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- _______________________________________________________________________________
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- [ x x ] cDc communications [ x x ]
- \ / presents... \ /
- (` ') (` ')
- (U) (U)
-
- Thrasher's METALLICA INTERVIEW
- Part 1 of 2
-
- Compliments of Racer X
-
- >>> A CULT Publication......1988 <<<
- -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc-
- _______________________________________________________________________________
-
-
- The following is an interview with James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett of
- Metallica which was conducted by Thrasher Magazine's Pushead. This interview
- has been split into two parts to make it easier on you, the reader. Thrash,
- kill, destroy, and most of all, enjoy.
-
- From THRASHER MAGAZINE: Vol. 6, No. 8
- _______________________________________________________________________________
-
-
- PUSHEAD: WHO JOINED THE BAND FIRST, KIRK OR CLIFF?
-
- JAMES: Cliff. We saw him play... I think Slagel put this gig together in LA,
- it was two in the morning Monday night at the Whiskey. I think 20 people
- showed up. There was Trauma, Violation, and one other band. We all went down,
- saw Cliff play and said, 'Yeah, that's our guy!'.
-
- DID HE HAVE ANY IDEA WHO YOU GUYS WERE?
-
- J: No. So we kept coming up to S.F. to do gigs every once in a while. The
- scene was way better up here, just the overall vibe. People could get into
- what we were doing as opposed to L.A., where they were just hanging out, posing
- with their drinks and cigarettes. We kept bugging the shit out of him when
- they came down to shoot a video in L.A. and we went and bugged him there too.
- Finally he said, 'Yeah, cool.' Things weren't going well in his band either.
- He could see the direction they were going, kind of more poppy type. And he
- said, 'Yeah, I'll join the band if you guys will move up here.' Well, hell
- yeah, we were into it, we were sick of L.A.
-
- WAS DAVE MUSTAINE STILL IN THE BAND AT THAT TIME?
-
- J: Yeah.
-
- WHEN DID YOU GET RID OF DAVE AND FIND KIRK?
-
- J: That was when we hooked up with Johnny Z. Johnathan Zezula, Megaforce...
- and crazed manager. He wired us $1,500 from Jersey and said, 'Get yourself out
- here.' We said okay.
-
- WHY DID HE WANT YOU OUT THERE? TO PLAY OR RECORD?
-
- J: To record. We were going to get away from home for a bit and see what the
- scene was like out there. Now that I think of it--It was really wild that we
- did that. All of a sudden just move up to S.F., no place to stay or nothing.
- Finally, we crashed at Mark Whittaker's pad. It was cool.
-
- KIRK: Mark ended up helping out on the recordings of "Kill 'Em All" and
- "Ride The Lightning." He was also our sound person.
-
- J: Yeah, he came out to Jersey with us. We just threw all our shit and
- everything into a U-Haul and started driving....
-
- KIRK WASN'T IN THE BAND YET WHEN YOU WENT BACK EAST?
-
- J: Uh-uh.
-
- K: What happened was that on the way to New York they had problems with Dave.
-
- J: Mark Whittaker was also Exodus' manager at that time. And he kept playing
- live tapes of Kirk.
-
- SO KIRK, WHAT MADE YOU GO FROM EXODUS TO METALLICA?
-
- K: At the time Exodus was having personnel problems, we had this bass player
- who wasn't really fitting into the direction we were going. The band wasn't
- rehearsing and we were at a real stale period. I was getting kind of fed up.
- It's really funny, because one day I was sitting on the can and I got a phone
- call from Whittaker. He called up and asked me if I'd be interested in flying
- to New York to try out with the band, because they were having problems with
- Dave.
-
- DID YOU KNOW THE BAND?
-
- K: Yeah, I saw Metallica twice and then we played with them at the Stone. What
- was that, the Night of the Banging Head or something?
-
- J: The Ear Spankers or whatever it was. (laughs) That was a great one.
-
- K: Opportunity knocked, so I thought, what else do I have to do but check this
- out? So, Mark Fed-X'ed a tape out and I sat down with the tape for a couple of
- days. And then I started to get more calls from Whittaker saying, 'Well, are
- you into it?'. I said, 'Yeah, sure,' and then he said, 'Well, the band wants
- you to come out to New York to audition with them.' So I thought about it and
- I thought about it, for like two seconds, and said, 'Sure, I'll check it out.'
-
- WERE THERE ANY HARD FEELINGS WITH THE REST OF THE GUYS IN EXODUS?
-
- K: At first, but they understood. If any of them would have been approached
- they would have done the same thing.
-
- J: There was a whole strange period right there, all of a sudden a straight
- drive out to New York in a U-Haul. There were five of us and we had a mattress
- in the back to switch off sleeping. Get in the back. Slam. You're shut in.
- We'd never been out of California and we got there to find out we were having
- some real problems with Dave's attitude. He couldn't really handle being away
- from home or something. It was just a bit funky and we knew it couldn't go on
- like that so we started looking at the other stuff. It wasn't like we really
- auditioned Kirk. He came in, set up, played and he was there. I don't know
- what we would have done if we didn't like him. We didn't have the money to
- send him back. We barely had enough money to get Dave home. He flew back on
- Greyhound. (laughs) 'When does my plane leave?' Here Dave, bus ticket, one
- hour, see ya. Kirk flew in like an hour after that. Dave almost missed his
- bus. That would have been great.
-
- K: It was real weird because I was in the same situation of being out of
- California for the first time and on top of that I barely knew any of them.
- The only one I knew was Mark. I took a big chance because there was always the
- possibility that they might not have liked me or something. I flew out there
- with all kinds of equipment and stuff and I even paid for it.
-
- J: You were using Dave's stuff too. He couldn't get it home on the bus.
-
- K: Yeah, I was. I used a couple of his cabinets.
-
- YOU PLAYED WITH VENOM?
-
- J: Yeah, a huge thing. Venom gigs, da-da-da!
-
- K: There were about a thousand people there. It was one of the big underground
- shows.
-
- WHAT WAS THE RESPONSE TO WHAT YOU WERE DOING, AS COMPARED TO WHAT VENOM WAS
- DOING?
-
- K: It was good, people really liked it. We were still pretty much an under-
- ground act.
-
- J: It was one of our first major gigs.
-
- K: Johnny Z plugged us a lot, in a lot of New York newspapers....
-
- J: He owned a record store too, Johnny Z's Rock and Roll Heaven, and he was
- selling the demo and album.
-
- A LOT OF PEOPLE THOUGHT YOU WERE AN EAST COAST BAND BECAUSE THE DEMO WAS
- AVAILABLE THROUGH THERE.
-
- J: Pissed us off.
-
- YOU HAD AN ADDRESS IN S.F., PEOPLE HAD HEARD YOU WERE FROM L.A....IT WAS LIKE,
- 'WHERE ARE THEY FROM?'
-
- J: Yeah. And the fan club was in Oregon.
-
- K: Billboard still thinks we're a Danish band.
-
- WHEN YOU WENT TO NEW YORK YOU RECORDED "KILL 'EM ALL" WHICH TOOK EVERYBODY
- BY SURPRISE.
-
- K: We got a half a star in Sounds Magazine. (laughs)
-
- I BET IF YOU SENT IT TO THEM TODAY THEY'D GIVE YOU FOUR STARS.
-
- K: Yeah, we got five stars, for "Master Of Puppets."
-
- J: We didn't give a fuck at all.
-
- K: We thought that whatever we did, there'd be people who would approach it
- with a lot of hesitation, because it was so different back then.
-
- DID YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A HEAVY METAL BAND AT THAT TIME?
-
- J: Yeah. None of us were really into the punk stuff, except maybe the Ramones
- or the Pistols. We were not real hardcore punk fans.
-
- K: That's the thing that a lot of people don't know, when we first started we
- weren't heavily into punk. It was very, very slight. Motorhead and the
- Ramones.
-
- WHERE DID YOU GET THE IDEA TO PLAY THE RIFFS THAT MUCH FASTER?
-
- J: Motorhead.
-
- BUT YOU WERE EVEN FASTER THAN MOTORHEAD.
-
- J: We'd just keep practicing and the songs would get faster and faster and the
- energy kept building up and it sounded more backbuster.
-
- K: When we write something, from the time we write it until the time it
- actually comes out, it's a lot faster on the album. And then from the time
- it's cut on vinyl to the time we're actually playing live, it's even faster.
- I think that's what happened in the beginning. We wrote stuff thinking that we
- were going to play it at a normal speed and just naturally speed it up.
-
- J: It's always faster, hella shit's going on live. Booze and freaks dinking
- around, just the excitement.
-
- K: The adrenaline flow.
-
- SO HERE YOU HAD THIS NEW FORM OF METAL, WHICH I GUESS NOW IS CALLED
- SPEED-METAL, OR WHATEVER.
-
- K: I hate that word. I hate any sort of label like that.
-
- LABELS ARE THE ONLY WAY PEOPLE CAN CLASSIFY SOMETHING. SOME PEOPLE HATE HEAVY
- METAL BECAUSE BANDS LIKE JOURNEY ARE PUT INTO THAT CATEGORY.
-
- J: If someone has a shitty opinion of heavy metal they're not going to be
- impartial anyway... 'Metallica's heavy metal? Oh, I hate them already,' and
- they don't even know what we sound like.
-
- HOW LONG DID IT TAKE BEFORE "KILL 'EM ALL" SALES TOOK OFF?
-
- J: Until "Master Of Puppets" came out. (laughs)
-
- K: It sold pretty steadily. It wasn't selling in enormous number but it
- sold...
-
- J: All our albums have sold steadily. When it first comes out all the hard-
- core fans will buy it. But then it doesn't drop off, it 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
- sporadically 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 'till Leather" demo was circulated a lot through 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 OF 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 AFFECTED
- IN ANY WAY?
-
- K: At that time the success wasn't really that major. We were still an under-
- ground 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 recorded, so those were songs we'd been doing for awhile.
-
- ON "KILL 'EM ALL" WE FIRST HEARD WHAT WE MIGHT CALL THE "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
- 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 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.
-
- J: 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 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 recording "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, helping 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 to 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. The 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 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 he'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-RACKING.
-
- 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.
-
-
- So there ya go, the first part of the thrilling 'tallica interview....
- Look for the second part soon as another cDc release.
-
-
- ===============================================================================
- (c)1988 cDc communications by Racer X 8/12/88-67
- All Rights Worth Not Very Much At All, And Regrettably So
-
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- Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253
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