“Maybe money’s tough”: the singer James Hetfield couldn’t take seriously
James Hetfield is clearly a much different man than the kid who had first started pumping out riffs for Metallica back in 1983.
Although many people may have thought that the frontman showed a little too much of himself during the filming of Some Kind of Monster, it’s never a bad thing for someone to let their emotions loose and talk about their feelings, even if it means dropping the mystique of being one of the biggest lumbering beasts of heavy metal. But even if he had a lot more empathy for other bands after that, that didn’t mean that he was always happy with their career choices.
You have to remember that Hetfield was always the one who was willing to do things his way or no way back in Metallica’s prime, and even if someone so much as didn’t look the part when they were auditioning bass players after Cliff Burton’s death, it didn’t take long for him to dismiss anyone and keep moving along. Jason Newsted may have been the lucky one who got the gig, but he probably didn’t realise what he had signed up for, either.
The biggest names in metal choosing you to be one of their own would have been a dream come true, but it turned out that the bassist had signed up for almost a lifetime of ridicule by his bandmates. He was already being hazed to hell and back whenever they were on the road, and when his bass playing didn’t even show up on the final mix of And Justice For All, he had to play every show like he had everything to move whenever they went out to tour the record.
But for as much as Hetfield had a hand in mocking Newsted, he did have a warped way of treating him when he came out with side projects. Echobrain was never going to impede on Newsted’s work with Metallica, but right as the Some Kind of Monster therapy sessions were getting underway, Newsted figured it was better to quit the band and take a chance on himself than worry about whatever the hell Hetfield approved of whenever he started working on new material.
That kind of relationship can go from being tough love to strangling after a while, but Hetfield didn’t change his tune the minute that Newsted left, either. He understood that he needed to express himself a little bit more, but when talking about the whole concept of side projects, Hetfield felt that someone like Corey Taylor was too hard to keep track of every single time he left Slipknot.
He’s still one of the greatest metal vocalists of all time, but Hetfield felt that paled in comparison to the amount of stuff he was doing with the mask off, saying, “As soon as somebody goes off and does a side project, I don’t take them as seriously anymore. Not to knock other bands, but say, Slipknot. Corey, amazing frontman, amazing singer, but you can’t tell which band he’s in at the moment. I certainly won’t judge him for that. Maybe money’s tough, or maybe he’s not getting all his ideas. [But] dedication and loyalty goes a long way for me.”
Then again, Hetfield wasn’t necessarily safe from flying solo without Metallica, either. He had the odd show where he played by himself without his bandmates, but when it comes to the songs that end up on a record, there’s usually a good reason why he is usually billed with the rest of his bandmates on their more adventurous albums, even if it was a journey into one giant ditch like when they teamed up with Lou Reed for Lulu.
That kind of dedication might make Hetfield look like the stern, disgruntled dad of heavy metal to some degree, but it was never about trying to limit what his bandmates could do. He wanted them to be able to enjoy themselves in their main band, but he never wanted to question whether his bandmates were enjoying working on other projects more than they did writing for Metallica.
