In May 2012 the authors of this book were in San Francisco. Having agreed terms with Faber and Faber in the UK and Da Capo in the US for a two-volume biography of Metallica, we decided that the best thing to do would be to decamp to the city that more any other gave the band a home as well as an identity. This expedition was undertaken in the name of research. That and the odd drink or two.
On a stroll towards the address that was once the location of The Stone club on Battery Street – a thoroughfare that would provide the title for ‘Battery’, one of the band’s most enduring songs – a thought groaned into life.
‘Do you reckon that at the end of these two books we’ll be sick of Metallica?’ one author asked the other.
This enquiry was considered by the other man.
‘Hmmm,’ he said, before answering in a tone of quiet sadness: ‘Yeah, probably.’
This was a tricky proposition. More than any other band, Metallica had provided the soundtrack to our lives, both in teenage and adult form. Now into our forties, both of us hold the quartet close at hand – close at heart, actually – in a manner that while occasionally tragic (and certainly undignified) is nonetheless crucial. There is for both of us a part of our beings that will forever be comprised of ‘Birth, School, Metallica, Death’.
The notion that in attempting to excavate all that can be known about the band we might cast this love into the fire seemed a perverse price to pay.
It is, then, with a stiff measure of relief and a chaser of joy that we can reveal that this has proven not to be the case. Whether at vertiginous peaks or in terrible troughs, the story of this most unlikely of unions is never less than compelling. The manner in which the group time and again seek out roads less travelled – from eleven-minute music videos in which they do not appear to inviting their own tribute band as a support act on tour – is (and there is no better description) just so damn ‘cool’.
Then, of course, there is the music. That over the course of the past twenty-three years Metallica have put their name to songs that are below code is beyond doubt. But many of the compositions that have long been dismissed and forgotten (even, it seems, by the band themselves) are much, much better than most readers will recall them being. If nothing else, it is our pleasure to at least attempt to rebut the notion that the Nineties were the group’s ‘wilderness years’. Not only is this not the case in a creative sense – 1999’s S&M set remains one of their finest releases – but neither is it true in a commercial sense either. In the US both S&M and its predecessor Garage Inc. sold more than five million copies each. This is twice the number attained by Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience, the best-selling album in the US in 2013.
Most of all, though, the conclusion that both authors draw from the evidence presented in this book is this: no one can be sure what Metallica will do next.
Into the Black differs from its predecessor (Birth School Metallica Death published in 2013) because it relies less on the eyes of others and more on the first-hand recollections of the authors themselves. By the Nineties we were no longer ‘just’ fans; we were fans with tape recorders, passports and bylines in national music magazines. From a first hesitant phone interview with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich in 1992, we have dogged Metallica at every period covered in this book. From Dallas to Osaka, San Francisco to New York, Ghent to Warsaw – as well as at many other locations – if Lars Ulrich said it, we were there to try and make some kind of sense of it.
Yet despite this, Into the Black is a labour of love that could not exist without the help of an army of people who gave their time free of charge and for no other reason than generosity of spirit. A number of these did so in violation of Q Prime’s wishes. That Metallica’s management company – and perhaps even the band themselves – thought sufficiently highly of both this book and its predecessor as to view them as a threat is something the authors view as a compliment. Those who chose to obey the organisation’s ‘omertà’ – under the implied threat of excommunication – did not derail this book’s cause. But the contributions of people who did deign to speak with us have enhanced the narrative with a richness for which we are truly grateful.
Glasses, then, are raised in the direction of Wendy Ainslie, Sam Coare, Paul Curtis, Dave Everley, Jerry Ewing, Doug Goodman, Laurence Langley, Lisa Johnson, Freddie McCall, Mörat, Matt Mahurin, Dan Silver, Brian Slagel, Slash, Tony Smith, Kim Thayil and Jennyfer J. Walker.
Extra special thanks go to Phil Towle, Performance Enhancement Coach and reluctant movie star.
The authors are also indebted to the services of Scarlet Borg, whose fine eye for detail and relentless pursuit of picture quality can be seen in the photographs included in this book. By far the most stable and reliable part of our own little organisation, Scarlet is also a friend of the most precious kind, and for reasons other than the fact that we’re both scared of her.
The authors are honoured to have a corner man of the experience and ability of Matthew Hamilton, our agent at Aitken Alexander Associates. Resisting the temptation to spend his working day gently banging his head against his desk, Matthew provided expert release from the pressure we had placed ourselves under on more than one occasion. Similarly, thanks go to all the members of the AAA family. Five time zones east, our American agent Matthew Elblonk of DeFiore & Company also stood as an oasis of calm amid the world of chaos the authors had created.
It is with no pride but not enough shame that the authors are honour bound to reveal that in writing this book we have tested the patience of others to a quite extraordinary degree. With deadlines whistling by like a postman on a bike, people who by rights should have been consulting lawyers were somehow keeping the faith. On home shores few people better exemplify this triumph of hope over adversity than Angus Cargill, our editor at Faber and Faber. A fine man in the employ of a sensational publishing house, ‘Big Gus’ kept his head in the face of outrageous provocation and in doing so improved the quality of this book to a vast degree. At the same office, the authors are also indebted to Anna Pallai, Gemma Lovett, James Rose and the other members of Faber’s ‘Bloomsbury Set’ who rallied to this cause.
On the continent to our left, Ben Schafer at Da Capo has once again proved himself to be a sympathetic ally as well as a fine editor. Sincere thanks also go to Lissa Warren, who worked tirelessly to make sure that readers in the US knew of the existence of our book from England.
We would also like to thank our European editors, Henrik Karlsson at Massolit in Sweden, Kristina Sarasti at LIKE in Finland, Julia Krug at Droemer Verlag in Germany and Jakub Kozlowski at In Rock/Vesper in Poland. Our sincere gratitude is also extended to Paula Turner at Palindrome as well as Sarah Barlow, our forensic proofreader. Sarah’s keen eye for detail and redoubtable grasp of grammar means that our blushes are spared and no one need know that even today neither of us is entirely sure whether the surname ‘Hammett’ has one ‘t’ or two.
On a personal note, Paul wishes to send love and gratitude to his beautiful, brilliant family Hiroko, Yuki and Tyler, who, more than anyone in his life, are exposed to the fall-out generated by the emotional highs and lows of this writing malarkey. Sincere thanks are also extended to the Brannigan and Kato families, dear partners-in-crime – known to Hiroko as ‘your young friends’ – Sammy Andrews, Nick Knowles, Chris, Jen and little Pixie Venus McCormack; my Derry sisters Aíne and Síle McDaid, Seamus and Yanaina, Natalie Nissim and Nathan Connolly; plus Alex, Scott and all at TeamRock.com; Sian, Dave, Fraser and all at Classic Rock; Merlin, Amit, Luke and all at Metal Hammer; Ben Mitchell, Matthew Tibbits, Andy Cairns, as well as my lifelong loves AC/DC and Arsenal Football Club.
Ian would like to thank the patience of my dear friends Wendy Ainslie, Paul Harries, Sean Hogan, Emily Rayner, Dan Silver and Giles Ward. I’m also grateful for my friends and colleagues at ‘home’ at Kerrang! for keeping my seat warm for a time that now exceeds the gestation period of an elephant. A printed shout also goes out to Chris Hunton, Dave Wilcox and Roger Williams, my eternally suffering Barnsley FC football pals who despite not knowing a thing about Metallica never failed to enquire how work on the book was proceeding (and who did not press the matter when I invariably replied that it was something about which I did not wish to speak). Similar thanks also go to Tim Sledmere. Most of all, I would like to thank the kindness and patience of my mother, Kathy, my sole remaining parent who provided her only child with comfort, cheer and support in what were by any measure hours and hours of need.
At the conclusion of this second volume, it seems strange to both authors to be leaving Metallica behind. We can only hope that our efforts are deemed worthy of the time of the band’s most devoted constituents. That the authors count themselves among this body of men and women is undeniable – and, we hope, obvious – so much so that even this book’s darkest moments cannot extinguish the light that shines from the band’s name and music.
Like millions of others, we cannot kill the family Metallica has found in us.