JAMES HETFIELD, JASON NEWSTED AND MICHAEL KAMEN - THE SYMPHONY SESSIONS 1999
Part two of the interview took place in the garden behind Plant Studios in Sausalito, Calif., during the mixing of S&M.

Addicted To Noise: So, do you think this project is a success?

Hetfield: Oh, definitely, definitely. It was really a learning experience for all of us. You get the symphony mixed within itself, and then you get the band mixed within itself, and then you add the two, and then you're fighting for space. A lot of times the guitar has to take a back seat to some of the symphony stuff. I'm not saying that's bad, but we are kind of a guitar band. But the whole idea is to get the symphony in there. We've done plenty of other live albums —we want the symphony in there, and we want it to be heard, and mixing is quite difficult.

Addicted To Noise: Is there one song that's harder to mix than the rest?

Hetfield: "Fuel," a lot of the faster ones. It's always been really hard for the four of us just to mix the four of us. Now you've got 94 [people]. And it's actually easier because you're not so worried about, 'Well, after Lars comes out of the room, you know the drums are gonna be louder,' and I walk in and I gotta go turn the guitars up. Now we're more concerned about the overall song, because there's so many variables in it. So, it's not such an ego game. You got the orchestra kinda playing mediator there.

Addicted To Noise: What else have you learned from working with the symphony?

Hetfield: Well, that we don't really need a glockenspiel at the next gig. There's a few instruments that aren't our favorites, but there's others that you just, as soon as you walk in, you go, 'You gotta turn them up.' It's usually French horns, which just sound awesome. They're one of my new favorites. But, for me, percussion. Timpani and bells and stuff like that has always been very cool to me. So every time I'm in there, I'm like, 'Turn the timps up,' or the tubular bells, or some kind of percussion thing. The other thing that surprised me that was very cool was a lot of the harp work. They were saying how unconventional this guy was ... the guy with all the tattoos underneath his tux. But he was playing with a pick a lot of the time, and usually harpists don't. They usually just pick it with fingernails or fingers.

Addicted To Noise: Was it a guitar pick or fingerpicks?

Hetfield: I think it was a guitar pick. So, he was doing huge sweeps ... You've got your main four sections, the percussion, the strings — usually high and then low strings —then you've got your horns, and you can ride all the different things, and certain songs sound better with big horns. You sit and you solo just the strings, and you go, 'Well, that's an awesome melody. Let's turn that up.' But then you go to the other horns, and, well, that's even cooler.

Addicted To Noise: That's probably one of the toughest parts. Picking what comes up when and where.

Hetfield: Right. That's what [Kamen's] doing live. He's mixing the orchestra. But here, you really get a chance to manipulate it a lot.

Addicted To Noise: So, everything was going to tape, and being sent to the house at the same time.

Hetfield: Yeah, and then into our ears, the ear monitors. I mean, there was so much going on, it was not only just the intense feeling of trying this for the first time in front of an audience. But you have all the video and the film cameras, and you know you're going to tape —it was quite nerve-wracking. Plus, you gotta look cool, as well, on the video, and pretend you're not freaking inside. So, you tell a few jokes onstage, and then it kinda relaxed the whole bit.

Addicted To Noise: You guys pulled it off.

Hetfield: In my eyes, we did. You know, you ask a few of the people, they might have completely hated it. There were a lot less symphony people there than I was expecting. I was hoping to have a few more of the regulars. But there were a few that were there —that weren't there after the intermission. [laughs.] I think it was a little too much for some of them.

Addicted To Noise: Sensory overload.

Hetfield: It was, man. 'Cause, I'm sure, out in the house, it's more of a spectacle. You can't expect to hear exactly what's going on. You're getting more of a feel. You know, 'Oh, the horn passage was excellent,' over your wine. It wasn't like that. It was the whole vibe of the whole thing. And whether you liked that or not, that was depending on your openness to take punishment, I guess.

Addicted To Noise: What was it like to listen to these tapes and hear this Metallica music being played by the symphony?

Hetfield: It was fucked up ... Michael Kamen just basically beat a bunch of chords and feels over our music, and then we heard it, and we're going, 'Ooh. Whoa.' And then, we're looking at each other going, 'Well ... " We didn't really want to say, 'That's fucked up, man.' We just kinda were testing each other, going, 'That's interesting. Hmm. Is this gonna work?' We weren't ready to throw in the towel, but it was, 'Whoa. That is different. Really different. You know, that steps on my melody.' You can't think of it as your song and your thing. It's like, here's a piece of music, and you're going to be playing it with some other musicians. So, once we realized, we kind of gave up our rights to the song in a way. You let the other things happen, and, actually, it turned out great. It really did. Beyond our expectations.

Addicted To Noise: How will this stuff affect future Metallica music?

Hetfield: I guess what I've learned is that a lot more than one melody can happen at the same time. And when you sit and you go, 'OK, well, here's a piece of music and I've written a vocal phrase or vocal melody for it,' and that's it. That's the phrase. And now, you kind of second-guess yourself —' Whoa, maybe I can come up with something cooler,' a counterpart for it or something else. 'Cause a lot of the melodies [Kamen] came up with are awesome, completely awesome. It's like, 'Fuck! I wish I wrote that. Fuck! Why wasn't that there?' But so many melodies — if you got too many, it is complete overload. At the end of the day, the vocal's gotta be the main melody. I guess just coming up with more vocal melodies than just the one. Maybe try and get a lot more different sounds.

Addicted To Noise: Will some of the stuff that, say, the strings were playing find its way back into your vocabulary when you're playing live now?

Hetfield: Boy, I kind of doubt it, but we'll be thinking of 'em, you know? You never know. It might affect my guitar playing in a way. I might really fall in love with some melody, and actually, if it doesn't really affect the song, if something's really not happening in the song, well, one guitar can go do this thing, now. Possibly. That's a good question.

Addicted To Noise: Will you work with the symphony in the studio again?

Hetfield: We're not afraid to now, obviously. I think when we first did "Nothing Else Matters" [from the "Black Album"] with Kamen ... I think we were a little afraid to have any other musicians in the studio. Especially schooled ones. So we sent the tape off to him, and it came back with some stuff on it. I don't think we're as afraid to have other musicians in the studio now ... as long as they're cool and in their own world. I wouldn't rule any of that out. We gotta — I can't wait to really get some new, new Metallica, the four of us, material out there. It's been so long.

Addicted To Noise: Have you guys been writing some new stuff?

Hetfield: We're gonna start working on that next year some time. The Garage album, now this — I can't wait to get some new stuff out.

Addicted To Noise: You guys have been doing a lot of experimentation on the last few albums, getting away from the earliest Metallica sound — which is controversial.

Hetfield: Yeah, right. Oh, it absolutely is.

Addicted To Noise: Are you gonna keep going? You've got those two records, you've got a record with the symphony. The next thing you guys could do is put out a bluegrass record and it probably wouldn't surprise anybody.

Hetfield: I've said it before, that the experimenting is fun, but at the end of the day, you know what you do best, and it's play heavy, heavy music. I mean, people's idea of heavy music is quite different ... You know, you got your "Bleeding Me" or your "Outlaw Torn" ... which I think are probably some of the heaviest stuff we've done. And because it doesn't have the speed or the more aggressive lyric, or whatever, they don't consider it heavy. We're obviously not gonna go backwards. There's no rear-view mirror in the Metallica van. We're goin' forward. Whether we take some of the older stuff with us or not, you just don't know. Obviously, the beauty of writing is that you open your mind, and you start playing, and that's what you got ...

Addicted To Noise: Are you ever afraid that you're challenging your old-school fans too much?

Hetfield: [laughs.] We know they're tough, man. We love them for being that tough, too. But this is stuff we gotta do. There's no disrespect to anyone, but this is for us, you know? And we love that fans follow us through thick and thin. And they kind of get off on that experimental vibe, I think, too, and the exploring new territory and no U-turns, you know? But, if they wanna hear the old shit, we really do still sell Master of Puppets.