Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You just go out and do the best that you can. I think people feel that, and they embrace it, and it's a part of what makes Metallica special.
With the fretless bass, you have a different tone and different sound, a different dynamic to the instrument, so you can really make it sing.
You've gotta be careful because art is really important to most people, and you wanna respect that as much as possible. So I live by that rule.
'Some Kind of Monster' is a challenge, and 'Through the Never' is an extension of that. Even the album we made with Lou Reed, it was a challenge.
One of the things that I've noticed since I've been in the band is that, as players, Lars, James, and Kirk truly enjoy making music and performing.
With our fans, a lot of times, people get upset because maybe they didn't get what they wanted, whatever. But we always write the songs for us, number one.
Sabbath is always some of the best music ever. And the reason is because it grooves. It's funky. It's heavy. It's got lots of great changes, twists, and turns.
You can be an incredible player, but when you get onstage, you've gotta be yourself, and you've gotta bring it, as we say, and that just means give 120 percent.
We all grew up with Black Sabbath. I mean, there's no secret there. Any of us, any of the members of any band I've ever been in, or anyone I've ever worked with.
You can make an album, and people won't get it. Or won't connect with it. Or won't - whatever is going on in the universe at that time, it doesn't really register.
It's always nice, no matter what style of music, as long as it's grooving and you feel that, I feel that's what makes... part of what makes a great song, for sure.
Jaco Pastorius gave the bass a new voice. I mean, he was very inspired by singers like Frank Sinatra. And in a lot of ways, maybe he wanted to be a singer himself.
I've always been a fan of animation. As a kid, I used to watch a lot of the Saturday-morning cartoons, and I was always a fan of even claymation and that whole medium.
I like that Metallica has found a way to have these non-pedestrian arrangements but then the vocal melody is strong and intense. I've always appreciated that as a fan.
'Tallica Parking Lot' is, basically, roughly about a four-minute animated short which is centered around the parking lot of Metallica, and that can be anywhere in the world.
We absolutely cherish our kids. But the fact that we all have them - it's definitely created an additional bond. It's not just Metallica - it's our families. And we also have Metallica.
We enjoy playing small shows, big shows, whatever. There's the energy of the visual production, and all that stuff starts to happen, so when you see it come to life, it's pretty exciting.
Lars Ulrich is not a jazz drummer, but he grew up listening to jazz. Why? Because his father, Torben - an incredible tennis player - loved jazz. Jazz musicians used to stay at their house.
There were a lot of different styles in the house - Motown, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, jazz - and my dad played flamenco guitar. Soon I realized that bass was what was really grooving me.
I had a band called Infectious Grooves back in the Nineties. That music was really a mixture of styles, and we had some stuff that was punk rock, ska, but then we had a lot of funk in there.
I feel that music is such an inspirational form of energy, as baseball is. And especially with Metallica, believe it or not, our shows are very physical. Sports is a very physical thing, too.
I've been a baseball fan in the early part of my life, so through the '70s and the '80s, I was a huge fan. I actually followed the Dodgers back then, back in the Kirk Gibson years, Steve Garvey.
What we're doing is special and unique in its own way but still keeping it heavy. For me as a listener, part of the journey I'm on with Metallica, there's just a certain edge that needs to be there.
Lemmy is, I think, for anybody in the world of rock n' roll - you don't have to be a bass player - he is a pioneer, and he was true to his music and also the lover of a lot of different styles of music.
We used to go to Palm Springs, ditch school when I was in eleventh grade, and go hang out poolside with our ghetto blaster and listen to Pat Metheny 'Offramp' and kind of trip out on a lot of his music.
I don't generally like things that are too pedestrian. But at the same time, and if I'm in the right mood, hey - I ain't gonna lie - I listen to Joni Mitchell. I listen to 'Blue,' I listen to Miles Davis.
Traditionally, the role of the bass player was just to keep things simple and solid, so it's really a special thing when you can get a player that can actually bring in a lot of presence and also a visual presence, too.
To have the opportunity to bring 'Tallica Parking Lot' to life through images was really special. And also to have a lot of my heroes and my friends in the film was really, really special. People like Lemmy from Motorhead.
I've been friends with Jaco Pastorius's son since 1996 - Johnny Pastorius, the eldest son. And I remember when I first met him, I said, 'Some day, you've gotta make a film about your father,' because his influence is so broad.
I play in Metallica, and I have fun in Metallica. I tell you, I am the luckiest man on the planet because we have a good time and we're happy. When we put on our guitars, we're teenagers again, and that's where the fun comes in.
Back in the day, being a young, inspired bass player, I started to gravitate toward jazz fusion. I almost would have called myself an elitist. I got to the point where, for a little bit there, I was more interested in instrumental music.
My father had a friend who actually had a hollow-body bass guitar and didn't work through an amp, but because it was hollow body, I could play it. So I kind of played on that for about a year, learning scales and all that. And here I am.
The first album I ever bought was Santana's 'Abraxas.' Obviously, I was a huge fan of Carlos because he had the unique guitar sound, and he had incorporated a lot of the percussion and really, really fun rhythmic bass lines in there, too.
The great thing about Santa Monica civic auditorium was it was a place you could ride your bike to. In this case, my dad dropped me and my friends off, and we'd go see Ronnie James Dio or Jean-Luc Ponty or Weather Report or the Pretenders.
A lot of the hardcore fans wanna hear the deep cuts - songs like 'Orion' or maybe like a 'Disposable Heroes' - you know, songs that we don't play all the time - and then, of course, they wanna hear 'Sandman' and 'Nothing Else Matters' and some of the hits.
I call it a process of elimination. You're nurturing ideas, and that takes time. What happens is there's so many, what I say, 'great ideas.' What you have to do is try to consolidate them and put them into one song, and then your song becomes eight minutes long.
Joe Walsh is somebody who... he's a writer, obviously, and he's a singer-songwriter, whatever, but at the end of the day, when it comes to the Eagles, he's there to play guitar, and he's there to supply whatever is needed for that band, and that is what I feel with Metallica.
Bill Ward, when you hear his beats, he's not just playing a straight 4/4 beat; he's doing almost a hip-hop beat. There's a song called 'Sweet Leaf.' The drum beat that he's playing, he's trying to kind of swing and funkify it. Now, is he doing a great job of it? Maybe not. Maybe.
'Frayed Ends Of Sanity' off the 'Justice' album is a song that I really wanted to play with the band, and for years and years, I was always like, 'Let's play this song!' But I'll tell you something: I started working on that song almost from the very first time I joined the band.
When I first heard the song 'Eruption,' which is Eddie Van Halen's most famous solo composition, I was confused because it sounded incredible, but I didn't know what it was. I didn't know if it was a guitar. I didn't know if it was a synthesizer or a keyboard. I couldn't figure it out.
You listen to a Metallica song, and you listen to the drums, and they're not necessarily swinging, but the arrangements are different. Why is that? Because it's more in tune with jazz arrangements. It's very different. It's not a traditional rock and roll production, in terms of the drums.
It's very important to us, family, and the balance of family within the band is probably the most important. Metallica is important, but when you have your wife and your kids, and you need to maintain that and keep the peace, it's important to work around the schedule of the kids' schools.
Sometimes artists die young, and we don't know exactly why. I think that, in life, you have these special individuals, whether it's Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain. They're on this journey - they're on this earth to change things, to make things incredible - and then they're not with us anymore.
There is a lot of energy between Lars and James, and sometimes that energy can erupt. I know that before I was in the band, Kirk was the guy who was often in the middle, and it was important at that time. And now I feel like sometimes I'm the guy that's in the middle between not just James and Lars, but even Kirk.