lot of the heavy metal rules got to us. The way you had to look, the instruments that you could not play. It was mostly things you couldn't do, and as musicians, we really wanted to expand and be less bored with what we're up to. We've got to please ourselves as musicians, and why the hell not? We're not doing this for the fans. There's so much give and take. We give tons of shit to the fans, from fan clubs to backstage stuff, to signing things, to hanging out, to club magazines, to our Web site. All kinds of stuff. There's so much for them. But in a way, we're really selfish, in that we're writing this music for us. And if you like it, that's great. If you don't like it,
there's plenty of other places you can go to get what you do like. But, nonetheless, you've got to admire our integrity and our honesty about it all.
ATN: So you're rebels in the sense that you do what you want to do.
Hetfield: Pretty much. It's always been that way, from Day One. That is the rebel. When your own fans start giving you grief for cutting your hair.I don't know what you're supposed to do with that. You know, I was a rebel for having long hair when I was a kid, and now I'm a rebel again for having short hair in the heavy metal scene. But at the end of the day, it's all about music and what it does for you inside. And all of these albums that we've put out, I'm absolutely and completely proud of. At the time we put out an album, that's exactly how we feel. So you can't go wrong with
that.
Jason Newsted: We were always the ones to set the standard for [heavy rock] music. And were always the ones to fly the flag the highest and the most against the grain and in the face of the mainstream and that kind of thing, like playing TV shows and doing different things that bands that played heavy music at that time didn't do. We're still representing the heavy music. We're the ones who are still at the top or are the cream of the crop, so we have to fly the flag for heavy music. We try to expand on it, try to do different things with it, try not to play the same songs over and over again. People expect us to do that,
and we've come to expect it of ourselves. We all have a vision together about doing that, about really always putting that first.
Hammett: Musically, we've always gone against the grain, and we've always done things our own way. That's been our prevailing attitude. We've always done completely what we want to do, and if that means kinda having a rebellious attitude, then yeah, sure. I know for a lot of people, we represent something that isn't exactly -- I don't even know how to put it -- I mean, we definitely represent something for a lot of people that is not your average sort of thing.
ATN: Re-Load is a very angry album.
Hammett: I think there's a lot of anger on Load also.
ATN: What's that about? Why is Metallica's image so angry and so dark and heavy?
Hammett: It's just the type of music we write. It's the type of music I've always written. I was attracted to this music because of the aggression, because of the anger, because of the tension. It's just one of those things we gravitated to naturally, individually, as musicians, when we were younger. As we came together and found we had a mutual sort of feel for this type of music, that it made sense to be a band called Metallica and to make this type of music. A lot of it has to do with how we were brought up as children, I think. And it isn't from superficial things like having a bad day or being poor or whatever, but I'm sure being poor is a good source of anger. I just think it's something that's deep inside us. And it doesn't come from, yesterday I was stuck in traffic and I was really pissed off, so now I'm gonna write an angry song. It isn't like that. I think it's something that's just deeper than that. So, I mean, regardless of how we are, we're always going to write from that sort of approach.
ATN: With Load and Reload you took some chances, pushing beyond what has been thought of as the Metallica sound.
Ulrich: When we sit down to write a record, we don't have any kind of preconceived limits of how far we can take it. What's happened over the course of 15 years is that the range of things [that can work in a Metallica song] keeps getting broader and broader. I think that we are less and less sort of locked into any specific thing about what Metallica
should be, how Metallica should sound. So that gives us more of a sense of adventure. We've become more confident and comfortable in the studio and more open to the many different possibilities and the many different things that can go on in the studio [we've been able to take more chances]. It's a combination of all those things and trying not to limit yourself. [Producer] Bob Rock has also been, I think, a tremendous force in helping us be more open-minded in the studio and freer. I think that as we grow older, we become more and more open. I don't think you can talk about how Metallica has evolved in the '90s without really talking about our producer. He started out being our producer, and now he's much more than our producer -- now he's a really good friend also. And it's really fun being in the studio making records with people I consider my best
friends. There is a tremendous level of respect for Bob, and a tremendous level of openness to the things he suggests and to the places he tells us we could go to if we wanted to.

ATN: You feel comfortable with him now because you've spent so much time working with him.
Ulrich: Yeah. Well, when we made the first record with him
in 1991, it was pretty tough. We had never really worked with a producer in the studio before, and he'd never really worked with anybody as set in our ways. But it's three records later and seven years later. On the last couple of records, I think we've really come to a point where there is a tremendous level of mutual respect, where we feel that we don't
have to guard what Metallica should be from the evils of Bob Rock, this megaproducer, if you know what I mean. And that is a good situation to be in. Musically, I think people who don't know us probably aren't aware of how varied our musical horizons are. And I think that we always, until the day we split up, we'll always get a little bit of this thing about the token
metal band, the sort of safe metal band for people to relate to  and all this type of stuff. But I do think there's a tremendous [musical] variety there [among the four of us], that we seem to be more and more comfortable letting that come to the surface as time goes by.
ATN: James, how would you describe the evolution of the Metallica sound?
"We're just now getting into some other things that we'd never tried, like [...} the acoustic set at the Neil Young Bridge School benefit," said Hetfield.
Hetfield: The word "loose," the word "free," the word "experimental" come into play. "Cacophonous" also. I think we're a lot more at ease with each other and with what we all bring to the table. As musicians we were very tight- assed, really afraid of screwing up when we were in the studio. "I'm not going to try that because I might fail. My voice might crack on this part. I'm not even going to try it. I don't want people laughing at me." But I think it's gotten so out there and so loose and kinda rebellious, in a way, that we can do pretty much anything. Me trying to sing like some homeless dude on "Low Man's Lyric" or really trying to croon, like in "The Unforgiven II." I wouldn't have tried that before. Kirk doing slide
guitar. He was not comfortable with it [before]. And I think through failing in front of each other, it kinda stripped down the curtain, or the wall, I guess -- I don't know what the word is, but we were kinda afraid to fail at things. We're very, very honest with ourselves these days and with each other. And in that there's a huge strength that the four of us have kinda
come together with. We're just now getting into some other things that we'd never tried, like doing acoustic things, the acoustic set at Neil Young's Bridge School benefit, which was pretty eye-opening for ourselves. Very exciting, actually. The potential for failure was great. And we rehearsed once and went in front of, whatever, 20,000 people. You're so naked up there. Especially the voice. You don't hide behind your big ESP guitar and your huge Mesa Boogie stack. You're there with your acoustic guitar, and it's a really scary but exciting feeling. To think that things could crumble hugely under us.
ATN: "The Unforgiven II" is a pretty interesting song. It's very heavy, but at the same time, it's got this country feel to it. I don't know if anything has sounded quite like that before.
Hetfield: Well, it's not like we go after unique combinations of music, you know. We know what needs to be in there. It's not like we're sitting down with a book putting stuff together. When we jam, we jam. And that's kinda the unique part about writing the Load stuff. We get on a riff and then jam after it, instead of trying to put riff A with riff B and blah blah blah. It was more of a loose, kinda natural evolution to the songs. But "The Unforgiven II," that was really one of the early ones [from] the Load sessions stuff. That was when I first got that B-Bender guitar. [This enables a musician to make a standard electric guitar sound like a pedal steel guitar]. I started playing some part. I came up with a vocal line, and I was like, Wow, this is really cool. And it flashed on me later that this is "The Unforgiven" [which appeared on Metallica] chord modulations, this is exactly "The Unforgiven." But the vocal melody is cool. Maybe I can sneak it by as another song. Instead of trying to do that, why don't we just glorify the fact that this is "The Unforgiven," Part Two. We wrote "The Unforgiven," we can rip ourselves off. And it's OK. So we kinda borrowed pieces from the first one and interjected the new sounds and the new feel. And I think it works out really well. It's a pretty awesome piece.
ATN: I know you're a fan of country music. Would you ever do a country album?
Hetfield: No. I leave that to the pros. I love the old stuff. I'm not too interested in collaborating with someone. You won't find me and Garth [Brooks] doing a duet at any point. He does what he does very well, and I think we should leave it at that. I'm a fan of some of the early country stuff, you know, the Waylon [Jennings] stuff, the Hank [Williams] stuff, what I call the real country stuff. Unpop, you know. And I kinda want to leave that be. I don't want to ruin it by stepping in it. I find it more interesting to bring some of that stuff into Metallica rather than going outside to do something like that.
ATN: Kirk, while James has gotten into country, you've become something of a jazz head.
Hammett: I've been into jazz for about four or five years, and the more I listen to it, the more I understand it. And the more I
understand it, the more of a mystery it is to me. [A lot has] happened in jazz in the last 50 years, and a lot of it has changed the way people hear music. A lot of it has changed the way people think about music, and going back to those
certain periods, I can understand it more. I can understand what the people were thinking, and I can understand a lot of the heavier concepts, musical jazz concepts. I spend a lot of time thinking about that.
ATN: Who are, say, five jazz musicians whose CDs are in your player these days?
Hammett: Well, first and foremost: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Stan Getz, Art Pepper, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck and Antonio Carlos Jobean. I mean, that's a handful right there.
ATN: I think a lot of Metallica fans would be surprised.
Hammett: But you know what -- we have to get our inspiration from somewhere, and we're not about to listen to other types of heavy metal, because then we'd just be copying someone else. There comes a point where you realize that you have to listen to other types of music, just to get some input into that brain. That's different and refreshing, and that challenges you and makes you think of trying things that you wouldn't normally try. And you know, that's been the prevailing attitude in
Metallica for a long time now. We've taken other types of music and used them as a source of information to create.
ATN: From John Coltrane to Hank Williams, that's a pretty broad range of influences.
Ulrich: Through our early years, we were very guarded about what Metallica should be. And I was listening to people like Simon and Garfunkel and stuff like that, way back in the mid-'80s. I was very appreciative of what they were doing but never feeling there was any kind of allowance for that type of stuff in what we were doing. So at the same time as our musical horizons have broadened, I think the key thing in the last few years is that we are becoming more open to letting those various
influences into what we are doing. Certainly, on any given day, I'd sit and listen to anything from Miles Davis to John Coltrane to Ornette Coleman to Bob Marley to Alanis Morissette to Oasis -- it covers a lot of ground. But the point is being
comfortable and letting some of those types of things into what you're doing musically. And I think that's probably the biggest change. We're just more comfortable about letting that in, and we're less worried about the perception of what Metallica is to people.

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