PHIL TOWLE may be the most unassuming man you’ve ever met…
Posted on Sat, Jul. 17, 2004
By Casey Mills
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
PHIL TOWLE may be the most unassuming man you’ve ever met. Throwing a ball to his dogs in the back yard of his San Anselmo home, comfortably clad in a faded sweatshirt and battered jeans, he seems like the caring, gentle uncle you always wished you’d had.
Upon meeting him, it’s obvious he wants to know you — he’ll talk about himself later — and minutes after hello he’s already asking, with genuine concern, about your life, your dreams, your family. As you reveal yourself, he seems perfectly comfortable with your feelings and emotions, using the word “love” with the same ease as the word “driveway.”
“How does that make you feel?” he asks with gentle, searching eyes. And when the conversation does eventually turn to him, he opens up instantly and easily, giving the psychological motivations for what he’s done, even when not asked.
Strange, then, that a man so avuncular, so, well, touchy-feely, recently spent three years working with one of the most testosterone-ridden testaments to manhood, the heavy metal band Metallica, which built its career on lyrics like, “We are looking for you to start up a fight/There is an evil feeling in our brains.”
Even stranger, the entire process was filmed and recently released as a feature-length documentary, “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster,” directed by the critically acclaimed duo Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky.
The movie chronicles the band struggling to stay together despite their bassist leaving, the lead singer entering rehab and the entire group existing as a tangle of dysfunctional relationships. Through it all, Towle listens, offers advice and presides over some of the movie’s tensest moments: therapy sessions in which band members scream, fight and cry their way through their demons.
The movie isn’t always kind to Towle, depicting him as getting too close to the band and unwilling to leave, despite their eventual desire for him to go. At one point, Metallica frontman James Hetfield worries out loud about Towle thinking he’s becoming a member of the band.
But for the 65-year-old performance coach, getting close to the band was the only way to help them, providing an avenue for the fist-pumping, adrenalized masculinity that is Metallica to enter the warm fuzzy world of therapy and begin to address their substantial issues.
“I don’t think Metallica, being who they are as people, could have handled a straight-laced, conservative, traditional therapist,” says Towle. “If I didn’t talk about my problems and didn’t display my problems, then I don’t think I would have lasted a week with them. I had to be human with them.”
His strategy worked: Despite its angst-ridden moments, “Some Kind of Monster” reflects a truly happy ending.
Warm and fuzzy
Towle’s office is standard-issue — plastic chairs, clunky computers, papers strewn across two massive desks — yet there’s a warmth that pervades the room, though it’s hard to figure out why. After a couple of hours of conversation, it dawns on you: He’s providing the comfortable atmosphere with his words and expressions.
His ability to excitedly tell you that he’s having fun talking with you, like a friend on the school playground sharing a secret, then furrow his brow and delve into the deep psychological pain of Metallica, offers a glimpse of how he was able to enter the band’s life and stay there for so long. He doesn’t try to separate his personal self and his professional self, making interaction with him remarkably intimate.
It was with this talent that Towle managed to pull Metallica out of a severe crisis, one that threatened to end a 19-year run of one of the most influential bands in rock, a band that had sold 90 million albums through the 1980s.
Towle’s first meeting with Metallica took place in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton in downtown San Francisco in January 2001. The band had been heading into the studio to record a new album, and members weren’t getting along. Their managers had begun searching for help, and hired Towle, who had just finished helping rock band Rage Against the Machine through lead singer Zack De La Rocha’s departure. He had also previously worked with professional athletes, providing counseling to the St. Louis Rams from 1997 to 2000.
Five minutes into their first session, bassist Jason Newsted (who now lives in Walnut Creek), announced he was quitting the band. For most, this would have been a debilitating blow, but Towle used it as a tool to begin their therapy.
“I’m an advocate of accountability, so I tried to tone down the bitching about him leaving and focus the attention to where it belonged. I had them ask themselves, ‘Why would someone want to leave our family?'”
Staying on course
The documentary begins soon after, chronicling Hetfield’s entry into rehab, the band’s struggle to record their album “St. Anger” and the slow, tension-filled process of strengthening their relationships in order to ultimately keep the band together.
The process was not easy. What began as bi-monthly sessions became daily, and Towle and his wife eventually moved to California from their home in Kansas City to be close to the band. Yet while many credit Towle for saving the band, he downplays his role in this rock ‘n’ roll drama.
“I could give you substantial reasons why each member of Metallica saved the band,” says Towle. “It was the process they were willing to go through. Can you imagine what courage it took to be able to do that? They sat down, they opened up, they shared. … That’s what saved the band.”
Towle gets serious when discussing his decision to become a “performance coach” after 30 years as a psychotherapist, even though some might dismiss this title as something a late-night infomercial guru might use. Call him a therapist, and he will quickly correct you — “You mean performance coach?”
“One day, I got this insight,” he says. “I was asking the heavens what the difference was between doing psychotherapy and performance coaching, and I heard a voice. It’s only happened to me once, maybe twice in my life. The voice said, ‘You used to work with people’s nightmares. Now you work with their dreams.’ And that’s the most profound reason for doing what I’ve done.”
Working with Metallica’s dreams proved an intense experience for Towle; one that has been hard to give up. While his professional relationship with the band has formally ended, he still keeps in touch, and recently met with them during their European tour.
Having to let go
“I was talking at least two or three hours a day about meaningful things with them,” says Towle. “It was an experience that was intoxicating for me. … I never experienced that kind of connecting at that meaningful a level on such a regular basis outside my family. The separation from them has been awkward and uncomfortable, because I miss them. I not only miss them, but I miss what we had together.”
Towle has since resumed a private performance coaching practice at his new home in Marin County. He also hopes to launch the Genius Conservation Network, devoted to helping great contemporary artists and thinkers with their psychological problems. The project came about in the hopes that today’s geniuses, unlike many from the past — from Hemingway to Hendrix — will be able to produce work well into old age rather than burning out early.
He’s not sure what the future will bring and is willing to work with most anyone as long as it’s a group or individual who affects social change. Proud of the widespread influence he’s had through Metallica, he wants to continue the trend.
“The band has transformed itself, and now, especially with the movie, they are in a position to offer help to their fans,” says Towle. “They are already helping people consider therapy and consider transforming their sense of alienation.”
For a man in search of a lasting legacy, it’s not a bad start.