UK Metal Masters VENOM INC, who recently signed a global deal with ALPHA OMEGA Management, are currently touring North America. On January 20th they performed at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco, California. On that same night Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan celebrated his birthday, receiving also some special guests, METALLICA‘s James Hetfield and Steffan Chirazi, who’s running Metallica fan club since years.
Comments Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan: I was excited to be playing San Francisco as for many years one of my favourite US cities. It’s the home and birth place of some of my fav bands and sounds from the 80’s. I invited some people as it was my birthday also and not only was the show and the audience fucking killer but Stefan Chirazi, Whiplash and James Hetfield all came down!!! Steffan is my good old friend who runs the Metallica fan club since years, and one of James best mates.
Making an incredible night something completely off the fucking map!!!!! All the bands were on fire too!! To James and my friends and to the whole SF crowd,Thankyou for a great great birthday night!!
An online campaign has been launched to have METALLICA removed from the Glastonbury festival bill because of frontman James Hetfield‘s interest in hunting, according to metalhammer.teamrock.com.
He’s described himself as a “keen huntsman” and enjoys travelling round the world to take part in shooting expeditions – and angry anti-hunt campaigners believe that means he shouldn’t be associated with the Worthy Farm event.
A Facebook page entitled Remove Metallica has gained over 2500 likes since launching last week. Organisers say: “This page is an appeal to Glastonbury to remove Metallica from their lineup. We believe James Hetfield’s support of big-game hunting is incompatible with the spirit of Glastonbury and brings its good name into disrepute.”
The campaign has been ignited by the announcement that Hetfield will narrate a History TV series about bear hunting in Alaska. Its producers argue the documentary presents a balanced view, saying: “Brown bear co-existence with humans on the island is a delicate balance, yet is regarded as one of the most successful conservation efforts in the world. Most hunters go after adult males, or boars, who when food is scarce are known to kill and eat cubs, as well as cause trouble near populated areas.”
But some people feel the musician’s involvement in the show means his band shouldn’t perform at Glastonbury. The campaign admin says: “I doubt very much that James Hetfield is the first high-profile big-game hunter to grace the stages – I’m sure there have been many.
“I do however doubt that any of them have had a prime time History show promoting his view that hunting is a good thing to do, on at the same time. This double-exposure gives his views extra publicity and acceptability, and this is where we can have an effect.
“This is about raising awareness and making both Metallica and Glastonbury aware of what appears to be a large number of people’s disapproval.”
The documentary series, Hunt, is launched on June 8. Metallica are due to headline Glastonbury on June 28. Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson, whose band co-headline Sonisphere with Hetfield and co in July, last week said he’d never consider following them to the Worthy Farm event, branding it “middle-class” and “bourgeois.”
METALLICA‘s James Hetfield will be joining Sammy Hagar and a number of other special guests including Billie Joe Armstrong (GREEN DAY), Scott Mathews, Pat Monahan (TRAIN), Joe Satriani and Nancy Wilson (HEART) for the “Acoustic 4 a Cure” benefit for the peadiatric cancer program at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital at The Fillmore in San Francisco on Thursday, May 15.
Jason Newsted has revealed that he decided to leave Metallica the moment he realised James Hetfield didn’t regard him as an equal – and warned him “other arrangements can be made” if the bassist didn’t abandon his plans to work on side-project Echobrain.
Newsted, who made his decision four months before confirming it in 2001, also says Hetfield “put the kibosh” on management plans to get involved with the other band.
But he doesn’t blame Hetfield for the issue, and suggests other people in the Metallica organisation should have offered more support.
He tells Scuzz TV: “Echobrain was just another project but I wanted to get more serious about it. The upside-down thing I don’t think anybody knows: the management of Metallica was very excited about Echobrain. They wanted me to do it. They felt it: ‘This is a great record. Let’s do something with this.’”
But just days later the plans were abandoned. Newsted says: “James heard about it and he was not happy. He was out to put the kibosh on the whole thing, because somehow it would affect Metallica in his eyes. I don’t know why or where. I’m not going to say anything bad. I have no idea what he was thinking other than protecting what he valued. That’s his thing; he protects what he loves and squeezes it too hard – like he’s said himself.
“That’s where I was coming from. The people that I’d counted on for fifteen years to help me with my career told me: ‘Your new project is fantastic. We’d like to help you with it.’ James heard about it and the manager calls me back: ‘Sorry, we’re not going to be able to help you with the Echobrain thing.’”
The issue came to a head when Metallica gathered to shoot a TV documentary on September 27, 2000 – the anniversary of previous bassist Cliff Burton’s death. Newsted recalls handing round copies of his Echobrain album to positive comments while Hetfield looked on, “not liking it”. The pair then had a discussion in which Hetfield demanded to know how far his bandmate planned to take the project. “He started saying: ‘I’m not sure I’m good with this,’ and my head started spinning. I was feeling like a little kid being reprimanded.
“He said: ‘Other arrangements can be made.’ That’s the deal: ‘Other arrangements can be made’ on Cliff’s day. Both bass players left on the same day.”
Newsted says he told guitarist Kirk Hammett that night that he’d decided to leave, and advised drummer Lars Ulrich two weeks later. “I was hoping they might say: ‘Let’s go and talk to our boy – he might be a little ill,’” he admits.
But the crunch came at a meeting in January 2001, to which the management sent infamous “performance-enhancing coach” Phil Towle, who featured in the Metallica documentary Some Kind Of Monster. Newsted told him: “‘You don’t know me; you don’t know our band; you haven’t been through what we’ve been through. I’m really glad that they brought you here – get the fuck out of this room.’ He reasons: “I was on the edge of giving my dream away, throwing it away. I was planning on crying for the next three weeks.”
And after an hour of emotional discussion, during which his colleagues failed to change his mind, members of the management team came into the room and, says Newsted, began acting as if everything was routine.
“I was broken down in a freaking puddle on the floor, just destroyed,” he remembers. “They can see me dead in the water and he goes, ‘I see you didn’t talk him out of it, okay,’ and passes out the papers like any other meeting. Lars goes: ‘Did you hear what he said?’ And the guy’s like, ‘Yeah, let’s go.’ I was like, ‘Who’s made the right decision here?’”
Newsted has previously said that he believed Metallica needed some time off after nearly fifteen years of effort. He adds that management should have offered more emotional and mental support, saying they should have asked: “Are you okay in there? How is your health? How is your family? How is your drug addiction? How is your neck? Maybe we should take a few months off. But nobody did that.”
Newsted launched his self-titled band a year ago and released the debut album Heavy Metal Music in August. Metallica, who headline Sonisphere in July, are planning to record a new record this year.
Newsted’s comments about leaving the band begin around 30 minutes into the Scuzz TV special below.
In the clip below, METALLICA‘s James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, and actor Dane DeHaan discuss the new movie, Metallica Through The Never, with Variety. The movie made its world premiere at the 38th annual Toronto International Film Festival on September 9th.
Two video clips shot at the Toronto International Film Festival are streaming below. In the first, the members of the band are introduced prior to the screening. In the second video, guitarist Kirk Hammett talks about Metallica Through The Never.
Metallica recently released more clips from the upcoming 3D feature film:
Metallica‘s first public screening of Metallica Through The Never in the US will be right in their own backyard at the beautiful historic Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, CA on Tuesday, September 17th at 7:15 PM for this special kick-off event prior to the 36th annual Mill Valley Film Festival.
Metallica Through the Never stars Metallica, one of the most popular, influential rock bands in history. In this music-driven, 3D motion picture event, award-winning filmmaker Nimród Antal immerses audiences in a bracing, raw and visceral cinematic experience with spectacular live performance footage of Metallica’s most iconic songs — created exclusively for film – combined with a bold, narrative story featuring imagery drawn from the band’s trailblazing iconography. Dane DeHaan portrays Trip, a young roadie sent on an urgent mission, during the Metallica’s roaring live set in front of a sold-out arena. The film features dazzling pyrotechnics, the most elaborate live-performance stage ever built and state-of-the-art 3-D photography, captured using up to 24 cameras simultaneously. Picturehouse will release in North America on September 27th, exclusively in over 300 IMAX 3D Theatres, and will expand into additional theaters on October 4th. To purchase tickets, click here.
Metallica Through The Never (Music From The Motion Picture), the soundtrack companion to the forthcoming groundbreaking 3D feature film, Metallica Through The Never will be released on the band’s own record label, Blackened Recordings, on September 24th and highlights last year’s career spanning sets at Rexall Place in Edmonton and Rogers Arena in Vancouver, where the band filmed all performance footage featured in the film.
The soundtrack is available for digital pre-order tonight at midnight, EST here, and both the CD and digital album will be available September 24th at all retailers. There will also be a vinyl edition of the soundtrack album available in both 33 1/3 RPM and special limited numbered 45 RPM versions later in the fall. See below for a complete track listing.
“Let’s hear it for the old school soundtrack!” said Metallica’s Lars Ulrich. Not only are we beyond psyched about our movie coming your way shortly, but the fact that we get to share the music directly in all these formats is way fuckin’ cool.”
Metallica Through The Never (Music from the Motion Picture) tracklisting:
Disc 1:
‘The Ecstasy Of Gold’
‘Creeping Death’
‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’
‘Fuel’
‘Ride The Lightning’
‘One’
‘The Memory Remains’
‘Wherever I May Roam’
‘Cyanide’
‘…And Justice For All’
Disc 2:
‘Master Of Puppets’
‘Battery’
‘Nothing Else Matters’
‘Enter Sandman’
‘Hit The Lights’
‘Orion’
Metallica Through The Never official theatrical trailer:
METALLICA guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield and bassist Robert Trujillo spoke to Billboard.com about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band’s long-awaited follow-up to 2008’s “Death Magnetic”, tentatively due in 2015.
“I want it done yesterday,” Hetfield said, “and [METALLICA‘s second Orion Music + More festival] and [the upcoming 3D] movie [‘Through The Never’] is keeping us pretty busy at this point and it’s taking a lot of our time and effort. We’ve been touring some obscure places; I guess basically what we’re trying to do is pay for this movie, so the touring is keeping us from getting in there and finishing the record. Right now the focus is on the movie.”
He continued: “We got out into the room and jammed and we’ve come up with enough material for a record, for sure. We’ve gone through maybe one-tenth of the material that’s on our riffs CDs. We’ve got enough for an album, we just haven’t had enough time to really focus on it and dial in and start whittling it into these masterpieces, hopefully.”
Trujillo added that “the work ethic is super, super strong, and that’s what takes us longer than other bands, because we’re sitting there and sometimes we’re really analyzing things. I mean, for every one lyric, Hetfield has, like three lyric possibilities. But I can tell you this; the grooves and the riffs that are already on the radar are really, really awesome. We’ve still got more riffs to go through and jam out and throw into the process, but we’re getting there, and we’ll have something great, hopefully, in the next year.”
Last month, Hetfield told Abu Dhabi’s That’s Entertainment about METALLICA‘s next CD: “We haven’t even started writing it. We’re going through riffs. We have, like, 800-and-something riffs we’re going through — lots of ideas. We’re really excited about it, but doing concerts here and there, trying to get back in the studio and get some stuff done, it’s all really exciting. But it gets done on METALLICA time, which is not really scheduled. When it’s done, it’s done and when it’s good, then it will be done.”
Asked in a new interview with Revolver about the next album, Ulrich said, “We’re in the early stages of writing, and all I can say is there are some good things lurking,” adding, “2014 is a bit optimistic for the album to come out, so ’15 is more realistic. But listen, there’s no rush. It’s gonna take what it takes. I don’t feel stressed about it, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care.”
METALLICA fans can next see the band headlining their own festival, Orion Music + More, on June 8-9 in Detroit, and then wait for the September 27 release of “Metallica Through The Never”, an IMAX 3D feature film that combines concert footage with a fictional narrative.
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