Cover Story: Pretty Hate Machine

"That's how we operate," Hetfield confesses, laughing wearily. "We can be at separate ends of the studio — I will say one thing, and Lars will be on the other end, saying the exact opposite. It's not on purpose. I wish it was. Then we could coordinate it. But that's how Metallica have always worked. There's a tug of war, a constant battle, and it ends up in the middle somewhere, where each of us can live with it."

There is one difference these days, according to Ulrich: Hetfield's temper. "The other day, we were talking about some song title, and there was something that didn't make sense," Ulrich explains. "We were standing in the kitchen at the studio. I'm going, "What does this mean?' And he goes, 'Fuck all this. I don't know what the fuck this all means. Jesus Christ!' Bark, bark, bark! Then he storms out of the room and leaves the studio. I'm just standing there laughing.

"The next morning, I spoke to him, and he said, 'Yeah, I'm really sorry I lost my temper last night.' That's probably the only thing that's changed" — Ulrich grins — "James apologizes."

Kirk Hammett got a rude shock the other day while walking down a New York street. "Some kid came up to me," he recounts, "and said, 'How ya doin'? You're Kirk from Metallica. I used to be a big fan of yours.' I looked at him and went, 'What do you mean, "used to"? ' And he said, 'Yeah, when I was 8 or 9 years old.' "

Hammett shakes his head in amazement. "It was really weird," he continues. "Then I realized that represented a certain part of his life, and he grew out of it — and in turn out of our band."

That's fair enough. Metallica have spent the half-decade since the release of Metallica shedding the big-hair, mad-dog-metal disposition they had assiduously cultivated since their 1983 declaration of attitude, Kill 'Em All. Hammett, who is 33, and Hetfield and Ulrich, both 32, have all cut their metal-dude locks in the past year. (The 33-year-old Newsted, who buzzed his crop about three years ago, is letting it grow out again.) Hammett, a body-piercing enthusiast, has a labret — a small, silver spike — dangling from just below his lower lip. And Hammett, a Bay Area native who was studying English and psychiatry in college when he got the Metallica gig in early '83, went back to school for a semester after the band's marathon 1991-93 tour. He took classes in film, jazz and Asian studies (Hammett is one-quarter Filipino) at San Francisco State University and, he says, got straight A's.

"You can only be what the public thinks you are for so long before it becomes boring," Hammett contends. "I felt quite objectified by it all two or three years ago. When I met people, they'd go 'Wow, I always thought you were this big mean person. But you're really very nice — and kinda short.' A lot of people get fixated on what they need us to be — appearancewise, how we should sound."

"Being stagnant is one thing I don't understand," Ulrich says testily. " 'Why don't you make another record like Master of Puppets?' We already made it! There is a percentage of people who think they own Metallica, and this is what Metallica is to them. And you know what? They've been bitchin' for years."

Load gives those mid-'80s Puppets-era purists more to bitch about: the elegant country twang in the grim hymn "Mama Said"; the slick mood swings between liquid melancholy and brute-rock anger in "Until It Sleeps" — like the Cure on steroids; the way enriched vocal harmonies and guitar dynamics (particularly the Lynyrd Skynyrd-like slide breaks) have displaced the single-minded staccato attack of yore.

There is still much about Load that is loud, robust and true to Metallitradition. The long guitar solos in "Bleeding Me" and "The Outlaw Torn" recall the instrumental extremes of 1988's ... And Justice for All. The go-fuck-yourself vigor of "Ain't My Bitch" and "2 x 4" ("Can't hear ya/Time to meet my lord/I can't hear ya/Talk to 2 x 4") is classic, howling Hetfield. But even he acknowledges that a little of that heavy sentiment can go a long way. In fact, he wrote a song, "Wasting My Hate," about it, although he credits the original idea to a friend, the country singer Waylon Jennings.

"He was telling me this story," Hetfield says, "about a guy who was sitting in a Cadillac while Waylon was in a cafe. Waylon's eating, keeps looking over at the car, has this feeling this guy is staring at him. So he's giving the evil eye back.