In a new interview with Variety to promote METALLICA‘s upcoming film project “Metallica Saved My Life”, which explores the world of METALLICA through the lives of their fans โ including the bandmembers themselves โ METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich was asked if having a fanbase which has followed him and his bandmates as they take big risks with their music has liberated them in taking big swings. He responded: “I don’t think it was ever a choice. I would like to believe that we dictate our own narrative, and one of the key pieces of the individual and collective DNA in METALLICA is curiosity. We’ve always wanted to turn over rocks and look at new ideas and challenges. If curiosity is a significant part of our DNA, another part is the fear of complacency, a fear of fear, of getting stuck. The claustrophobia, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to keep evolving. We’ve got to keep growing. We gotta keep trying different shit.’ The fear of stagnation, of ending up on autopilot, a fear of repetition, of just getting stuck. So we’ve always pushed ourselves into new and different creative endeavors. Whether it’s the films or doing stuff with symphony orchestras or playing with different producers or new approaches, it’s to make sure that we always keep it fresh and there are always challenges in front of us.
“When ‘Ride The Lightning’ came out, the fourth song, ‘Fade To Black’, had acoustic guitars on it,” he continued. “There were definitely some raised eyebrows and people in the very hard-rock end of the community wondered what we were doing. But I would like to think that very early on, we stated that we were not to be boxed in, and we were not to be doing always what was expected. We would not be the band to churn out the same record over and over again, just in a different sleeve with different cover art. We were gonna do everything that we could to prevent that from happening.”
“Metallica Saved My Life” will get its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival Wednesday night (June 11),with New York City screenings following Thursday and Saturday.
Filmmaker Jonas ร kerlund, who previously directed METALLICA‘s music videos for 1998’s “Turn The Page”, 1999’s “Whiskey In The Jar” and 2016’s “ManUNkind”, interviewed fans from 23 different countries for the documentary, which is slated for release later this year.
In a statement announcing “Metallica Saved My Life” in April, the band said: “As a few of you may know, we’ve been working behind the scenes the last couple of years on a new film that will be released later this year starring you guys! ‘Metallica Saved My Life’ explores our world through the lives of fans who have supported each other through highs, lows, trials and triumphs for over four decades. And yeah, we’re in it a little bit too.”
Back in July 2023, METALLICA put out a casting call for “superfans” of the band to possibly appear in an upcoming documentary. The filmmakers were looking for “big personalities, unique characters and unexpected stories from METALLICA fans who consider METALLICA to be their favorite band, real ‘Fifth Member’ types. All stories and walks of life” were “welcome and encouraged to reach out.”
The documentary was reportedly being produced by METALLICA and Mercury Studios, powered by Universal Music Group.
Two years ago, Ulrich credited the use of “Master Of Puppets” in 2022 in the hit Netflix series “Stranger Things” with creating a whole new generation of METALLICA fans.
As a result of the song’s appearance in the show, “Master Of Puppets” โ the title track of METALLICA‘s 1986 album โ went on to top of the iTunes Rock Chart and crack the Spotify Top 50.
Ulrich told Japan’s TVK: “I’m just so happy that hard music and hard rock still has a place. To see so many young people connecting with music again. . . I can see it my kids; I can see it, in the last nine months, the ‘Stranger Things’ phenomenon of so many young kids discovering ‘Master Of Puppets’ and that being a gateway to maybe more METALLICA music or to more heavy music or heavy rock music.”
Lars went on to say that the possibility for METALLICA‘s music to reach a new audience seems endless.
“I see that there’s still so much, all over the world, a coming of age when kids are 12, 13, 14 years old, to get into music and for us to be part of that discovery is an incredible thing,” he explained.
In a 2015 interview with Time Warner Cable News, METALLICA frontman James Hetfield was asked what it feels like to get such a strong reaction from the crowd every time the band performs live. He said: “Well, it’s like an ultimate family for us โ especially for me. When I’m able to just be honest and ask, ‘Hey, help sing this part,’ or I screwed up the words and they sing it for me. It’s, like, ‘Man, they really do have our back.’ And we don’t look at things as mistakes. There are no mistakes that happen. There’s just unique ways of doing it for that day. We go up there and we play it. So there’s just such a freedom when you haveโฆ When the crowd has your back, there’s such a freedom to be able to even explore more up there or to even do better. ‘Cause you know you’re not out there to impress people, you’re out there just to deliver what you’ve got in you.”
In 2016, Ulrich told Vice that he and his bandmates don’t make a concerted effort to bring in new fans or win over naysayers whenever they release a new album. “I mean, we are all aware kind of aware of the fact of how wide the net is cast,” he said. “And like I said, most things that I see in the world is in grays, so it’s pretty easy with this stuff. So 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 20-year-olds, teens, it’s fine. We don’t go out of our way to do one thing more than the other. I think that there still there seems to be a rite of passage for 13 and 14-year-old boys and in lots of places around the world. There are still a lot of young kids. When I occasionally check our social media, I can tell that a lot of them are younger, which is cool. So I think we got a pretty good balance. There are certain places like in Scandinavia, they’re really young and there is like 14-year-old girls down in the front row. Sometimes parents bring their kids, or kids bring their parents. It’s fun.”
