Dan DeLuca of the Philadelphia Inquirer recently conducted an interview with METALLICA frontman
James Hetfield. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Philadelphia Inquirer: METALLICA spoke out vocally against Napster when the file-sharing revolution began in the late ’90s, and you were vilified for it. How do you view that now?
Hetfield: I think everyone did it wrong, from the people inventing the technology to the record companies to the artists. I think the record companies should have embraced the technology rather than turning their back on it, thinking they were untouchable, which obviously set a little more fire under these younger computer geniuses who were inventing this amazing technology. I mean, they did go to them, and the record companies snubbed them. So the artist actually ended up getting, in my opinion, [messed up] because of that confrontation. . . . I think we did the right thing at the moment. I still think stealing is wrong. It’s one of the 10 Commandments: Thou shalt not steal. Though it’s not as simple as that, it will always go back to that. Lars [Ulrich, METALLICA drummer] took the shots. We would have lot of artists coming up and saying. “Thank God, you’re standing up,” and “Go get ’em.” But as soon as we called them out for some support, they were hiding in the shadows, and we were out their on our own.
Philadelphia Inquirer: Did you ever regret how much access you gave the filmmakers in “Some Kind Of Monster”, which was made when you were in rehab?
Hetfield: No. We thought we might as well put it out there in a form that’s something we can trust. It was just unfolding. We didn’t know what we were doing. I was like a piece of raw meat walking around. I didn’t know what had just happened to me in my life. I’m grateful that it was captured.
Philadelphia Inquirer: When’s the next METALLICA record?
Hetfield: You tell me. I don’t know. We’re writing here and there, touring, doing the festival thing. I’m looking forward to making the next record. But I don’t know when.
Read the entire interview from Philadelphia Inquirer.
Source: www.blabbermouth.net