James Hetfield of Metallica is not a sing-and-snappy-patter man on stage. The singer-guitarist's idea of between-song banter is the kind of street-simple, off-color word jive that you can hear any night, anyplace where the citizens of Teenage Wasteland gather over a six-pack. "All fucking right!" Hetfield bellows to a houseful of rabid Metallicats at the North Charleston Coliseum, outside Charleston, South Carolina, before leading drummer Lars Ulrich, bassist Jason Newsted and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett into a Godzilla-like stomp through "Sad but True." "You all got the 'Black' album, right? Studied all your lyrics and shit? No fuckups now. Hey, any time this stuff gets too heavy for you ..." There's a pregnant pause as Hetfield's square iron jaw creaks into a maniacal leer. "Tough shit!"

Offstage, when he talks at all — which isn't often, at least compared with Ulrich, the bands voluble Mr. Interview — Hetfield doesn't mince words, either, or blow florid, rhetorical smoke in your face. "We keep ourselves hungry," he says bluntly of his and Metallica's modus operandi, over the vintage strains of a Lynyrd Skynyrd CD in his hotel room. "We have high expectations for ourselves all the time, with everything — songwriting, touring. We're always trying to better ourselves. What can be bigger?"

"What can be better than the Snake Pit?" he adds, referring to the area carved out for fans right in the middle of Metallica's diamond-shaped stage. "Maybe we go into your garage and play. But when people say no to us, our response is always 'Why the fuck not?' We have to investigate. There's always something we can do to turn people's heads."