20 Things That Went Wrong

Hated by many, defended by some and misunderstood by practically all, Metallica’s St. Anger has gone down as one of the crucial contentious albums in steel historical past.

Intra-band strife was at an all-time excessive through the making of the LP, with longtime bassist Jason Newsted exiting the group as periods started, leaving producer Bob Rock to deal with four-string duties. James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich had been always at odds, leaving Kirk Hammett to play hapless mediator. It’s all documented within the accompanying movie Some Kind of Monster, one of the crucial unflinching seems on the inside workings of a world-famous rock band ever made.

This friction spilled over into the music, which is a few of the hardest, ugliest and most uncompromising of Metallica’s profession. These days, St. Anger is finest remembered for Ulrich’s trash can-like snare drum tone and a complete lack of guitar solos — anathema to followers of Metallica’s pulverizing thrash origins.

Despite savage evaluations from some critics, St. Anger debuted atop the Billboard 200 in June 2003 and finally went double platinum within the United States. Against all odds, Metallica weathered the storm and emerged with a doc of the hell they’d endured. In honor of the album’s tempestuous origins, listed below are 20 issues that went mistaken through the making of St. Anger.

Lingering Napster Lawsuit Backlash
Once heralded as heavy steel pioneers and music business disruptors, Metallica appeared extra like cranky establishmentarians in April 2000 after they sued the file-sharing website Napster for disseminating their music on-line and committing a copyright violation. The band recognized greater than 335,000 customers who shared their music and efficiently petitioned Napster to dam them from the location. The transfer made Metallica appear out-of-touch and petty, and it put their inventory amongst followers at an all-time low on the daybreak of the millennium.

The Band Entered the Studio Empty-Handed 
Instead of meticulously sculpting and rehearsing their songs prematurely, Metallica entered the studio with nothing written for St. Anger. “For the first time, I had no idea where that ride was going to take us,” Lars Ulrich advised MTV. “The main thing for me was the ride has to be as pure as possible. James wanted everyone to start riffing from nothing and see where it would go — somebody taking the lead and somebody else following it in a very organic and collaborative way.” Judging by the meandering jam periods and volcanic arguments that erupted within the studio, maybe the band members would have benefited from a bit extra preparation.

Jason Newsted Quit the Band
The largest wrench in Metallica’s new album plans got here in January 2001 when Jason Newsted, their stalwart bassist of 15 years, tendered his resignation. Newsted publicly introduced his exit on Jan. 17, citing “private and personal reasons and the physical damage I have done to myself over the years while playing the music that I love.” Absent from his assertion had been the specifics about his need to advertise his new facet challenge, Echobrain, and James Hetfield’s staunch opposition to the plan. The disagreement curdled Newsted’s already-fraught relationship together with his bandmates and hastened his departure. In his place, Bob Rock performed bass on St. Anger, and Robert Trujillo later assumed the mantle from Newsted.

A Performance Enhancement Coach Divided the Band
To maintain Metallica from flying off the rails, their administration firm, Q Prime, recruited “performance enhancement coach” Phil Towle to mediate the St. Anger periods. Towle, a former Chicago gang counselor, was not a educated psychologist or psychiatrist, however he’d labored with the St. Louis Rams throughout their 1999-2000 season (which culminated of their Super Bowl victory) and tried unsuccessfully to maintain Rage Against the Machine from splintering. Not everyone was glad about his presence: Newsted referred to as using a therapist “really fucking lame and weak” and stop the band after one session with Towle. “Something that’s really important to note — and this isn’t pointed at anyone — is something I knew long before I met James Hetfield or anyone else,” Newsted advised The New York Times. “Certain people are made to be opened up and exposed. Certain people are not. I’ll leave it at that.”

James Hetfield Entered Rehab
A number of months after Newsted’s departure, progress on St. Anger floor to a halt as soon as extra as Hetfield checked himself into rehab “to undergo treatment for alcoholism and other addictions,” in response to a band assertion. The transfer finally had a constructive impact on Hetfield personally and professionally — he referred to this system as “a nice little cocoon” — however this system put him out of fee for eight months, crushing what little momentum Metallica had generated.

Hetfield and Ulrich’s Relationship Had Reached a Breaking Point
Virtually each facet of Metallica’s artwork and profession hinges upon the band’s two principals, Hetfield and Ulrich. So with the two of them always at one another’s throats, progress on St. Anger naturally occurred at a glacial tempo. In Some Kind of Monster, the frontman and drummer always poke and prod one another about “stock” riffs and “regular” drum beats. Things do not enhance when Hetfield returns from rehab; throughout a heated band assembly, Ulrich claims Hetfield “controls inadvertently” and tells the singer, “I realize now that I barely knew you before.”

Hetfield Returned With Strict New Work Hours
It wasn’t all easy crusing as soon as Hetfield returned from rehab. Metallica needed to undergo an adjustment interval with their frontman, notably concerning his strict new work hours of midday to 4 p.m. Ulrich inevitably bucked in opposition to these impositions and listened to tracks exterior of this designated work window, which Hetfield interpreted because the band going behind his again. It all got here to a head throughout the aforementioned band assembly the place Ulrich advised Hetfield, “I just think you’re so fucking self-absorbed,” and famously bellowed “FUUUUCK!” in his bandmate’s face.

Bouncing Between Studios
When the St. Anger periods commenced in January 2001, Metallica arrange store in a makeshift Army barracks on the Presidio of San Francisco, as their studio wasn’t prepared but. When they reconvened following Hetfield’s rehabilitation program, they moved to their new studio, dubbed “HQ,” within the close by San Rafael. The swap finally served them nicely, but it surely was certainly a problem to transport an arsenal of substances from one studio to a different, additional contributing to the disjointedness of the periods.

Lars Ulrich Rained on Kirk Hammett’s Tropical Birthday Party
Kirk Hammett embraced browsing through the making of St. Anger, so the Metallica HQ employees commemorated his fortieth birthday with a tropical-themed social gathering. The band and crew members all donned Hawaiian shirts, leis and shorts for the event — all, that’s, besides Lars Ulrich, who claimed he by no means obtained the memo. “Nobody ever does anything for me,” the drummer seethes to Bob Rock within the parking zone. “I don’t come in one day and there’s a Danish bakery motif or fucking celebrating [Hans Christian] Andersen, children’s poetry motif.” Ulrich sulks all through the social gathering and later complains to Towle, “Life is an eternal birthday party for somebody else. … Life is a permanent limp dick with an occasional blowjob.”

That Godforsaken Snare Drum Sound
Easily essentially the most divisive component of St. Anger‘s sound was Ulrich’s hole, ringing snare drum, which has been in contrast endlessly (and charitably) to the sound of a trash can lid. Rather than some elaborate ploy to mess with listeners’ heads and reinvent the idea of steel drumming, Ulrich was merely taking the trail of least resistance. “One day I forgot to turn the snare on because I wasn’t thinking about this stuff,” the drummer advised Rhythm journal. “At the playbacks, I decided I was really liking what I was hearing — it had a different ambience. It sang back to me in a beautiful way. It just felt totally natural.” As Rock defined to Guitar World: “This was a 15-minutes-on-the-drum-sound type of thing. In some case there were only two dynamic mics on the cymbals because I had to run out and play bass, so I didn’t have time to set up other mics. It was just so guerilla. But we embraced that approach right away.”

No Guitar Solos
The different major level of rivalry on St. Anger: Kirk Hammett does not get a single alternative to flex his lead guitar chops. Six-string histrionics had change into passe by the early aughts, and Hammett’s bandmates felt his concepts did not serve the songs. “We made a promise to ourselves that we’d only keep stuff that had integrity,” Rock advised MTV. “Every time we tried to do a solo, either it dated it slightly or took away from what we were trying to accomplish in some other way. I think we wanted all the aggression to come from the band rather than one player.”

‘No Time’ for Good Vocals
Striving for deliberately uncooked, anguished vocals is one factor; utilizing them since you could not get something higher is one other. “There was really no time to get amazing performances out of James,” Rock confessed. “We liked the raw performances. And we didn’t do what everyone does and what I’ve been guilty of for a long time, which is tuning vocals. We just did it, boom and that was it.” An admirable thought in idea, however certainly Hetfield may have executed somewhat higher than the tuneless bleating in “Invisible Kid.”

Awkward, Juvenile Lyrics
Metallica — notably Hetfield — exorcised plenty of demons on St. Anger, grappling with habit, self-doubt, concern, betrayal and unadulterated rage. All potent material, however a newly sober and emotionally uncooked Hetfield may have used extra distance and time to lick his wounds and totally course of his emotions earlier than committing them to tape. As it stands, St. Anger is riddled with therapy-speak platitudes, cliche slogans and downright nonsensical catchphrases. Case in level: The “chorus” to “Dirty Window” consists solely of the barked phrases “Projector, rejector, infector, injector, defector, rejector,” whereas “Frantic” accommodates the meme-able zinger “My lifestyle determines my deathstyle.”

The Songs Are Too Long
You can spin the contents of St. Anger as positively or negatively as you need, however when it comes right down to it, the songs are just too rattling lengthy. Uninspired riffs and boneheaded beats repeat advert nauseam; choruses loop incessantly for seemingly no motive apart from to fill house. For all of the digital manipulation that befell throughout postproduction, St. Anger is woefully missing in brevity. With the assistance of a mercenary editor, a few of these eight-minute slogs may have shone within the four-to-five-minute vary.

The Songwriting Was Too Collaborative
Not solely did Metallica enter the St. Anger periods empty-handed, however in addition they allowed anybody to take a crack at lyrics to maintain their momentum. “At the Presidio we talked about things,” Rock advised Sound on Sound, “and I said, ‘Well, look, whatever we do, let’s write the lyrics right away, get the ideas down, and from there we can tweak them. Over time you can come up with something else, but at least we’ll have something and you won’t be staring at a blank page.’ So, we went for that, and when James couldn’t come up with something in the first 15 minutes, that developed into everybody coming up with ideas and from there he would be the master editor. It was very stream-of-consciousness, and that held true for most of the tracks.” Again, a noble try in idea, however one which resulted in some gobsmackingly unhealthy lyrics. Stay in your lane, guys!

Post-Production Pro Tools Abuse
If the songs on St. Anger sound disjointed, that is as a result of they’re — actually. Many of the songs had been born from hourslong jam periods, after which Rock would sift by the carnage and string collectively the most effective bits. (*20*) Rock defined, referencing the writer who famously reduce up his writing and reassembled the phrases to create a brand new textual content. “Some people use Pro Tools to trick and fool the listener, but we used it more as a creative tool to do something interesting and stretch boundaries. … Technically, you’ll hear cymbals go away and you’ll hear bad edits. We wanted to disregard what everybody assumes records should be and throw out all the rules.”

The Mixing Was Rushed and Unpolished
In an obvious effort to protect the uncooked immediacy of the music, Metallica gave Rock roughly three hours to combine every music on St. Anger. “I’d challenged them, so they challenged me,” the producer defined. “As there was great energy when I did the rough mixes, they basically said, ‘Why do we have to sit there for days and nitpick? Why can’t we just do it in three hours?’ So, that’s what we did, and it was very difficult for me. It wasn’t difficult doing it, but it was difficult to let go. However, once I got into it, I realized that there is something to this; doing it here, now and having a feel of immediacy.” Not everyone agreed: PlayLouder’s William Luff described the album as “a monolithic slab of noise.”

Metallica Was Suffering From an Identity Crisis
Metallica claimed their resolution to nix guitar solos and carry out with uncooked, nonstop aggression on St. Anger was a matter of integrity, however in hindsight, it is apparent the band was influenced by the nu-metal increase of the late ’90s and early ’00s. The album is riddled with turgid, down-tuned riffs and midtempo bashing that will have sounded extra at house on a Limp Bizkit or Mudvayne LP. While songs like “Frantic” and the title observe are compelling in their very own determined, livid means, the gambit backfires extra usually than it pays off.

They Took a (Thankfully) Brief Detour Into Hip-Hop
As the remainder of Metallica waited for Hetfield to return from rehab, they linked up with producer and rapper Swizz Beatz for his 2002 album Swizz Beatz Presents G.H.E.T.T.O. Stories. The rockers confirmed Beatz a bunch of fabric they’d been engaged on, and he pieced collectively two separate music concepts to kind the music “We Did It Again,” which additionally featured rapper Ja Rule. It’s a baffling, aggro-rap jock jam that shifts tempos with little rhyme or motive, that includes disembodied vocals from Hetfield and a few wah-wah guitar diddles from Hammett. Blessedly, the hip-hop tour stopped with “We Did It Again,” and Metallica would not piss off their followers with one other genre-hopping odyssey till 2011’s Lulu.

Unprocessed Grief Over Cliff Burton’s Death
The ghost of Cliff Burton has loomed over Metallica ever because the bassist died in a bus accident in 1986 — and earlier than the making of St. Anger, the remainder of the band had by no means discovered how to deal with the loss. They channeled their profound grief and rage into substance abuse, grueling excursions, the incessant hazing of Jason Newsted and different self-destructive coping mechanisms. It all got here to a head through the agonizing St. Anger periods, spurring the departure of Newsted, Hetfield’s journey to rehab, vicious band infighting and a few of the most tough, anguished music of Metallica’s profession. Miraculously, the band triumphed over distress and adversity — and even when St. Anger wasn’t the album Metallica followers needed, it was the album they’d no alternative however to make. Burton would have been proud.