Enter Night, page 50
Old friends had their own views. Flemming Rasmussen describes Death Magnetic as ‘a good step in the right direction’, but adds: ‘I think they should have called me. You know, if they want to do an album like that, why don’t they fucking just call me?’ He added: ‘It doesn’t sound nowhere as good as Ride or Master, for sure, no.’ Could he ever really see himself working with them again, though? ‘I’ve got no idea. I hope so.’ Xavier Russell offers a similarly cautious response: ‘I think it’s a lot better than their recent albums. It is a sort of return. Some of it’s even a bit earlier than Master of Puppets.’ The trouble, says X, is that ‘You hear it through and think that’s quite good. Then after it’s finished you think: can I remember any of the songs?’ Geoff Barton says, ‘I hate the production. If they’re attempting to reactivate the spirit of 1986 they’ve done quite a good job. But I don’t think it’s all there, to be honest.’ He adds: ‘The strange thing is to see the band going almost full circle and becoming nostalgic about those days.’ When Geoff interviewed James about the album, ‘[he] was very, very nostalgic about the thrash days. Metal Hammer had just produced a thrash special and he had a copy of it and he was looking at it and there were almost like tears in his eyes.’
The success of Death Magnetic was about more than just the strength or otherwise of the songs, of course. It was about simple old-fashioned marketing and promotion – it’s no good having the Second Coming if no one is there to see it – delivered in a thoroughly modern way. Months before the album was shipped out to stores, a new website, www.missionmetallica.com, was launched, in anticipation of both internet piracies – now, almost a decade on from Napster, a part of everyday life – and to maximise interest in owning a ‘hard copy’ (i.e. record or CD) of the forthcoming album. Initially offering visitors to the site behind-the-scenes insights into the recording, including contact with producer Rubin, it also promised a veritable treasure trove of exclusive content, such as fly-on-the-wall video footage, audio clips of works-in-progress and archival photos from their time in the studio. The 350-plus minutes of footage would eventually reach nearly ten million people across 161 countries. There was also an exclusive for the fan club – or, Mission Metallica members, as they were now dubbed – with the album being streamed a day before its official worldwide release, thus building a priceless word-of-mouth buzz among the internet community. Mission Metallica members also got first dibs on buying tickets for the forthcoming tour. On top of this, fans could interact directly with the band, who invited them to post clips of themselves performing Metallica songs on YouTube, which Lars viewed personally before posting his own video to offer his thanks. The clip had received more than 1.2 million hits by the time the album was released a week later. For a band that had actively positioned itself at the start of the decade against the growing influence of the internet, Metallica was now one of the bands positively leading the way with how to utilise the available technology. Whatever mistakes Lars had made, you couldn’t say he didn’t learn from them. Fast.
Meanwhile, back on terra firma, Metallica also set a new record for the most radio stations in history to sign up for an ‘exclusive’ broadcast, entitled The World Premiere of Death Magnetic. The programme, promoted by FMQB (the trade magazine for the US radio industry), was hosted by Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters, and featured the four Metallica members being interviewed. It was aired on more than 175 stations across the USA and Canada. Just for good measure, the first single from the album, ‘The Day That Never Comes’ was also issued and immediately topped both the Mainstream and Active Rock Charts, while seven more tracks from Death Magnetic simultaneously charted across three US radio formats – Alternative, Active Rock, and Rock – an almost unheard-of feat for any artist. There were similar blanket promotional efforts made in Europe and the UK. Britain’s Radio 1 turned 12 September into Metallica Day and devoted its entire twenty-four-hour output to the band and its new album, climaxing with the live broadcast of a special cut-price fan-club-members-only show at London’s O2 Arena. A similar event was held in Berlin.
Metallica didn’t quite get things all their own way, though. As ever, the internet was there to confound and connive. On 2 September, ten days before its official release date, a French record store knowingly jumped the gun and began selling copies of the album. Within hours, online versions of it were flying onto file-sharing networks around the world. This time, however, Metallica had anticipated the move and were ready with their response. ‘By 2008 standards, that’s a victory,’ a determinedly chilled Lars told US Today. ‘If you’d told me six months ago that our record wouldn’t leak until ten days out, I would have signed up for that. We made a great record, and people seem to be getting off on it way more than anyone expected.’ The internet community still had one more trick up its virtual sleeve, however. Two days before the official release date, a site called MetalSucks.net posted a link to a Russian website with a domain that offered the album in edited format. Cheekily dubbed Death Magnetic: Better, Shorter, Cut, the edited online album had cut each track by an average of two to three minutes, as if in imitation of a review by prominent Pitchfork online commentator Cosmo Lee, who’d declared the album redeemable only by cutting the exorbitantly lengthy tracks drastically.
Ultimately, however, Metallica now owned the internet in ways it would not have been considered possible in the bad old days of battling Napster. Six months after Death Magnetic came the release of Guitar Hero: Metallica. An Activision computer game for which the band had taken time out from promoting the album prior to release in order to film the various motion-capture scenes, GH:M featured twenty-eight of Metallica’s best-known numbers, plus twenty-one tracks from Metallica-endorsed artists, from obvious old-school choices such as Motörhead, Diamond Head and Judas Priest, to cool metal newbies like The Sword and Mastodon. Viewed from a certain angle, this was the shrewdest piece of business Metallica had done since inviting Bob Rock to help them become a commercial hit nearly twenty years before. Guitar Hero, a devilishly simple but infinitely clever computer game that distilled the essence of playing a musical instrument down to the push of a button, had already proved to be a revenue stream so great that it was being talked of as one of the innovative new ways the net might actually help rebuild the record business it was then currently almost single-handedly dismantling; even a possible entry point for a new generation of guitar-worshipping kids to get into rock in the first place.
Devised by a computer hardware company called RedOctane–partly responsible for an older arcade game named Guitar Freaks, a big hit in Japan, and now looking to produce a home-gaming version – the original Guitar Player game was made for around $1m. The inaugural edition had a metal-style logo on the box and a hand-held controller shaped like a Gibson SG – signature guitar of choice for AC/DC’s Angus Young and Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi – and had been an immediate hit, winning awards and glowingly reviewed as ‘probably the greatest rhythm game ever invented’. Realising that the ‘magic source’ – gaming-industry-speak for the extra ingredient that made the product unique and must-have-now-able – was the guitar-shaped peripheral, the forty-seven playable songs the original featured was expanded to sixty-four for Guitar Hero II, the fifth-biggest-selling game when it was released in 2006. Now available for both PlayStation 2 and X-Box 360 platforms, the latter version came with a Gibson Explorer-shaped controller. The key this time, however, was the addition of real-life rock stars such as AC/DC and Aerosmith, Van Halen and Guns N’ Roses. ‘We’d hit the sweet spot,’ said developer John Tam. ‘[The bands] understood that we’re not going to embarrass their music, we’re going to actually pay homage to their music and get it to the point where people are going to understand their music in a totally different way than they’ve ever experienced it before.’
The franchise was now worth hundreds of millions of dollars; rivals were starting to spring up, most notably the MTV Networks developed Rock Band game. It wasn’t, however, until Activision bought RedOctane for $100m, specifically to acquire Guitar Hero, that the game took off outside devoted gaming circles: the extra edge that would power Guitar Hero III being the arrival of an instantly recognisable real-life rock star to front the franchise: Lars’ old pal Slash of Guns N’ Roses (and latterly, his offshoot group Velvet Revolver). Until then, although it featured real songs by real bands, the game had relied on a series of sound-alike avatars with faux rock-star names such as Axel Steel and Izzy Sparks. Slash was the first major real-life star to agree to have himself motion-captured and that image transferred directly into the game. ‘I’m not a real video game guy,’ Slash admitted to Classic Rock writer Jon Hotten. ‘When I signed on to do it, it was only the nerdy kid in me that made me say yes. Everything else about me said, no don’t do it.’
With Slash’s instantly recognisable avatar now front and centre, suddenly the game became an item of interest way beyond its natural demographic of gamers. Released in October 2007, it now featured seventy-three songs, and was available across not just PlayStation and Xbox platforms but also Wii, PC and Mac. It made $100 million in just its first week. A month later it was officially the year’s biggest-selling computer game. Activision could hardly keep up with the Christmas demand. Six months later, it had sold more than eight million copies. By the time the next version of the game was ready to go in March 2009 – with Metallica replacing Slash as the frontispiece – the existing version had exceeded one billion dollars in sales revenue and was said to be the second-biggest-selling computer game of any kind since 1995.
For Slash, who had received a generous but fixed fee and no royalties, the impact this had was about much more than money; already one of the most famous guitarists in the world, Slash’s image now extended far beyond the existing rock-buying audience. ‘I have a specific story that will sort of shine a big bright light on that fact,’ he explained. ‘A friend of mine who’s a producer, he’s got, I guess, a six-year-old little boy. I went over to their house, and I’d never met his little boy. I went over there, and the kid lost his mind. “You’re the guy from Guitar Hero.” He couldn’t get over it. A bit later on that night, he came over to me and went, “Hey, do you play real guitar too?”’ He laughed. ‘It’s definitely changed the way we look at selling records, because as the record business goes into decline, the gaming business has been selling a lot of music. That’s been an interesting development, for sure. If you’re in a band, the luckiest thing you can have is a guy from Activision or from the Rock Band people come along and say, we’d like to chronicle your career. There is a lot of money in it.’
Something Metallica – who had already contributed images and songs to Rock Band – had taken serious note of by the time they stepped up to the plate to take part in their own billion-dollar version of Guitar Player. Lars, smartly, played down the whole thing, brought it back to the level of simply entertaining the folks. ‘Our kids love playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band,’ he told Rolling Stone. ‘It’s awesome. There’s something really positive coming out of video games. It’s so cool to sit there and have your kids talk to you about Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and Soundgarden.’
As ever, though, the real business of Metallica took place out on the road. The World Magnetic tour would actually find the band out on the road for the best part of the next three years, but the schedule was now built specifically to combat the stresses and strains that would otherwise be placed on the four husband-and-fathers who now populated the band. ‘We do two weeks on and two weeks off,’ Lars told me, the band flying home to California wherever they were in the world, literally going straight from the stage of the final show into a limo and onto a private jet. Nice work if you could get it, the 2009 year-end issue of US trade bible Billboard reported that the World Magnetic tour had earned a total ticket-sale gross (so far) of $76,613,910. The same issue calculated that between 2000 and 2009 Metallica had earned a total ticket-sale gross of $227,568,718. Astonishing figures, but giving only a fraction of the true financial picture, once profits from record and merchandising sales had also been factored in, possibly doubling or even trebling that final figure.
The show itself was initially built around the new Death Magnetic album, as would be expected, but would go through various changes as each new phase of the tour unfolded. The Metallica live show has always been a purist experience, the band all dressed in uniform black whatever phase of their twisting career they happened to be going through. So it had been with the first phase of the World Magnetic tour: a show staged in the round and built around a faintly ludicrous circle of coffins, concealing the lighting rig, but with the emphasis firmly on what can fairly be termed all-round family entertainment. As I watched from one of the high-price boxes at London’s O2, I marvelled at the diversity of the 20,000-strong crowd. Below, surrounding the stage, were the sorts of rabid, devil-horn-saluting fans one might have encountered in their true heyday twenty years before. To my right and left were other boxes full of young female fans, the kind normally only found at a Robbie Williams show, dancing as though listening to Michael Jackson, making sexy such previously thought impregnable musical edifices as ‘One’ and ‘Sad but True’. Thanking those Metallica fans each night who had ‘stayed loyal’, James added for those kids present too young to have seen the band play before, ‘You got some cool parents.’ It was a comment he would make a habit of somehow working into those shows, tossing guitar picks out to the crowd whenever he spotted anyone young enough to warrant one. He still strode the stage like a lone gunman, spitting copiously and growling into the mike, but James Hetfield the proud husband and father was no longer buried so far below the surface you couldn’t see him. Indeed, he was now all but impossible to avoid.
Robert Trujillo, his bass slung low between his bare knees, stalked the four corners of the stage as though on patrol, carrying a machine-gun through a jungle swamp. Lars and Kirk did as they always had done, the latter hunched over his guitar, the first signs of middle age, perhaps, creeping up on his steadfastly laid-back demeanour, trotting around the stage perimeter with just a little more care; the former still leaning over his kit, standing and gesticulating wildly to the audience as he always had, making it clear should anyone still be in any doubt that he had never been just the drummer, but a frontman in his own right. Most amazing for this ancient survivor from their now golden past was the sight of the band remaining on stage long after the houselights had gone up, as silver inflated balls emblazoned with the Metallica logo rained on the audience and the four band members walked around, casually chatting to their fans, kicking the balls their way and throwing out guitar picks, leaning over to touch hands. Mainly just walking around and talking to them; a welcoming echo of the days when they stood at the backstage doors of the tiniest shit-holes and waited for the dozen or so most curious fans to come and tell them where they’d gone wrong that night. It went on and on, ten minutes, twenty minutes…Never having seen any artist do such a thing – particularly not when playing in the round, when getting away from the stage at the end is usually a matter of concealed exits and absolutely no returns – I found it all quite moving.
A few weeks later, on 4 April, Metallica was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ‘It’s still somewhat surreal,’ said James, emanating pride and well-being, before adding: ‘The other part of it will be us kicking in the door a little bit. We’ve got a lot of other friends that we’d like to bring in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There’s a lot of heavy music that belongs in there.’ Other artists being inducted that year included rap pioneers Run-DMC, virtuoso guitarist Jeff Beck, soul singer Bobby Womack and R&B vocal group Little Anthony and the Imperials. Headlining, though, would be Metallica, who flew in straight from two shows in Paris. To help them celebrate, the band also personally invited several hundred family members, friends and associates who had had some influence over their career, purchasing six tables for the event – held in the Public Hall Auditorium, a historic venue where The Beatles had performed in 1964 – at a cost of upward of $50,000 each. ‘They are the gold standard for contemporary metal,’ said Hall of Fame curator Howard Kramer. ‘Despite their fame, they’ve never made an effort to cash in. People believe in them. That’s why they’re still there.’
Among so many familiar faces from their past, all flown in at the band’s expense – including Ron McGovney, Jason Newsted, Bobby Schneider, Jonny and Marsha Z, Martin Hooker and Gem Howard, Xavier Russell and Ross Halfin, Michael Alago and Flemming Rasmussen, Bob Rock and Rick Rubin, Dave Thorne and Anton Corbijn, Torben Ulrich and Ray Burton, to name just a few – there was one notable exception: Dave Mustaine. Dave had been invited but had declined once he’d been informed he wouldn’t actually be inducted himself. As he sardonically told Dave Ling of Classic Rock: ‘Lars Ulrich called me up and offered the chance to come and not be inducted – to sit in the audience. “It’s only for people who’ve been on the records,” is what I was told. That would have been awkward.’ He added: ‘I’m no longer struggling with past demons – that game has ended. But you know what? If God wants me in the Hall of Fame, I will be there.’
A pity, as it might have offered the band a chance to include one of their earliest classics in the short set they performed live that night. As it was, both Jason and Rob played bass during ‘Master of Puppets’ and ‘Enter Sandman’, while Cliff Burton’s father, Ray, accepted the honour on his son’s behalf. Unlike Mustaine, Jason Newsted had learned enough to make his own peace with the band. As he’d put it earlier, ‘We’re business partners for the rest of our lives.’ He had been ‘depressed for about six weeks’ after he left the band, then he’d toured with his band Echobrain, spent some time playing with Canadian thrash iconoclasts Voivod, even, bizarrely, filled Rob’s shoes for a while by joining Ozzy Osbourne’s backing band. Mainly, Jason said, he had ‘enjoyed life. No one can tell me what not to do any more.’
