AWWC Scoot :
Our special guest's are James Hetfield - Guitars, Vocals, Lars Urlich - Drums, Kirk Hammett - Guitars, Jason Newsted - Bass . 

LOAD Metal :
Hey We have Lars and Kirk together now and they'll be taking the first round of questions! 

AWWC Ron :
Kirk--Load's been out for a week. What's your thoughts? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: I love seeing the album cover plastered everywhere because of what it is and I'm not sure what people know what the image is all about! 

AWWC Ron :
Do you want to tell us what it is about, or leave it up to our interpretation? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: I'll leave it up to your interpretation! I think it ushers a whole new genre of Metallica! 

AWWC Ron :
How much of "metal" is attitude and look, and how much is the music and craftsmanship? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: To some bands it's a musicianship and to some it's more image and there are bands out there that have a little of both. We're experimenting with the visual aspects of things now more than ever before only because we never have in the past and it's a challenge to us and our fans! 

AWWC Ron :
Metallica has said over the years, "We will not sell out!" What has Metallica done to maintain that promise? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: We keep the music true to ourselves and we play the music we want to play and we're not catering to anyone, we're completely doing this to satisfy ourselves creatively and musically. 

AWWC Carl :
Many people wonder.... Why the new logo? 

LOAD Metal :
James did the star. We had for so long we were just looking to change it we were tired of it. That's all! We wanted to reinvent the logo, just like we reinvented our music! :-) 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk adds: I'm not going to talk about our haircuts ;-) 

AWWC Ron :
On what levels do you think "Lollapalooza" will be different now that founder Perry Farrell has abdicated the crown 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: Perry who? 

AWWC Ron :
Why and how did Metallica steer "metal" into the alternative realm in 1992? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: In 1992 alternative music didn't exist! 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: Did you guys film a new documentary when you recorded the new album? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: no because we're tired of having those MF following us around everywhere and it really bothered us. I mean we did it once and we're not really interested in doing it again! 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: I think Jason has thought about it but don't quote me on that! 

AWWC Carl :
Monastery wonders....What kind of stage setup are you planning on having when you start your own tour of the US? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: it's bigger than last time, LOL! And I haven't really seen the new stage yet so once I find out, I'll tell you guys, LOL! 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: Do you think the band will have a bigger presence on the Net after this IRC session? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: I think we're embracing this sort of presentation (cyber presentation) and I think you'll see more of this sort of things in future for us. It works for us in a very positive way and the net at all is very interesting to us! We just put up a home page for our fun club Keyword: Metallica on AOL and on the Internet at http://www.metclub.com 

AWWC Scoot :
Got your own theory about the Internet? A special prediction about the industry? A great idea to share? Don't be shy -- Apple Computer's The Plan discussion boards are your opportunity to powwow about Apple's strategies with other pundits from the Apple community. Check it out at URL: http://db.online.apple.com/webx 

AWWC Carl :
DR Mildew asks: Why did you suddenly become radio friendly, when you already had enough popularity? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: ask the radio stations that 

LOAD Metal :
Lars, it's the whole musical climate that starting shifting. After the Injustice for All record, we were interested in making better sounding records and it so happens that at the same time radio changed in the early 90s and for no ulterior motives radio starting chasing us, rather than us chasing them 

AWWC Carl :
From the IRC: What were you guys up to between your last tour, and the recording of Load? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: I became a woman, but then I switched back because it wasn't fulfilling enough ;-) The Black Album and the whole tour was pretty exhausting so it was the first time we got to spend some time away from each other which was very healthy for us and it was a great opportunity to chill. I got to do a lot of diving and just a lot of nothing. It was great! 

AWWC Carl :
U H003 wonders.... how early did u start to realize that you liked music? 

LOAD Metal :
Kirk: when I was 5 I was constantly drawn to my brothers Beatles albums more so for the covers than anything else. And it so happened that I liked the music 

LOAD Metal :
Lars, My dad owned a jazz club in Copenhagen and I he was also reviewing and writing about jazz music in Danish newspaper so there was always Miles Davis, Johnny Coltrane playing around the house Metal : then as I was getting older I started getting into English pop bands, like Sweet and Slade and then I went and saw my first Deep Purple concert in 1983 and that was it! :-) I'm sorry, 1973. 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: I heard last night that the cover to your next album will criticize the Catholic Church... can we get some more information on that? 

LOAD Metal :
That was pure satire! :-) 

AWWC Carl :
Ofc Duck wonders: Will any of the unreleased tracks by showing up on CD singles? 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: there already is! Unreleased as in live stuff and demos and blah, blah, blah are all over the singles we've never ever written a song that we didn't think was good enough to go on one of our albums hence it's on not on any of our singles. 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: Are there any things planned for release for fan club members only? 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: the fan can we put out last winter will hopefully be a somewhat yearly event especially if we have cool enough things to put in it! experience? 

LOAD Metal :
James has just walked in the door too :-) 

AWWC Carl :
ACMtweene asks: How long did it take you to write this album? 

LOAD Metal :
James: 5 months! Which is actually quicker comparatively with the amount of songs we have this time. 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: The photos in Load booklet are made by Anton Zorbin what do you think of his previous works? 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: I think he's probably about the best photographer out there. We've done a bunch of stuff with him all spring and we really haven't made a decision on what to do with the videos yet. We make that decision one at a time. I think his best previous stuff is the U2 stuff and I also like a lot of his non musical work! 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: Since the Black Album, why did it take 5 years to come out with Load? 

LOAD Metal :
:::: thinking :::::: 

LOAD Metal :
James: we were busy! Doing shows, putting out the live package, also I think 1.5 years A Year In the Life of Metallica came out. 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: busy getting haircuts ;-) 

LOAD Metal :
James: there was some time off in there somewhere, some of us remember it some of us don't and writing the new one significance. Five years went by pretty quick for us I know it didn't for many of the fans but the process for us is very strong! 

AWWC Carl :
MESSERT wonders: What songs from LOAD are you looking forward to playing live? 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: a lot of them! 

LOAD Metal :
James: I think we'll just have to try playing them and whatever feels best. You have an obvious idea of what songs will work better live but in the long run you can never tell. It's up to the song basically! 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: Taking into account the unfortunate loss of Cliff, how does Jason feel now that he has been a member of the band for so long, does he still feel as if he is the odd one out? 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: until we get out backup singers Jason will always be the new kid in the band forever and ever. BUT, you gotta remember that he's been with Metallica for 10 years now and Cliff was with Metallica for 3.5 so Jason has definitely put some time in! I think he definitely feels by James and me taking a baby step back and letting the other two guys in, he feels part of what is going on and a little more respected. And the whole musical trip for the band, he's not sitting as uncomfortably as he used to. So all in all he feels much better. Sorry, And the whole musical trip he does outside the band! .... 

AWWC Carl :
Staley123 wonders: Why did Lars downsize his drum set? 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: I was up in Seattle a couple of years ago and ended up playing Sean from Alice in Chains drum kit and really liked the feel of smaller drums. 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: James, your singing on Load is much more passionate then on previous albums, where do you think the motivation came from? (I always knew you had it in you.) 

LOAD Metal :
James: being a lot more relaxed in the studio and having the songs worked out for a longer time had a lot to do with it. Just breaking down some of the studio technical rules being out in the tracking room standing with a cold microphone six inches away being in the control room ..... being able to concentrate on the lyrics instead of where I'm supposed to stand. These lyrics also helped because they are so from the core inside that it was a lot more emotion to be put into it. 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: How long will your set be at the Copenhagen Rock Festival? 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: it will probably in the 2 hour vicinity. We'll probably play Enter Sandman Just kidding ;-) So, we'll be playing lots of stuff from all six records, covers and we'll do our circus routine ;-) 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: What would you say to those fans who say you sold out with the last two albums? 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: we sold out pretty much everywhere we played over the last two albums ;-) 

LOAD Metal :
Jason has just arrived! 

AWWC Carl :
How has San Francisco and it's rich counter-cultural history affected your music? 

LOAD Metal :
James: it made me move out of the city, LOL! 

AWWC Carl :
What are some untrue myths about Metallica? 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: what we sold out! 

LOAD Metal :
James: that we're good ;-) 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: that we used to have long hair ;-) 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: Why did you include the words "We're off to Never, Never Land" at the end of Kind Nothing? 

LOAD Metal :
James, I thought the line was so good on the last record, that I would sing it again ;-) 

AWWC Carl :
From IRC: Was there any anxiety after the incredible success of the Black Album...that you wouldn't be able to top it musically or commercially? 

LOAD Metal :
James: musically we're pretty hard on ourselves, so that was the main pressure on us so that was the main reason we were in it for. Popularity isn't the main concern. We're not worried about the commercial aspect! 

AWWC Ron :
Do you have any closing comments? 

LOAD Metal :
Jason: bolt your computer down! 

LOAD Metal :
Lars: :::waving :::: peace and vote! 

LOAD Metal :
James: peace and murder Thanks! 

AWWC Carl :
Thank you all for coming. We're sorry we didn't get to all your questions... We literally had thousands to go through. Goodnight everyone

The boyz talk about Binge and Purge

BINGE AND PURGE

A Discussion with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich about Live Shit: Binge & Purge IT IS the day before Metallica are scheduled to wrap up their latest release. As the clock strolls lazily towards 3:00 a.m., the labor of love that has become the 9 hour Live Shit: Binge & Purge project is enjoying some final touches from Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield and Mike Fraser. The Planet recording complex in Sausalito will have its normal life back tomorrow, but since the third week of July Metallica has controlled the whole building, causing it to become known (for obvious reasons) as the "Metallica Plant." It has been a gruelling, demanding, yet highly satisfying time for Hetfield and Ulrich, one which has seen an initially simpIe project take on gargantuan proportions. 
"It really started as nothing more than wanting to document the show we did on the '...Roam' tour and add a bonus live CD," starts Ulrich. "We asked Wayne lsham to come down and shoot those two San Diego shows at the beginning of the '...Roam' tour. He brought the whole 10-camera deal down and basically documented the two nights. It was similar to what we'd done with two Seattle shows on the '...Justice' tour. So the plan was to have a visual document of this tour and then throw in a few bonus tracks from those Seattle shows, maybe find the best 3 or so. Then the tour goes on and Mensch (Peter Mensch who, along with Cliff Burnstein, manages Metallica) starts calling to tell us we have to start picking tracks from the San Diego stuff, so they can start editing this video package which was gonna come out toward the end of the tour. We could've started listening to it immediately, but we didn't want to dilute our focus on tour. We were playing the stuff every night and we didn't want to spend more time listening to it on the road. 
"When we finally sat down and listened to the San Diego stuff it was 15 months later in the tour, the set list was different and we were playing better. So we decided to document some more stuff because we were playing much better. Which is where the idea came from for a package that had one gig on video and a different gig on CD but both from the same tour. 
"We were sitting there, at that stage, facing the fact that we had 5 nights in Mexico City. One of the things you look for when you wanna put shit on tape, whether that be audio or video, is for as many nights as possible in the same place so as you don't have to fuck with mikes and set-ups and so on. We also wanted a city where we felt we'd get some good feedback from the audience, where we'd hopefully get lifted'to another level of performance. And everything we'd heard about the whole vibe of Mexico City, the craziness and so on, made it a good choice. So then the idea came to record Mexico City just on audio, so there was one gig on CD and the San Diego stuff on video. 
"We got The Plant in July, and when we started picking tracks, we started picking through the San Diego and Mexico City stuff we had. Then we were going to look at the Seattle stuff from four years ago and pick the 3 or 4 songs from that show which we didn't do on this tour, 'The Thing That Should Not Be,' the full version of 'Master Of Puppets,' '...And Justice For All' and 'Breadfan,' none of which were a regular part of the '...Roam' tour. We were hesitant about approaching the Seattle stuff, thinking that it wouldn't sound so good or that we weren't playing so well, but it had a really cool feeling, there was a really good vibe with those gigs. So the more we listened to it the more we thought, 'Why not just fuckin' clean house and put this whole gig out too, to show the different sides of what we've been doing.' So we decided to go for that contrast, showing the '...Justice' tour where the band were physically a lot closer together onstage, and what we did we did in '...Roam' which was more of a 'reaching out' and involving people in the arena thing. Both of them hold up really well in their own way, and together they become even more. So basically, here is 9 hours of live Metallica shit. I remember having the conversation with Cliff (Burnstein) where we said, 'Let's just fucking do this and go totally over the top.' It's pushing things further than we've ever pushed anything and, as far as we can tell, further than anybody else ever has." 
Hetfield was initially against releasing the Seattle "...Justice" tour footage. 
"I wanted to hang onto Seattle for a long time, because it was the only properly shot old shit we had. It had a lot of stuff that we, myself anyway, didn't really wanna get rid of right now. We'd always talked of it being something that would come out I0 years down the line, like, 'Wow here's some vintage crap that's never been seen and, wow, it's on proper film,' that sort of thing. But as we started watching it, we found that it was pretty alright stuff, and we agreed to just get it all out now so as it doesn't look really out of place later. If we'd held on, it could've been a situation where we're rockin' along and this thing comes out 10 years later, people see it and start saying 'HEY ... they used to be good!' hahaha. " 
The much-discussed "de-climatization" from 2 years on tour has gone on rather longer, and been a good deal more intense, than was envisaged in late June/early July. 
"This thing has wound me up more than anything on tour," chuckles Hetfield, "it hasn't been a 'winding down' process at all. It really snowballed into something we didn't think would take so long. We, ended up mixing in three studios with three different people, so we were running between rooms. It was a three ring circus where we just took over the whole joint (the Plant Studios). Including this here (points to the small room we're sitting in, which looks to have been a large closet). We had them do this up so we had somewhere to get away from this shit! hahaha. We were obsessed or possessed by this thing, we had to be there. Even if someone else was producing it, we'd still have to be here. That's just the way it is." 

ULRICH: "It was like a revolving door between the studios, go in and check a mix, run over to the another room and check one edit, come in here run over to another room and check the videos, come in here and check the videos coming up from LA and run 16-18 hour days. A lot of the assistant engineers would bed down here in their sleeping bags and not have days off for weeks at a time. "But referring to that 'de-climatization' point. It's been about 3 1/2 years from when we started writing the last album, and I think we had this idea that after what we'd been through on the tour, we'd come home and not be able to spend as much time dealing with this as we have. That was obviously a very ignorant train of thought that maybe got us throuh the tour, especially knowing how anal we tend to get when it comes to this phase of any project we're involved in. It has turned into a bigger thing, but I think it's turned into a great way of getting the last 3 1/2 years out of our systems. Now the slate really is completely clean. We wrote the album, made the album, toured the album and here's the documentation of the album's music on the road. Now we can take our 9 months or whatever off and start with a clean slate. Everything about this tour is gone. It will enable us to completely let go of everything from the last few years, and when we begin to approach the next album we can do so without any lingering, left-over baggage." 

HETFIELD: "Everything we've been hanging onto is out and gone. Every song we've written, everything we've had on video is GONE!" 
There could be criticism of releasing this much material at once, as well as coughs over the price tag. 

HETFIELD: "If we put these things out separately over the years, it would cost the same amount of money, maybe more. It seems that other bands put crap out because 'wow we need money' or something, and this is absolutely NOT that! It's chock full of various stuff, more than enough, more-than-enough. There's stuff in the book we shouldn't even be showing people, some of the faxes and stuff. It is way over the top and yeah, I think it's great. Nothing's really stood out like this does, as far as live albums or videos are concerned." 

ULRICH: "Looking around and seeing what other bands have done with their situations, a single video and a double video, a single CD and a double CD, a third CD with two different posters and a bonus live track, I feel that's really ripping people off. What we're doing is saying, 'Here it is, take it or leave it.' And the reason it costs $89.95 is not so we and Elektra can walk away with big fat bank accounts, it's basically to cover the fucking costs of about 2 1/2 million bucks. Our management did a survey and discovered that this is the most expensive packaging anybody has ever put together. You've got everything in there, 9 hours of music, 72 page book, backstage passes, stencil, keys to our houses ... so fuck, take it or leave it!" 

Metallica have always pushed boundaries: their career was founded on such principles. Did this live set become a challenge, to break the boundaries of how one presents live material? 

ULRICH: "That wasn't the strategy, you've got to realize that with us things always build..." 

HETFIELD: "...into a frenzy. We knew this could kill a lot of people, including ourselves! hahahahaha. This is just one huge Metalli-hell, 'Hell For All,' victims everywhere! 

ULRICH: "Like it says in the sleeve notes tbat James and I wrote to explain what this is all about, we know that this is pushing it but can you handle it, pussies? We know it, you know it, so let's give it a go and see what happens. I think this package also has a longevity factor. You can go back to it for a long, long time finding different things in the music and in the videos, because there's so much material. Everytime you open that 72 page booklet, you'll be able to find something different to see." 

The idea of printing some of those "personal" tour faxes is, indeed, a first. It effectively puts a bunch of (at times dirty) tour laundry out for public consumption. 

HETFIELD: "There's a lot of stuff people don't need to, or shouldn't really, see in there. It's not really 'insider' stuff to us, it's just everyday crap we deal with on tour. It may seem super-inside to other people, but it's our lives. There's nothing in there that could really embarrass us, that'd be pretty hard, but it might embarrass some other people involved. There could be a few phone numbers that need to be changed, hahaha. " 

ULRICH: "Me and Jaines ended up finding a lot of cool fax-shit We thought would be fun to share, to give people an idea of what happens in our little daily road world. Once again, it started out as 10 pages, but once I dug through my stuff there was so much cool shit that covered every angle of our lives, even that snowballedl" 

Discuss exactly what kind of work was done in the studio, and explode the myth that there were 5 million overdubs right here and now. 

ULRICH: "I can say officially that it doesn't have to be that way with live albums. For us, the burden of the work was in selecting exactly what music we wanted. There were 15 hours of music from Mexico City, two nights from Seattle, two from San Diego, all in all about 25 hours of music. There were two phases of this project. The first month was pretty much weeding through all the stuff and picking the best performances of each song from each night. The second part was mixing it together and making it sound as good as possible without losing what live shit's all about: we didn't want to lose that 'live' thing. And dealing with three different gigs, two videos and a CD, we decided that instead of having one video guy and one audio guy, we'd get different people for each video and the CD. All the gigs retain their own personality that way, everything has a different series of flavors. 

"We took a 'documentary' approach towards the shows. The gigs are whole gigs, not half of a gig or 14 out of 18 songs, it's the first note to last note of three different shows." 

No fancy editing? 

"No. Everything's in, I know some people will moan that there's three bass solos and three guitar solos in the package..." 

HETFIELD: "...And that the sing-along's boring as sbit, that the spaces between songs are too long. But that's how it really is, and people aren't used to reality witb live releases," 

Metallica have always done plenty of media work in the past, but Live Shit: Binge & Purge is the first release Metallica will do no interviews for. The reason is simple enough. 

ULRICH: "Everything about the project is self-explanatory. Once people know the facts and read the note James and I wrote explaining the whole deal, there won't be anything else to know. So with everything being so self-explanatory, for us to sit down and be bombarded with interviews about what the next album's gonna sound like is something we don't need to deal with right now. " 

For me there's no definitive way to look at this," concludes Ulrich, "it's our first attempt at a live package and it's definitely the right time in our career to do this. It's also the right time for us to take a step away from everything for however long. And it's the perfect way to leave our hardcore fans witb something to listen to while we're away."