There are few things more macho than a heavy-metal musician on stage…
CBC.Com July 29, 2004
Georgie Binks
There are few things more macho than a heavy-metal musician on stage, standing legs astride, desperately hitting the high notes while the driving beat of a guitar overtakes everything else. And there are few bands more macho than Metallica.
The sight of burly lead singer James Hetfield wielding his guitar like a weapon, albeit a small one in contrast to his size, is a huge attraction of the band, possibly even more strongly for men than women.
I will declare a conflict of interest here: As part of my own mid-life crisis I have embraced the rock music I missed out on in the ’90s while raising my kids. And yes, purchasing Metallica CDs is cheaper than cosmetic surgery or a motorcycle, but likely not as acceptable.
So when I heard about the documentary about the band, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which documents the band’s journey through analysis, just as they were entering the studio to record another album, I was wondering how it would affect their machismo.
After all, allowing a crew to film therapist Phil Towle as he worked with the band could have been professional suicide. Definitely, the band needed help, if it was to continue. Among the other things, they were struggling with lead singer James Hetfield’s alcoholism, bass player Jason Newsted’s departure, and the friction between the two founding members, lead singer and guitarist Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. But letting filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky in to film it all was certainly a risk. What if these guys turned out to be human and more frighteningly, exhibited a non-macho side? Would it turn off their largely male audience, the same guys with the shaved heads and the many tattoos at last summer’s Summer Sanitarium Tour? (Yes, I was there, but no tattoos).
Metallica is a band that has taken big chances in the past and come out a winner, losing some listeners in the process but gaining others. In fact, they have written a number of beautiful songs, ranging from Welcome Home (Sanitarium) based on Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to Until It Sleeps about Hetfield’s mother’s death from cancer; kind of different for the heaviest of metal bands, right? In the late ’90s, they also recorded an album with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, complete with violinists, looking over their shoulders, both amused and puzzled, as Hetfield plays the guitar.
Letting a therapist in, though, was more than simply taking a professional chance; it was a personal one. Not only did it pay off big time, in keeping the band together, but it shows that being macho is often misunderstood.
The macho rock lifestyle has always included life on the road, drugs, alcohol and of course, women, lots of women. Metallica, whose nickname for a time was “Alcoholica” based on its band members’ self-proclaimed alcohol abuse, used to roar into towns and party hard. After all the energy generated by concerts, the sheer high of it all, alcohol and women were a great way to keep it going. But Hetfield admits in the movie that the life was predictable, saying he knew that every night he would get drunk, and every morning wake up hung over in a different bed. After entering rehab during the filming of the movie, and leaving the band in limbo for about nine months, he talks now about how his life with his wife and three children is never predictable.
Being sober with kids can actually be a lot more frightening than the predictability of his previous life. Hetfield lets the camera see him sitting at the back of a ballet studio as his tiny daughter, dressed in a pink tutu, dances and then runs to hug him. With his big tattooed arms he returns the hug.
Three of the four band members are married and two have children, a big anchor. One of the reasons bass player Jason Newsted left was that he formed another band to take up the time when he wasn’t performing with Metallica. In the documentary, he explains that, unlike the band members with families, he needs to fill the empty spaces with music, something that Hetfield thought conflicted with the band.
The documentary also shows drummer Lars Ulrich making fun of himself in the wake of Metallica’s stand against Napster, a hugely unpopular position. He nods to an interviewer, in a self deprecating way, that yes, he just figured that year he would like to be the most hated man in rock, by taking on Napster and fans downloading the band’s music.
Much of the movie is filled with therapy jargon, drummer Ulrich picking up phrases like, ” what I hear you saying is” and it does almost become comic. But the therapy process also forces the band to deal with issues close to those found in a typical marriage. Not only do the band members spend months on the road with each other, they are constantly involved on both a personal and professional level. How many marriages could stand that intensity?
The band also deals with long-ago issues, like the firing 20 years ago of guitarist Dave Mustaine, who now has his own band, Megadeth. Mustaine still has huge feelings of loss, despite selling 15 million albums worldwide. He complains of how difficult it was to hear everyone talk about Kirk Hammett, the guitarist who replaced him.
Eventually Metallica works through its issues and the therapist is off, presumably to fix another rock band, although Hetfield has said in interviews that he became attached to Towle, simply because he lacked a father growing up as a child of divorce. Hetfield’s statements, along with the band’s opening up, don’t diminish them though; this simply adds another dimension.
When the band emerges from therapy, they are able to return to the studio and record, although I will say that their latest album St. Anger, is not my favourite. As the title suggests, therapy hasn’t diminished their anger or rage, but the beauty and the pain that can be found in many of their songs seems to be missing. Maybe they dealt too successfully with those issues in therapy.
Yes, it takes a bunch of pretty tough guys to expose themselves to the world like this, but it does nothing to diminish the band. They are still the same group that penned the song Seek and Destroy and always will be.
Having the guts to explore inside has made them a lot tougher on the outside; tough enough to continue after more than twenty years making music together.
Now that’s macho.