This interview is packed with wonderful tidbits. James Hetfield on day jobs and the early tour routine:
We worked at day jobs. After that, we’d throw parties, take the furniture out of the house and smash the joint. We smashed dressing rooms just because you were supposed to. Then you’d get the bill and go, “Whoa! I didn’t know Pete Townshend paid for his lamp!” Come back off the tour and you hadn’t made any money. You bought furniture for a bunch of promoters.
Hetfield on growing up differently from Lars Ulrich:
I could afford maybe one record a week, and he would come back from the store with 20. He bought Styx and REO Speedwagon, bands he’d heard of in Denmark. I would go, “What the fuck? Why did you buy Styx?“
Kirk Hammett on Hetfield’s Nothing Else Matters:
All I could think of at the time was, James wrote a fucking love song to his girlfriend? That’s just weird.
Hetfield on alcohol abuse and parenthood:
You can’t be hung over when you got kids, man. “Dad, get the fuck off the couch!” Well, they don’t say that—yet.
Ulrich on Matt Damon:
PLAYBOY: Your wife, Skylar, used to date Matt Damon, and he made her the model for the female lead in Good Will Hunting. A few years ago, Matt described you as “a fucking rock star who’s got $80 million and his own jet—a bad rock star, too.”
ULRICH: He said that before we met. And he’s apologized about a hundred times. The first five times I saw him, he would spend 10 minutes apologizing profusely. He really is a sweetheart.
Ulrich on collecting art:
Hanging out backstage with Kid Rock is an amazing turn-on, no less so than sitting and staring at my Dubuffet for an hour with a fucking gin and tonic.
Mark Larson 