Metallica

Kill ‘Em All and Ride the Lightning have fueled many heated sessions over the years. Now Metallica is ten albums deep spanning over their 35-plus years existence. Hardwired… to Self-Destruct fits right in with their early albums and they’ve been promoting it by playing smaller venues around the world, giving their fans an intimate experience to blow out their eardrums. James Hetfield took some time before playing Oakland’s Fox Theater to talk about technology, the symphony and longevity. 

- Jordan Joseffer

You’ve done huge stadium tours and festivals but recently you’ve been taking it back to smaller venues. Does playing a venue like the Fox bring you back to the Kabuki days in the ’80s? 

Ha! Almost like that. Dude, it’s so fun. This is the last date on the promo tour. We’ve just been doing promo all over the place: New York, LA, London, Paris, Berlin, here—doing smaller gigs to get the vibe pumped up. Playing new songs, getting people excited, getting them out to see music, you know, metal music. I’d rather see a band in a small place. I love this place. The Fox is awesome. I’ve taken my kids to see plenty of gigs here. This is probably the biggest one of the clubs we’ve done recently. They’ve been between 150 to this, so we’ve had fun. Over in London we played the House of Vans.

I was there. That was an awesome show. 

It was cool. It didn’t sound the best but you’re in a freaking tunnel.

It was a legit London dungeon. At that show you guys opened with Budgie’s “Breadfan.” I think its awesome how you guys pay tribute to other bands and have collaborated with other artist like Lou Reed. What does it mean to you to cover these songs and work with these artists?