Chords for Bruce Dickinson Interviews James Hetfield

James Hetfield, welcome.
Thank you.
Good to see you, Bruce.
There's, oh, about umpteen years of ground to cover,
so I'm going to kick it with quite a heavy question about Cliff Burton.
And about how much weight Cliff Burton's death has exercised on your life.
You know, when you're with people, you don't really realise
how fortunate you are to be with certain people until they're gone.
That's how it was with him.
I look back at footage and see us,
and him and I worked pretty good together on stage.
I didn't really realise how much I missed him
until I went into the rehab and was dealing with a lot of the loss in my life.
My father, my mother, at a young age, and Cliff as well.
There was grief work that had to be done.
And a lot came out.
A lot came out then.
Now we're able to embrace it.
And Cliff is very much missed.
And as far as the hardcore fans, it's unbelievable how much they miss him
or know of him, you know.
When Jason joined the band, it was on the heels of some grief.
And we hadn't really been able to grieve the loss of Cliff.
Management's theory was, go on the road, work it out through stage,
through metal, through, you know, bond together,
and just get back out on the road.
I don't know if that was the best idea.
Managers always say that.
Yeah, [B] exactly.
But they said it with such strength.
And we're so raw and broken right now.
Well, okay, we believe you.
And we found Jason.
He was the best player.
He could sing.
He wrote songs.
He led this other band.
He was a fan, a big fan of Metallica.
That was probably one of the main parts of his hazing.
We were [E] trying to beat the fan out of him.
It's like, [N] dude, you're one of us.
Step up.
Quit being a fan.
And probably beat on him a little hard.
It took a lot of our grief out on him as well.
_ Good answer.
Good answer.
I like that.
Quick, just flashing right forward to the album,
on the lyrics in Judas' kiss, there's a line,
I assume written by you because it says you're to blame.
_ I became your new god now.
_ So go on, tell me, what is it?
Who is it?
Well, you plug in whatever you want into that.
Well, my plug in used to be alcohol, for sure.
Screwing around on the road, that was another part of my thing.
The song, the Judas kiss, it makes sense that it's a betrayal.
You believe in something.
You think this is the mission.
This is what it is, and at the end of the day, it's not.
So everyone has had their Judas moment.
As a front man, there's a feeling you get when people are singing your lyrics.
Yeah.
You just let them go, and it's like, wow, that is the new drug.
And I'm clearly addicted to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, on the subject of addiction and rehab and everything else,
some kind of monster, I think it was Ian Gillan who said,
all musicians are subject to sudden bouts of enthusiasm. _
Which is a very good way of saying, hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time, folks,
but looking back on it, part of a process or a destination in itself?
Part of the journey, part of life, and being maybe a little more honest than need be,
going from the mighty Metallica, unbroken, you can't mess with us,
to, oh, my God, James slammed a door, and now he's weeping in the corner in the fetal position.
There are certain personalities out there that can't accept that.
_ And that whole movie was not for a Metallica fan, in essence.
It was a human story. _
But I think exposing the weaknesses has made us certainly stronger.
We have learned a lot about each other through the movie.
It's been an amazing mirror.
And Metallica's always been a big target.
And I'm not sure if there's any other bands that are a bigger target or have taken as many shots as we have.
We put our heart out there, and we're honest with what we do, from Kill Em All to now.
And people love to take shots.
They're always going to find something wrong or something.
It's like I challenge them to, _ instead of finding the false, find what you connect with.
OK, let's talk about life insurance.
You're a life insurance nightmare.
You've had second and third degree burns.
You keep falling off skateboards and breaking your wrist.
There seems to be the most talented road crew in history in the background
who can play all the drums, who can play all the guitar parts and everything else.
The only thing they can't do is sing.
So to what extent are you a force of nature rather than just being an instrumentalist or a singer or something?
It's tough because I really don't consider myself a singer.
I'd rather put guitarist first and then, OK, someone's got to sing, I'll do it.
Back in the day, it was all about bands having front man.
Every band, New Wave or British Metal, everyone had a front man.
So I became the front man and I missed playing guitar and we went back and forth.
I really was singing until we found someone better.
It seems like I'm continuing to do that until someone comes along.
But, you know, it has become part of the vibe.
And yet I burn myself, I break arms and whatnot goes on, back goes out, things like that.
I can still sing.
So it's job security.
It's what it is.
I don't know if you've ever tried to sing with broken ribs.
It's not fun.
You have, OK.
Three broken ribs in a motorcycle accident.
Oh, I didn't know about that.
Oh, yeah.
Does your insurance company know about that one?
Did you tell them?
Yeah, there's a few that kind of went under the radar.
But thinking that if I'm closer to death, I'm living more, you know, it's getting old.
I got kids now.
I can't be doing this crazy shit, you know.
I want to continue to tour and have fun.
And, you know, someone will get the insurance policy someday, but not by my doings, hopefully.
Excellent.
No, I think there's lots of Metallica fans out there will be very pleased that nobody has any desire to collect soon on your life insurance.
James, thank you very