The Metallica side project that James Hetfield put a stop to, killing “a great record”
Metallica have always been a band completely committed to the music they make.
When Slash went on tour with the band, he was shocked by how much work they put into their live shows. This didn’t just apply to their sound, stage presence and use of pyro, but their commitment to logistics as well. They were always on time and always played their allocated set, so much so that Slash became somewhat embarrassed by his own band, Guns N’ Roses.
“It was a very tense time, a major straw on the camel’s back for me and for everybody in our camp,” he said, “It was actually a huge issue for me because I’d lost face with everyone in Metallica. We didn’t keep our promise to them, the fans, or to ourselves to put on the best show possible. I felt like an ass and I couldn’t look James [Hetfield], Lars [Ulrich], or anyone from their band in eye for the rest of the tour….”
Hetfield always made it pretty clear to the band that their main priority should always be Metallica. That meant that he was never keen on people taking on side projects, because that told him that Metallica wasn’t what they were focusing on the most. This is a mindset which hasn’t changed over time, either.
“For me, it’s always been if anyone does something else, it waters down the potency of Metallica. That’s always been the thought around it,” he said, “But I guess if they do it, it’s OK, but if I do it, it’s not, because I’m the frontman, or Lars is the drummer. We’re the founders. We can’t do that kind of stuff.”
Some people might consider this mindset fairly toxic. There are plenty of bands whose members have embarked on side projects and who have still managed to thrive within the band at the same time. The truth is, sometimes band members have creative differences, but just because one band member’s idea isn’t right for the actual band they’re in, it doesn’t mean that that piece of music can’t still be made elsewhere. In fact, it’s probably the healthiest way to deal with creative differences, though not for Hetfield.
“I think it’s always been like that, and I still feel that a little bit,” he said, “And I think Metallica, for Lars and myself, I’ll speak mainly for me, but I know he feels the same way, Metallica is our side project too. It’s our main project, it’s our side project, it’s our 24-7 project.”
It was this ideology that drove a wedge between the band and their bassist, Jason Newsted. He started working on a side project called Echobrain, which gained a lot of traction, so much so that Metallica’s record label was interested in giving them a deal. Newsted didn’t think that the side project would get in the way of his mainstay, but Hetfield disagreed and, as such, decided to put a stop to the creation of the album.
“They had told me, pretty convincingly, ‘This is a great record, we’ve been playing it around the office, that’s all I’ve been hearing, it’s fantastic, this kid has a great voice. Let’s do something with this’. That’s what they told me,” recalled Newsted, but Hetfield was not having it, deeming it a threat to his band. The bassist added, “He was, I think, pretty much out to put the kibosh on the whole thing because it would somehow affect Metallica in his eyes, because now the managers were interested in something I was doing that had nothing to do with him.”
