Hong Kong-bound Metallica on the secret to playing your age
Thrash metal veterans aim to keep it fresh with album Hardwired … to Self-Destruct, even if they are ‘not 30 any more’ and need to ‘tour age-appropriately’, according to frontman James Hetfield
Metallica frontman James Hetfield didn’t have the highest of hopes. Sprawled on a battered sofa in a backstage production office, Hetfield was preparing to head out before an audience of 20,000 at California’s Shoreline Amphitheatre, not far from the heavy-metal band’s headquarters.
The size of the crowd was no cause for alarm. Over the 3½ decades since he formed Metallica with drummer Lars Ulrich, Hetfield and his bandmates have played more arenas and stadiums than they can count. In 2014, Billboard put the group on its list of the 25 highest-grossing live acts of the past 25 years, an accomplishment driven in part by the runaway success of the group’s self-titled 1991 work, known as the “Black Album”. (Current US sales : 16 million copies.)
A Metallica show involves volume – lots of it – but as part of singer-songwriter Neil Young’s annual all-star charity concert, the band were set to play acoustic on a bill with the likes of Willie Nelson and Norah Jones.
“It’s hard, man – there’s no power to propel me,” Hetfield says shortly before Metallica go on stage. “When you’re playing powerful music, it moves you. Acoustic is the opposite of power; it feels kind of lame. But it’s a good challenge. And we like being challenged.”
