enormous numbers but it sold...
J: All our albums have sold steadily. When it
first comes out all the hardcore fans will buy
it. But then it doesn't drop off, just keeps
steadily hanging out in the same place.
K: After we got back from the Kill 'Em All
For One tour, we played some gigs sporad
ically in the Bay Area, we started writing
new material for "Ride The Lightning" and
then we played the Halloween gig. We put
-out the "Jump in the Fire" Ep and got ready
to go to Europe. It was our first European
tour and when we got there we were pretty
surprised at the response, because the
original "No Life To Leather" demo was cir
culated a lot throughout Europe. Throughout
Holland, Denmark, Germany and stuff.
J: Yeah, hundredth generation tapes...you
could barely hear what the hell was going
on, but they were into it.
K: So we had a following with the demo
and then "Kill 'Em All" came out on the
European label and did better than it did in
America. There was more of an audience
over there waiting to see us.
All these bands started forming and
everybody would say, 'Metallica's my
main influence.' How did you feel about
that?
J: It was real cool. If people are influenced by
you-you must be doing something right.
It must be something original. A lot of bands,
like Van Halen and Black Sabbath, when
they started out, hella people copied them
after that.
It's been said that Metallica sort of broke
the stagnation that existed in American
heavy metal.
K: Yeah, I guess we were inspirational at
the time.
Did you want to be that way or did it just
happen?
K: It just happened that way it wasn't
intentional. We thought: this is cool, we can
get more things happening now in the metal
scene. We broke open a lot more roads of
communication.
With the underground success of "Kill
'Em All" and a coming trend of new
bands in the Metallica genre, were the
attitudes of certain band members af-
fected in any way?
K: At that time the success wasn't really
that major. We were still an underground
band, but with a lot of people copying us.
I think the musicians took to us first. They
took to us saying, 'Hey, this is cool, we gotta
listen to this and be like this." At that point
we were still pretty much underground.
J: We were definitely confident of what we
were doing. We weren't really threatened by
any bands. There were no attitude problems
like, 'Oh wow, we invented it. We just kept
⚫ moving on in no special, different direction.
Well, like "Kill 'Em All" material was written
at least a year and a half before it was re-
corded, so those were songs we'd been
doing for awhile.
On "Kill 'Em All" we first heard what we
might call the patented "chunka-chunka"
riff? Where did that riff come from?
J: Well I was always into the riffy stuff.
Diamond Head, Sabbath...
K: The stuff that moves around real
heavily-it takes you from one part to
66
another with no bullshit in between. It's like
a well crafted movie, from scene to scene.
J: We come up with a lot of riffs on accident.
We'll just be goofing around on guitar and...
get a tape deck quick!
K: Yeah, just goof around and build on it.
Would you advise other people to do the
same thing?
J: No! That's the way we do it. Don't do it!
(laughs)... That's the way it works for us,
we can't just sit down and say, 'O.K, we
have to write, let's go."
Do you write the music first or the lyrics
first?
J: Both first. We come up with song titles
and riffs first.
K: We come up with a basic concept first..
Why does the stuff on say, "Kill 'Em All"
have more of a violent edge?
J: We came up with that title because we
couldn't have some of the other titles we
wanted and that pissed us off. The record
company said, 'No you can't, so Cliff said,
Those record company fuckers, you know,
kill 'em all.'
K: We were all pissed off because the record
company said we couldn't call our record this
because it wouldn't sell as many albums...
What did you want to call it Initially?
J: "Metal Up Your Ass."
K: An independent company wouldn't let
us call it "Metal Up Your Ass."
J: We wanted it to be with the toilet and the
knife, that we have on the shirts now, which
get twice as much exposure. Ha ha.
Why the violent edge, was there any
reason for It?
J: Pissed off.
K: It was just the frame of mind.
Where does the punk edge come in? All
of a sudden there are photos of you guys
wearing GBH and Discharge shirts...
K. Well, what happened was we were
playing this music no other metal bands
were playing and then all of the sudden
one day we heard a punk band that was
playing as fast as we were. We said, 'Hey,
this is cool
You had no idea this punk scene
existed?
J: Not too much, Punks would come to our
show and say, 'Hey, have you ever heard
of this band or this band. No. Give me a
tape, let's hear them.' We started getting
into it that way.
What is the first band you heard from
that side?
K/Discharge, for me.
It was either Discharge or GBH.
Did that change the way you did music
once you heard that?
K: It changed the way we played.
It opened your mind?
J: Yeah, it did, we started getting into
listening to stuff from different moves.
Instead of just going. 'Ho, we're going to
play some metal now."
K: When we started listening to the punk
stuff then we started listening to other things
too-I hate to say this but, the Police, or...
J: Kirk listens to the Police. (laughs)
Why do you hate to say it, are you
embarrassed?
K: No, I'm not really embarrassed, it's just
that a lot of people won't understand that.
What I'm trying to say is that we started
listening to music other than heavy metal,
we broadened our musical horizons.
Up until that time you were listening to
metal-type bands?
J: The metal scene was so small back then
that everyone was just fighting for metal.
There were hardly any bands, so we had
to make a mark.
Did you listen to what the punk bands
were saying or just their riffs?
K: Everything. It all helped.
J: It opened up a lot of shit. It gave us, I think,
some more heavy topics to write about.
K It was a truer gut feeling I think, on
James' behalf.
Obviously there was a change between
"Kill 'Em All" and "Fight Fire With Fire,"
In what you were trying to say.
J: Yeah. Plus, all that stuff on "Kill 'Em All"
was written so far back. We had a lot of
time to explore new material.
"Kill 'Em All" was pretty raw and
aggressive. When "Ride the Lightning"
came out it was more polished.
J: It was because we had more studio time.
We were producing it. We had no experience
whatsoever in the studio when we were re-
cording "Kill 'Em All." Our so-called producer
was sitting there playing with his dick,
checking the songs off a notepad and
saying, "Well, we can go to a club tonight
when we're through recording. Is the coffee
ready? He had nothing to say about any
of the songs. I don't think he'd dare say
anyway, because we'd have said, 'Fuck you,
that's our song.' But production-wise, help-
ing with sound or anything, he didn't
contribute. So right away we had a bad
reflection of what a producer was.
Did you choose this guy as a producer,
or was he chosen for you?
K: He was chosen by the record company
and our then manager Kevin Seed.
So you had a rude awakening as far as
production goes?
J: Yeah, it was pretty brutal. Then next time
we went in, to record "Ride The Lightning"
we said, 'Fuck that, we're going to do it
ourselves."
Were you able to pull it off?
K:We pulled it off. We had a good engineer
J: We had a budget to stick to, It was fairly
big but not enough to where we could go the
the studio we wanted and get the producer
we wanted. So we just said, 'We practically
did the last album ourselves so let's just go
with the best studio and get the best in-
house engineer.
K:... Who knew the sounds, that was really
important.
So where did Elektra come from.
J: Down the street.
K: We changed management, and our new
management thought that we should have
a major record company behind us.
And he knew how to do that?
K: He had a reputation in the business for
knowing what he was doing. Anyway, he
thought that we should have a major record
deal, so the word was out that Metallica
was looking for a major record deal and we
had about three or four different companies
wanting to sign us."
J: Pusmort, or some shitty thing like that.
(laughs)
K: We looked at each one individually and
it seemed from what we saw that Elektra
was better. Even though other offers were
financially better, Elektra had a reputation
of leaving complete artistic freedom with
their acts. They had acts in the past, like
the Doors, the Velvet Underground, the
Stooges...it was a pretty liberal label. They
had a reputation for trying out new things
that were pretty experimental at the time.
J: Right then there were hella bands being
signed, snatched up on major labels. All the
major labels were saying, 'Oh, metal's like
the new thing, get in on the money right
now.' They're still doing it. Elektra only had
Motley Crue and Dokken and all these other
labels had many more. We'd be say third on
the list of so-called metal bands with
Elektra, so we'd get at least some support.
Instead of signing with Atlantic where there
were ten metal bands and we'd be hanging
out somewhere waiting for our chunk of
money when it came down. 'Here's a few
bucks, go buy a hamburger, or whatever,"
that type of thing. There wasn't a clutter of
metal on that label so we figured we do
something to get some support.
Did you get any of this "underground
band selling out to the majors" stuff?
K: Yeah, we got that.
How did that affect you?
K: It didn't affect us at all. We basically didn't
give a fuck. We were going to stick to our
guns.
J: Some of the shows we're playing now
people will come up to us and go, "Hey, get
me backstage and everything."Sorry, man
there's nothing I can do, it's really tight.' And
they'll say, 'Oh, he's a rock star now.' You
just want to...hey, man it's no rock star shit,
it's just...you just find out who your friends
are after awhile.
K: A lot of people just don't understand it.
There's not enough room for everyone
we've ever spoken to....
J: They try and throw a shitty guilt trip on
you...
K: They just see the opportunity to like...
"Hey man, check it out, I know this guy in
Metallica, I can do something good for
myself. Since I know him I can get put on
the guest list, get backstage and hang out
with him. What they're basically doing is
trying to take advantage of you, and when
you see that and say, "No way man, you're
just trying to take advantage, they go for
the predictable response of, 'Wow, he's a
rock star, he doesn't have the time of day.
He's too big for his friends, he doesn't know
who his friends are... If they really knew
you they wouldn't say shit like that, they
would understand it.
J: Then there's the people who say, "Yeah,
they're a popular band and now I don't like
them.'
Do those negative feelings that people
have bother you?
J: A little bit, yeah. It makes them look bad.
I noticed the other night, when the show
was over, both of you guys hopped off
the stage into the photo pit and went
through shaking people's hands...
J: Yeah, since we can't flip out into the
crowd anymore. Maybe we'll do that when
we headline again. But during the Ozzy
support thing it's too brutal. Ozzy's
people...I mean, if I jumped into the crowd
they'd freak...
You're walking on the success of a new
record and it's like everywhere you see,
'Here's one of the guys in the band and
here's the band.' How do you guys see
yourselves now?
J: All of these people tell us, 'Wow, we don't
like you anymore because you're not an
underground band, so automatically you
guys are shitty because you're popular and
on a major label and have some money."
Which is bullshit, because we'd be doing
the same shit if we were still hanging out
with Megaforce. Writing the same material
and hanging out with the same people.
They'd probably think it was great if we were
still with them. Elektra hasn't said one
fucking word to us about the songs we've
written except, "We like 'em.'
Does the producer you have in there
with you say anything?
K: We're the producers.
On the record you have...who's Fleming.
Rasmussen?
K: He's the engineer who helped us out
with production. He doesn't write the songs.
He didn't mess around with any of the song
writing at all..
J: He didn't say, 'Slow down it sounds
muddy. He'd go, 'Okay, it's muddy, let's
clean up the sound a bit."
One thing I can't understand is why you
went to Denmark for four months to make
a record. Does it really take that long?
J: Sometimes it does....
K: You have to live with it, and that's brutal.
If you make mistakes in the studio and it
goes to vinyl, you have to live with that
mistake for the next year and a half to two
years. We just don't want to do that.
J: It wasn't that we were making mistakes
and shit in the studio, it was getting sounds
together. Lars was being way too fucking
picky. Like, the snare would always be going
out of tune, this much out of tune, 'Okay
hold on, so we'd bang for another hour
tuning the snare and then go in and bash.
Do you guys each do your pieces on your
own, or do you go in and do basic live?
J: Me and Lars will just go in and play it.
So you don't do a basic live track? When
you go into the studio from practice you
just play the guitar track and everyone
else knows where to come in?
J: Yeah.
How many tracks are you recording?
J: Depends on the song. I think the most
was fifty-two.
What are you doing with fifty-two
tracks?
J: Back-up vocals, dub overs...
How many times do you over-dub your
vocals?
J: The main vocal verse is doubled, I double
it.
How many tracks are there with guitars?
J: Most of the songs had three.
Three for each of you?
J: I do all of the rhythms in the studio.
K: It's tighter that way.
J: I did most of the songs with three rhythm
tracks. One on each side and one down
the middle. Some of the other songs, like
"Battery" or "Damage," it got a bit too muddy
so it was just the two.
K: We're giving away studio secrets here.
J: Uh oh, erase. (laughs)
It's just kind of funny, I saw you before
you went to Denmark, you were gone all
this time, and then you come back, 'It's
not all done yet, we have to go mix.' It's
like, what have these guys been doing?
J: Drinking beer.
K:We played a lot of poker in the studio, too.
Being in a studio, being cramped up in
those kind of quarters, having head-
phones on and listening to the same
things, eight songs over and over again
can drive you up a wall. I mean, there's
a high level of professionalism there,
because you're going for the perfect
angle, but it can be nerve-wracking.
J: It was.
How come you guys didn't break up?
J: Oh, we did. About ten times...a day.
Things towards the end got kind of, 'Ugh,
I want to kill somebody"
K: The tension was there, it was heavy
tension. A lot of arguing, but that comes
with the territory.
J: I know next album we're not going to
spend that much time.
Are you happy with the way the record
turned out?
J: Definitely.
K: Well, you're happy with it to a point, and
then you think, well I could have done that
better still.
J: You always think that.
Is there a critical degree you guys have
where you hear certain things you don't
like, that nobody else will ever hear, it's
just your personal thing?
J: Yeah, after awhile it's pretty cool. 'People,
check it out, right here I fucked up.' And
they go, 'Where?". Ha-ha, you don't know.
K: Exactly, it's like find the hidden pictures.
J: They've heard it that way so they don't
know it's a mistake. You've gotta have
that...if it's perfect all the way through it's
no fun.
K: There are mistakes on the album, but
like I said, find the hidden picture.
J: Def Leppard... two years in the studio or
whatever it is.
They're still in it aren't they?
K: Yeah, still in it.
That's your management's other band?
J: Yeah.
So next record for Metallica, two years
in the studio, huh?
J: At least, we're going to try and beat them.
K: We're going for three.
So the new record, "Master Of Puppets,"
is out and it's pretty close to a gold
record at this point, what do you guys
think of that?
J: I'll stick it up in my storage place.
K: I'll give mine to my mom.
You could sell it and buy an apartment
for a couple of months. That's the
weirdest thing, here you guys are, riding
on a success, right? You're on a suc-