A Metallica Biography (Part 4): Metallica Today

With a mottled history and an uncertain future, Metallica trudged through 2000 until now, continuing to add color to their story. This included gaining and again losing respect from one subculture to the next, the messy art of writing music and spending more time in the studio as well as at home. Let’s look closer.

Newsted Rings in 2001 With a Departure
On January 17th, 2001, Jason Newsted released a statement that he was leaving the Metallica band for “private and personal reasons…and [because of] the physical damage I have done to myself over the years while playing the music that I love.”

Newsted later told interviewers that he planned to work on a project with his side band Echobrain, which Hetfield was against while he was a part of Metallica. James felt that outside projects took inspiration and creativity away from the band and its vision. He even compared Newsted’s decision to work with Echobrain while a part of Metallica, to cheating on a spouse. The comments had sparked an unofficial argument in the past and Newsted blasted back at Hetfield, noting all of the outside work he had done.

The band claims that the break between them and Newsted was amicable and that there was profound respect between them but snide remarks have, over the years, been noted on both ends. Newsted now admits that the other band members of Metallica often hazed him and ridiculed him. The band’s behavior against Newsted has been attributed amongst some fans to being caused by their pain over Cliff’s death.

In April of 2001 Metallica became part of a film project. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, two reputed documentary filmmakers, recorded the making of the band’s next album. They wound up with over 1,000 hours of footage but on July 19th, before the project could be released, Hetfield entered rehab for alcohol and drug addiction. The recording stopped and so did the band’s future.

December 4, 2001 marked the band’s new beginning. They went back to the studio and Hetfield returned to work with them part time. The finished project Some Kind of Monster, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and made moderate waves. The most notable portion of the documentary for some, was Jason Newsted’s decision to put his former band members down, using expletives and name calling, for hiring a therapist in trying to solve their problems.

New Bass for Metallica
2002 was pretty much hiatus for Metallica. They unofficially toured Some Kind of Monster in Sacramento and San Francisco from June 4th, 2002 to May 22, 2003 in 7 single shows. They also threw a party for 100 contest winners but all in all, stayed relatively close to home, something that many attribute to James’s need to be near his family.

2003 held better days as Metallica held auditions for Newsted’s replacement in the band. They recorded St. Anger with Bob Rock but it was time to get someone who would stick around for the long haul. They auditioned Pepper Keenan, Scott Reeder, Eric Avery, Jeordie White, Danny Lohner and Chris Wyse and, of course Robert Trujillo.

Robert has had quite a career himself as you can see in Soundetta’s Metallica biography. He was bassist for Suicidal Tendancies and Ozzy Osbourne’s band as well. The irony is that Jason Newsted joined Vovoid, a Canadian metal band but also replaced Trujillo in Osbourne’s band for the 2003 Ozzfest Tour. Even more interesting is that Vovoid also performed at the Osbourne shows.

June marked the occasion of Metallica’s 8th album being released. They, as you know, named it St. Anger and though it reached number one on the Billboard 200, many fans weren’t happy. There were noted dislikes for the aggression in the album, the crisp sounding snare drums which were overdone and the lack of guitar solos, which Metallica has been known for in the past.
Some enjoyed the album, however, and the title track won a Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2004. It was also featured as the official theme song for the WWE’s 2003 Summer Slam.

Big Messes Little Successes for 04 and 05
The 2004 Download Festival in England was interesting for the band. Ulrich wound up in the hospital with an illness the band would not talk about and was unable to perform. Hetfield replaced him with Dave Lombardo from Slayer and Joey Jordison from Slipknot, both whom had volunteered.

As it turned out, Lombardo performed Battery and The Four Horsemen while Jordison picked up everything else. That is, with the exception of Fade to Black, which was performed by Flemming Larsen, Ulrich’s drum technician, which was awesome. I would imagine that if I were a drum technician and had the opportunity to play on stage for Metallica, I would do it happily, permitting my nerves would let me.

2005 was nothing special for the band. They spent most of their time with friends and family, which has been noted by both the band mates and hard core fans. Metallica did, however, perform two shows, both opening for the Rolling Stones on November 13th and 15th that year.

From 2006 to Now
Change is likely something the members of Metallica feel very used to. After 15 years with the band, Bob Rock decided against producing Metallica’s next album and instead, the band worked with producer Rick Rubin. Rubin has produced albums for Danzig, System of a Down, Slipknot and Slayer and holds quite a reputation in the metal industry.

Though the band wrote a couple of new songs, Trujillo was seemingly skeptical about them. Instead of releasing an album at that time, Metallica released a DVD of all the music videos they were responsible for from 89 to 04. They named it The Videos 1989-2004 and sold 28,000 copies in it’s first week out. It reached the Billboard Top Videos chart at #3 and their cover of Ennio Morricone’s The Ecstasy of Gold won them Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the Grammys.

On February 9th, 2007 the band released a statement confirming that they were finished with pre-production on their 9th album and that recording would begin shortly. On March 12th, they were back in the studio and in December they sat with their new producer polishing the album.

The band has said that they want to release the album in September which seems to have some fans upset over the constant waiting and others uncaring with a lack of faith in them currently. The buzz is, however, that there will be more guitar solos, harder ripping, longer wailing and more melody, too. Apparently the band has decided to listen up to what fans want and I’m anxious to see the outcome. Be sure to check out the tour that’s coming up as another milestone in the history of Metallica. Rock On and get more Metallica information from Soundetta’s Musician Biographies.

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