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LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. How tall are you? Well, on my license, it says 5'8". Me too. I'm closer to 5'7", and shrinking, you know, as we're speaking. Do you think we shrink as we age? Yes. Is that a fact, or are you just... In my head, it's a fact. I think, I don't know if it, you know, when you're young and you...
you know, puff your chest out and you strutting along and you've got this big fuck off attitude. And then when you get older, you get a little meeker and you're kind of like hiding, you know, you don't have to. But you're talking about something that's, that's psycho related, psychosomatic, uh,
Yes, if your attitude toward life is meek and don't hurt me, lady. I mean, yes. But if you stretch, I mean, I don't... Of course. Right. But also, I don't think my dick has gotten smaller. I would notice that. I would notice it and I would care and it would be reflected in the reviews. I think that... I think it's holding its own. I'm not... I know I'm holding my own. I am. Right.
It's just one after another. So, you know what? I can't remember the last time I saw you, but I'm so, first of all, I'm so flattered that you would come and do this. No, no, I mean it because I know you got a million things going and you're a big rock star and it never stops. But I know we have talked before, but I was so happy that having talked to you a little bit, got a little taste of you.
But I was now going to get to actually fucking get to know you over an hour instead of like, I don't know where we met. I was reminiscing with your guys here. The first time you and I crossed paths and the first time we were on a show together was back in the old politically incorrect days. Politically incorrect, right. But that doesn't even count. We were talking about...
who I was on with, and I was on with Dennis Miller. Dennis Miller. And I remember my big takeaway, because at that time, most of the press we were doing, you know, we would do an interview with Kurt Lohner. So it was the 90s? Yeah, this was in the spring of 2000. At that time, pretty much all the interviews in the press, we would, you know, MTV and music stuff, and it would be all sort of music-related stuff, but I'd never been on with a comedian before. And I sat next to
Dennis on your show. And I remember he spoke three times louder than anybody I'd ever been around, you know, on press or public. He was saying just,
So, you know, Bill, this and that. And everything was really, really loud. I was sitting next to him going, what the fuck? And I realized that when you're around comedians who are used to talking on their own in a club or whatever, they speak loud, they speak assertive. Not me. Not me. I'm not going to do that. No, but I'm talking about. I don't want to be lumped in with all comedians. Okay. I mean, Dennis had a persona. Yeah.
My persona is exactly who I am. Of course, I know that. Right. And I'm not putting Dennis down. Look, we're in show business. You have a persona too, by the way. Of course. Right. Of course. Yeah. And some of that is sprung from who you really are. I think the one reason why you're iconic even to kids, which is quite a trick at our age, to be popular with kids is because they love...
authenticity. It's the one thing they can be intuitive about. They're not taught anything in school, but they're savvy about who's fake and who's not. And they read that on you and that comes out of who you really are. So yes, you have a persona, but it's based on... When I get up on stage and I was doing an interview earlier today and who I was talking to was like, when you get up on stage and you're pulling these crazy faces and
You just you're so animated. And I said, you know, it's you get up on stage in front of X thousand people and you're in a zone and you you just lose yourself in that. And you become whether it's a character or whether it's a persona or whether an exaggerated version of yourself, you definitely morph into something else. Also, you have to you're beating something.
You can't be beating something in an unanimated way. You can't play the drums timidly. It's a percussive instrument. In a band like Metallica, that's very difficult to do, to play it timidly, as I will agree with that. And your friends, I mean your fans, would be crestfallen. It would be a travesty. Yeah.
I don't know why we're even worrying about what people... But yes, the point was, I knew you from way back, but we never really sat down. That's right. And then... But I always did admire the Napster thing with you. That was like my... I was like, that's a guy who was after my own heart, not afraid to get booze. I would say that is like the rarest thing in show business. Are you... Do you have the balls to get booed by saying something that the audience... Because most...
performers are pussy whipped by the audience. I mean, you should definitely be led by the audience to a degree. You want to please them. I certainly do. But there are certain points where they should not be able to push you. And that certainly was not popular. That's a given. I fully agree with that. In the case of Napster, the intention...
wasn't to go out there and get booed. The intention was to go out there and stand up for what we believed in. Then the subsequent shit storm that came in the wake of all that completely caught all of us off guard because we were throwing down the gauntlet for more of a back alley fight. And we didn't know that back alley fight was gonna take place in front of the whole world.
So but generally, I fully agree with what you're saying. You know, when you put music out or you're doing shows or you put yourself out in some sort of creative space, you have to be able to take take the punches. What we have done over the years is prided ourselves in never letting them know that they got to you. So when people talk shit or write something, you know, review style, you just go, okay.
Well, I mean, filling stadiums is the best revenge or the best answer. Yeah. The old saying from 30, 40 years ago when, remember, it was all about, are they selling out? Are you selling out? Is so-and-so selling out? And the answer was, yeah, we sell out wherever we go. Yeah.
That was one that was so... That's great. That was one that was used so much that it sort of 20 years ago, we stopped saying it. Everybody stopped saying it. I feel like it's so obvious. But remember the culture at that time with rock and roll and with comedians. And if you became too mainstream, almost by definition, a part of you was selling out because the people that embraced you early on on the outer fringes didn't want you to go mainstream. The list of people...
who have gotten accused of selling out. It's a very impressive club to be in. - That's a great list of Beyonce's. - And you know who greets you at the door at the club of people who got booed actually on stage for selling out? Bob Dylan. - Of course. - With his electric guitar. Oh my God, he's playing electric. Call 911. - Newport, yeah. - What was the reaction? Right? - Put it just legendary. - If kids don't know this, right, Bob Dylan,
was famously a, I mean, he was, been to Woody Guthrie. He was born in 1941. That was who he modeled himself after. I've heard those early Dylan records. Oh my God. It's like, it's like, it's horrible to me. I'm just not into that kind of music. It's folk with that harmonica sounds like a busy signal.
okay so um a note to self never sound like a busy signaling no not don't play the harmonic i don't think you're in danger of doing that but then dylan so then dylan became the voice of the generation and blown in the wind and whatever that's okay so blown in the wind is still his old it's a good song but it's still his old style and then was it in 65 or something i think it
Maybe it was a year or two later. He showed up at Newport. I think it was 65. It was some festival. He showed up at Newport in Rhode Island. Oh, is that where it was? Yeah. And plays the electric guitar. Shock horror. And a whole generation fucking shit their pants and didn't know what to do. I mean, their whole, like, orbit, you know, their whole orbit just got thrown off track. And I'm sure, and of course, it's never the main thing
bulk of the audience. It's a few pretentious assholes who probably write the reviews, right? What difference does it make? He was playing electric guitar. Yes. And then he's going to use an acoustic guitar sometime, just like all bands do. What a producer says, how do we make this record sound the best? Maybe it's electric on this. It had nothing to do with his voice, his poetry. And I think his music got better. I love
Same thing happened to us on our second album, The Lightning. The first album was 10 or 11 songs.
pretty moving along, thrashy rock and roll songs. And then on the second album, the fourth song in, Fade to Black, James was playing an acoustic guitar. And the hard rock and heavy metal community went, oh my God, Metallica just sold out. They have an acoustic guitar on their album. Everybody was up in arms. And to this day, almost 40 years later, it's one of the
five songs that we have to play in every concert and not to get tarred and feathered and chased out of town. You know? Well, I mean, Led Zeppelin, which is kind of known as the granddaddy of metal, but much of their stuff is acoustic. Yeah. And a lot of it is roots back to English music.
folklore music and you know, especially like Led Zeppelin 3. I mean it's almost all in acoustic, you know Led Zeppelin 2 and Led Zeppelin 4 obviously have a lot of rock stuff but Stairway to Heaven and all those songs like Battle of Evermore and all those other beautiful acoustic songs. And like a song like Stairway to Heaven, there's a great album to be made of songs that are so fucking good
that they became so popular that then they somehow became uncool. Like Stairway to Heaven, uncool. Yeah, you know the cliche is that every guitar store or every guitar center in the world has a sign on the wall that says, you know, when 16-year-olds come in and want to try guitars, please do not play Stairway to Heaven. Is that true? Yeah, that's another one of those things.
Crazy exaggerated cliches. Okay, now there's a perfect idea of why whoever these fucking critics or morons are are morons. Because it's not the acoustic or the electric, it's the combination. It's the fact that we're building to this place in the song
Or you could start hard and I guess go... Yeah, it's called dynamics. It's called dynamics. And it's called producing a record which you never have done because you're typing. Taking your fans in the audience on a journey. You're typing and they're playing. Exactly. Not that typing isn't nothing, but in your case, mostly it is nothing. And they're playing and you're typing. Yeah.
And listen, whatever it's worth, if Stairway to Heaven is one of the blueprints, Deep Purple had a similar song called Child and Time.
And then, you know, that sort of morphed over into bands like Judas Priest had a song called Beyond the Realms of Death. Iron Maiden had a song called Hallowed Be Thy Name. And those are the songs where you go on a journey and there's acoustic guitars and there's melody and there's the big, you know, crescendo finale. And, you know, those eight or nine minute songs, we have half a dozen of them. Like I said, Fade to Black was the first one where there was acoustic guitar and the metal community lost their fucking shit.
And it's fine. You know, 40 years later, we're still kicking along. Some say doing is good or better than ever. And you are, you know, it's those things you just, it becomes part of the ride. Obviously, the major difference now is that
30 years ago, when you put out a record, if you wanted to see what people thought of it, you would read about it a week or two later in Rolling Stone or in Kerrang! magazine or in Entertainment Weekly or whatever. Now, you know, when we dropped the first single from the new album in November, the song's three and a half minute long. I could read about what 10,000 people thought about it four minutes after we dropped it.
And that's a little bit of an upside down version of reading about it two weeks later on Rolling Stone from back in the day. You know what I mean? So that instant thing of having just comment after comment after comment accessible five minutes after you drop something is, you know, you got to if you go below the line, as I say, then you got to just be be be make sure that that stuff doesn't penetrate because it can
It can fuck with you if you let it. So I'll occasionally scroll down there and somebody says, "That sounds great. That sounds like this album. That sounds like Kill Em All." And somebody else says, "These people should go kill themselves," or whatever. And we take all of it in stride and it's fine. But that's a different part of the culture nowadays, obviously, than it was 30, 40 years ago. And besides getting the review four minutes later,
I mean, only four minutes later, you're also getting it unfiltered. Exactly. You know, you're not, it's not, it's what people are thinking. And yet there, I mean, I don't have the balls to go on social media. I don't know what they're saying about me and I don't want to know. I'm sure there's... No, it's, and just for context,
I don't do it a lot. But when you've been working on a record for a couple of years and you haven't been out of the house for three or four years and then you drop a song, it's nice to share it with an audience and putting it all in perspective, 95% of it is positive. But there is always somebody who comes up with a very inventive way of saying something.
something really nasty. And they're keyboard warriors. They're just sitting on their mom's computer down in the basement and typing away. And it's just part of what it is. And it's okay. And it's okay. In their mom's basement. No, I was not putting you down for that. I was giving you props because I don't have the guts to do it. I really don't. And I should. I mean, it's always better. I can't even watch myself. I don't watch my own show. And I should. That would be better. You'd learn things better.
I would like to do that, but you're right. There's always going to be one, and that would stick with me for the rest of the day. I mean, I don't have... I guess people think I have thicker skin than I do, but no, I mean, we're all sensitive in show business. No, and we are, and of course, but there's a part of, I'll tell you, like early on,
when we were in our 20s and and we were coming out of that outside of the mainstream we were obviously on the edge and hovering in that space and you know we wanted to explain ourselves and we wanted to have the mainstream rock audience understand what our point of views were and what was fueling us and our inspirations and all that type of stuff and then when somebody would hurl something at you
it always felt like the best fuck you back to them was that it completely just bounced off you. So when they said something nasty to you, Metallica fucking can't do this, can't do that, they suck, blah, blah, blah. Who's writing this? The best remedy was to ignore it and keep charging forward. Because you know what that did? That wound them up even more because they were expecting to get into...
a confrontation with you and get into a debate with you. And when you ignored him, at least back in the day, that was the case. Now it becomes this whole two-way street. The minute you engage, you're sort of caught in this thing. But I have to tell you, now I'm a pretty fairly, I would say, astute person.
observer of the music scene. I'm a music lover. I have a lot of music. Okay, I'm not in the business. I certainly have no musical talent. I don't read the trades every week. But just as someone who's not unaware of the music business or your place in it or your records, which I have in CD form, going back to... Okay, so...
Let me give you my impression of what you're saying, because it's not my impression. My impression is that Metallica, it's not music for everybody. It's a little too hard for a lot of people.
But the integrity reputation, I feel, has never been assailed. I don't remember any... I'm sure you can always find it. But I feel like there are certain people on that level, like, never became anything close to a joke, even though you've been around. Just time can make some people... And there are bands who are sort of known... They're thought of as soft, or they... Sometimes it's not even...
Like I remember Hootie and the Blowfish had a huge album in the 90s and everybody loved it. And before even the second one came out, they turned on the first one. It was like, wait, this is the same thing that you said was great a year ago. And now it's super unhip. So they don't. But I feel like there is none of that ever tainted metal. I don't feel like Pearl Jam is in the band like that.
U2, I would say, sometimes has done goofy things like put out, forcing you to hear their record on your phone or whatever that thing they did, but not as a band, as a music. And some people, bands just have, even in the snarky press,
a great deal of respect. It never veers into what I feel like you seem to be aware of that I am not. No, it doesn't. I don't remember any Metallica sucks. No, General is generally... Like Nickelback sucks. I've heard that. Not to knock Nickelback, I'm not that aware of their music, but that I know is a joke. I get it from my writers, like Nickelback jokes. There are bands that get that. I feel like Metallica never got that.
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We're fortunate in that it has not veered off that track, you know, considering it's been 41 years. The bumps in the road have been thankfully few and far between. Of course, you brought up Napster yourself in the wake of that. There was definitely some backlash, you know, when, like I said, you know, the fate of black acoustic guitars. There's a few things, you know, along, you know, when we did this incredible song with
Marianne Faithfull came in and sang this beautiful melody over parts of the song. A lot of the super hard rock fans couldn't quite sort of understand who Marianne Faithfull was or her place in a Metallica song. When we've done some things, say with the San Francisco Symphony, there's occasionally somebody that says, why are you doing something? You know, we have
always talked about our need to morph and our need to move around the musical landscape. And obviously everything you do is not for everybody, but I'll agree with what you're saying generally, certainly compared to the artists that you just mentioned, we've had a pretty, pretty stellar ride with the critics and so on. Yes. For good reason. You earned it. And these people who are your critics, it seems like the theme I'm getting is,
when you do get criticism. The theme is stay in your lane.
And the answer to that is, fuck you. First of all, what is the lane? First of all, what particular lane? I know what they think the lane is. But again, but I will say, if you put 10 of those people on that couch over there, they'll give you 10 different answers to what that lane is. Once you break it down. Even better. Once you break it down into specifics. And so that to begin with is just a lost cause. It's not even a discussion that's worth... When you're an artist...
You lose some and gain some. There are people who I think probably have steadier fan followings than I do or you do because I, quite frankly, think they're less of an artist. Whereas, like, I have lost audiences because I will not...
bend the knee and say anything I don't really believe. There's a lot of woke people who think woke is the same as liberal and it's not. It's very often the reverse of liberal. I know you get it from both sides. Right, and I get it. But I mean, I've gone after the left a lot more in the last five, 10 years because they became much more fucking ridiculous.
That is not a choice a lot of people would make. And you do pay a price. I've paid my price. I'm not bleeding about it. I'm happy about it. Because, you know, if that's where you are, we're probably not going to see eye to eye. And I love to do the show for people who are like, oh, my God, you said what I was thinking or I wish someone would say. And if I'm going to say things that like are going to disappoint you because they're true or fact.
- Yeah, no. - Then, you know, you're gonna, and it's okay to lose, it's okay to lose some because you know who you get? You get the people who belong with you. And that's same true of like your relationships in life. Are you friends with everybody you were in high school?
No, of course. No, right. You grow. Some people you keep. Some fans you keep. And sometimes you... I'm glad that it's a dynamic thing, that it's constantly turning over and changing and you're getting... I'm sure your shows have lots of young people.
Well, they weren't even around for this shit. In the wake of the Stranger Things phenomena that happened last year where all of a sudden Master Puppets and Metallica got introduced to a whole new audience because of one TV show. I mean, it's crazy how that keeps happening, that revolving door of
kids that get to that point and then have to have their years with Metallica. But of course, we're not the same that we've been. Of course, we say things differently. Of course, we try to always, like you're saying, be true to the moment and true to what the beliefs are. And at that time, there is one additional part which is
Most of the artists that you mentioned are bands. And so it can be tricky sometimes, you know, in if you're a solo artist or if you're a Bill Maher or if you're a comedian or any solo artist, you mentioned Dylan or if you're a Springsteen or a Neil Young or whatever, you know.
You're writing just on your own opinion if you're in you too or if you're in Pearl Jam or if you're in Who'd in the Blowfish or if you're in Metallica, right? There's two things that play number one the individual's opinion. Yeah, and then a collective opinion. Yes and sometimes Part of the reason like if you take I don't know I
He started off in a band and then he went solo. Neil Young started off primarily in groups. So a lot of artists start off in collectives and groups and gangs and then they end up going, it takes too much work, too many resources, too much energy.
shit to make it function it's easier for me to go do my own thing if you notice that there are fewer and fewer bands in their 50s and 60s you know there's nowadays obviously there's Chili Peppers and there's Metallica and there's
you know guns and roses and there's a stones you know and aerosmith but i mean all of you i mean look at the relationship between mick and keith that's been well documented how they couldn't be in the same room for 20 years at a time i mean it's so i'm just saying it's it takes a lot of it takes we spend more time effort and resources on the of making the band function
I know, I saw that documentary. And that's 20 years ago. Right. Okay. I mean, it's not harder now because we're more respectful of each other, but there's more time that goes into making it work. I'm so glad you brought this up because this is like a question I've always wanted to really explore with someone who would know this. Because like in the Eagles documentary, Timothy B. Schmidt at one point says...
Every band I've ever known is always on the verge of breaking up at all times, which I thought was such a great line. It's a good soundbite. Yeah, it's a great fucking soundbite. And it's, you know, it just made me think,
Yes, when I think of bands and what I know of them or at least what the rumors are, it's a lot harder to name ones where they get along. I mean, U2 famously. U2, I think if we were sitting here with a couple of guys from the Chili Peppers and a couple of guys from Muse and a couple of guys from other bands that are still getting along, we would all agree on one thing, which is that U2 is the ideal of being in a band that we all look up to because...
you know, they function, they're, you know, but they were all
more or less grew up on the same street and went to the same schools and they've all known each other and they have the same DNA running through their bodies. But that's true of a lot of bands. That's the Beatles. Yeah, but it's also not true of a lot of bands, including the one you're sitting here talking to, a member of. I mean, I grew up in a very liberal, artsy upbringing in Copenhagen, Denmark. James Hetfield grew up in pretty much the opposite of any of those words
here in Southern California, in Fullerton. Do you know what I mean? Kirk Hammett grew up in the Mission District, also in a very liberal, sort of post-hippie upbringing, and Robert Tree. So the Beatles, yes, you too, but the Beatles also, I mean, they lasted six years. They put records out. So we put our last record out
There's longer between our last record and this record than the Beatles put records out. They put out 10 records. And so you have to take some of that into context. So I'm just saying U2 is sort of the... U2 is the pinnacle of what we all aspire to because of the fact that they can still function to the way that they do. But they are... You brought up the Eagles. I mean, they are...
There are more versions of the Eagles and everybody else, the Crosby, Stills, and Nassim Youngs of the world that just can't do this. And that it's easier for all of them to go and do the solo artist stuff. Okay. But let me throw, I'm just interested in this. So let's,
Okay, now we've explored the few bands who are nice and stay together. That is rare. It's a shorter conversation. Right. And you're in one. I mean, you guys have been together forever. 41 years. Unbelievable.
That really is kind of the exception because most, I mean, bands just don't stay together for that long. But okay, say they do, there are different lineup changes or like marriages, some marriages don't end in divorce, but they hate each other the whole time. Stay together for convenience. This is Mick and Keith. They stay together for convenience. Right, because, well, because you don't have...
You know, Simon and Garfunkel's concert would sell stadiums and Solo would, you know, even though Paul Simon was, come on. Not going to go there, but I know what you're saying. We all know. Okay. So, you know, there's no Rolling Stones without the two of them and they both know it and they both like being the Rolling Stones. Why wouldn't you? And they go on tour. Okay. So,
So between the ones that break up and the ones that hate each other, there's a lot of hate. This is what I'm trying to get at. Why, when he said all bands are about to break up at all times, what are the issues? And this is where another person in rock and roll said to me something. He said, it's always about either...
You didn't like my song. I didn't like my wife. Or you took that girl. Okay, I didn't like my... A lot of bands break up because their wives don't get along. I mean, we've heard those stories. But there's a time you didn't even have wives. Of course. Right, and then it's you took that girl. Of course, of course. And so is that it? Is it you didn't like my song and you took my girl? Listen, Bill, I... Answer the question! I am answering the question right now. The...
Answering the question is that it's a little bit of all of it. I mean, it's not just there's not one soundbite that covers all of it. You know, a lot of times people in bands have to stray, you know, so it takes the Rolling Stones. I mean, they basically didn't do anything in the 80s.
you know, for almost 10 years. Mick went off and did his own thing. Oh, yeah. Keith went off and did, and then they dabble in their own solo careers for a couple of years and then they go, hang on a second, it's no fun playing with 27 people at the bottom line somewhere on Let's Get Back
and get the stadium. It was called the Hell Freezes Over Tour. That's right. Because they literally said, we'll get back together. They were never going to get back together. And then they went off and Don and Glenn and everybody did their own thing. And then they came back again together. It's a little bit of all of it
Most rock and roll bands that are successful have a couple of people, you know, vying for pole position, vying for pole position. Of course. Who are the guys that are going to steer? And so if you can get through that phase where you take turns steering and leading and that you don't mind taking a backseat and have enough trust and enough respect for
for your partner to know if you lead on this song, if you lead on this record or if you lead with this lyric or whatever, I can hover back and then we take turns and you can balance it. You have a much higher chance of getting through it. But it really is ego. I mean, all...
great rock and roll bands are funded by people with massive egos or else you couldn't do it. So that's both the strengths of what makes it a worldwide phenomena and also what nine out of ten times, you know, makes it false or is that those egos clash. If I had to rank my favorite places, it would be number one on stage, number two, the basketball court, and number three, my own bed because I love my sleep.
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trading off the leadership position, which is, you know, ideally like what a country does with leadership. We have elections, or at least we did in the past, where people just, you know, sometimes the Republicans are in charge, sometimes the Democrats are in charge. Yes, and we all accepted that until fat-ass douchebag basically tried to overthrow the government. We're like, you lose some, Don. Why nobody ever says that to him, you fucking baby? You don't win them all.
It's that pendulum. And growing up in a social democratic European society, you know, it's you have a parliament and you have 10 parties or you have 15 parties and you have all those different kind of things. And everybody it kind of shifts. And we would always look at America and go, it's the the thing about America is it's.
Yes or no. It's black or white. It's Republican or Democrat. It's winning or losing. Everything is these juxtapositions, these two extremes. But in European attitudes, most of the answers to all this stuff lies in the middle.
lies in this hodgepodge of everything. And in America, it's win, lose, black, white, yes, no, Democratic, Republican. And that is- Our economic system also is like- Yeah. Many Europeans come here because they feel like
As one Canadian said, they cut down the tall trees where I'm from. And here it's true. You can grow as high as you want, get as rich as you want. But if you're a loser, see ya, wouldn't want to be ya. You know, we don't...
Even though we do have a generous safety net, it's still not like all for one as much as it is in European countries. But I just want to ask you about this thing about leadership, because that seems to be the key thing. Just like in a democracy, can you switch back and forth the leadership
You're saying in your band, you have. I think we've managed to do it, but not without putting a lot of effort into it. So who's the president now? Not without, not without, you know, first you have to go
to the trench warfare. And first you have to go through the thing where for 10 years, every day that I would go down to the studio, I would put my battle armor on and I would go down to the studio and I would be prepared to stand up for the one way that I believed in, you know, in me was the right way. And if somebody said, how about we do it this way, then the battle armor would come on and we would go at it.
Then you wake up on the other side of that experience that was in that movie, Some Kind of Monster, and you go, holy shit, maybe empathy is actually a word we can work with here. Maybe I can do a 180 and see it from the other way. That's aging. Of course, it's all of it. But now in our band, yes, I'll lead on something. I'll lead on a song. I'll lead on a direction. James will play.
follow along, James will lead on something else, I'll follow along. James, you take pole position on this one, I trust you. - So you're saying it's a song by song thing, okay, 'cause what I-- - That's the easiest way to break it down musically. - At least the analogy certainly does not hold for the Beatles, where there was definitely a lead change
John Lennon was undoubtedly the leader of the Beatles when they started. It was his gang. They looked up to him. It was his band. Okay. I'm not going to disagree with that. Mid-60s, it twitches.
Paul McCartney becomes the leader of the band. It was his idea to do "Sergeant Pepper." It was his idea they would do the "Magical Mystery" movie. It was his idea they-- Totally. Totally. John Lennon was doing other things. Yoko. But right there, I think you hit the nail on the head, is that these things can ebb and flow by somebody else becoming leader or taking the pole position
That can happen in two ways, and that's important. It's not that the one guy comes up and removes the other guy. It's also like you just said about Lennon kind of pulled himself back because he got interested in other things. And so there are each one of those situations are unique in that sense. And there is an ebb and flow and fluidity to it when you and again,
You said 10 years so we could stick with 10 years. We're 41 years into this journey. I mean, we've had fucking, James and I started this when we were 17 and we're 117 now. And we were, you know, so it's like those dynamics, they do ebb and flow depending on where people's heads are at. So this is where you're about to go on, right? Yeah.
It starts what day? It starts April, the end of April, April 27th. I'm glad you reminded me of my tour. You don't need that. I'm not in quite the size venues you are. Everyone has to make a living. Saturday, April 22nd. Oh, no. April 22nd. They can't see both of us at the same time. I'll be at the theater at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland. We're starting in Europe in April. So we'll be in Europe in...
April, May, and June, and then we start in America in August. Okay. And also Sunday, April 23rd, this is me again at the Durham Performing Arts Center in Durham, North Carolina. But, okay, so...
You know, like in the NBA, they have something called back-to-backs, like where you play one night and then the next night, which if you've ever played a basketball game, and I still play in them, it's like it's taxing, especially at my age. But at any age, you know. So that's why if you have to do a back-to-back, those players, they know that second day is
that is an opportunistic time for the other team because they're just, you know. Sure. We have our version of that. What is your version of that? So, yeah, we used to call them either two in a row or three in a row. But you avoid them all together now? Yeah, so now we only play singles. So this whole tour that we're embarking on, we're playing two shows in each city, and we came up with a shtick of two shows,
Same venue, a Friday and a Sunday, and two completely different shows. No songs repeated from one night to the other. So 100% different set list. And you buy one ticket for two shows, and you can come in and see. And now you can also buy single tickets. That is really smart. And you don't get bored.
Because you're playing different- We don't get bored, no. There's no time to get bored, but- Well, you're playing different songs. We're playing 100% different set lists. But my point was that it used to be that, you know, if we were playing two shows in the same city-
that we would play, you know, two shows in the same venue that we were playing back to back. Now we don't even play. Now we have to rent the stadium, obviously for the setup for two, three days, but also the stadium sits idle. So if we play Friday and then take a day off Saturday and then play again Sunday, but it's the only way to get through it. And it's the only way to,
So finally, and maybe in the last 10, 15 years, we came around, and this is no disrespect to our managers, but we came around the other side and basically said, listen, we need to start putting some boundaries and some parameters around our
our, what we're willing to do, because back in the day we would do three, four in a row and then have one day off and then three in a row and then one day off and then two shows and one. And then, you know, I'd have, you know, a week off between going to Europe and America. And finally, like I said, maybe around 15, maybe around the some kind of monster thing, we took charge and said, we're willing to go out
for this long, for this long and you know, blah, blah, blah. And at one point when I was fighting a child custody case between sort of like maybe '08 to '10, maybe give or take, we did a whole world tour for two years around not being on the road for more than two weeks at a time. We were playing Europe for two weeks, then come home,
Play two weeks and then come home, play, you know, we did an American tour a week at a time. Because of the child custody? Yeah, and the other guys in the band were... Because you had to be in court or something? No, because I had 50-50 custody of my kids and...
There was no budging on the- Oh, I see. So you came home just to be with them and to take them to school and stuff. Yeah, so literally I would take them to school Monday morning and we would fly and we would play five shows in America, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. Sunday night we'd fly home. I would be with my kids from that Monday morning for a week. And the rest of the guys in the band, God bless them, were
were gracious enough and kind enough to work with that. And it was a whole world tour for two years. So we were never, never gone for more than two weeks at a time. The rock and roll lifestyle was not really invented for accommodating custody fights. Let me confirm that for you. It's more for creating illegitimate. It was running away from your children. It's for creating children. No, it was running away and hiding from your kids. Led Zeppelin fucked groupies with a
fish you know I mean among other things yeah well I'm sure you guys got into lots of mayhem when you started in
So what's it like now? I mean, first of all, I must tell you, I tour like the ultimate baby and I have for like the last at least 20 years. I do two shows, two cities in a row. Then you go home or do you stay out? After the second show. So I'm not only staying over one night. That's as much as I can take.
I'll go up and fly up to Seattle on Saturday afternoon in my little plane. And then fly back after the show. No, then stay over in Seattle. Stay over, okay. But the first city is always one that has like a great hotel. I'm telling you, I'm a fucking baby.
And then I'll fly to the second city, whatever it is. There's nothing you're going to tell me that's any different than what we know. But like and then I'll do I'll fly in just and go right to the venue. I wouldn't even get a hotel in the second city. Do that show. Get in the plane and fly home. And we do. Yeah, we do. That is a baby. We have a version of that called basing or hopping show.
Some bands do it. They call it hop. We call it basing for some reason. People always go, freebass? No, it's basing. So we use bass cities. So we'll be, let's say we're playing, let's say we're playing Scandinavia. So we'll hop, we'll park ourselves in Copenhagen.
and we'll wake up in Copenhagen and we'll fly up to Oslo and we'll play Oslo and right after the show we'll be back on the plane, we'll be back in Copenhagen 10 or 11 hours after we left. And so you're in the same hotel room if you rent a house or an apartment. So you have that continuity going. For how long, weeks? Yeah, we do like two weeks, three weeks like that. And so you could play like- And that's your home turf, right?
Right, I'm using Copenhagen as an example. Will we do it with Paris if we're playing shows on the East Coast? Like we'll do it out of New York?
so we'll stay in manhattan right um and everybody will have their kids and their families out and we'll play you know we'll play boston we'll play buffalo we'll play dc we'll play philly we'll play pittsburgh we'll play charlotte or whatever we'll play all of them out of new york and just go to tito bro it's two o'clock in the afternoon we're back at tito you know at two in the morning frank sinatra his last years he would only stay in
in one of three places. He would either be in, because he had a home in Palm Springs. Palm Springs, yeah. And then one here in Beverly Hills. And then he would play Chicago or he would stay at a hotel, his favorite hotel in Chicago or New York. Sure. And he would do, you had to be able to reach the gig by, I think, helicopter. Yeah. Or something, maybe small plane or something so he could play St. Louis but he'd be back in Chicago. Exactly. That's what, exactly. We're in Chicago and
We play St. Louis Indianapolis. We're fucking old. We earned it. But it's also, but it is, but it is, I mean, that's one half of it. But when I tell people about this,
There's the other half of it, which is that it's an investment. It's an investment in your sanity. It's an investment in your health. It's an investment in your health, your sanity, and it's an investment in your longevity because people will sit there and go, well, that's more expensive because you're adding more plane flights or you're doing this. I go, yeah, it's more expensive, but it's an investment in being able to do it for many more years. You're still being a road warrior. I mean, you're out. This is a tour.
People say to me sometimes, you know, I'm never on tour and I'm never not on tour. I do a weekend every other weekend or so. You know, that's about it. Do you ever hop? Do you ever wake up here at home and go to San Francisco and then you come back here? Absolutely. It's called a one-nighter. Yeah, so you hop right back. Yes, absolutely. I also have had some, like I had to do Lake Tahoe last weekend and there was a blizzard and
And we had to fly into Reno and then drive over a mountain in a blizzard. It was just like the early days of comedy. It actually kind of felt good. But there are, yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. But there are other advantages to it, which is we travel a lot at night. We fly at night. And when you're flying at night,
you can actually get around quicker because air traffic control is not sitting there going, you gotta wait 45 minutes for somebody else to take off. So traveling at night, and also when you come off stage, you're off stage at 11 or 12 and you're still fucking wired after playing for two and a half hours.
And so if I go back to the hotel in Seattle or whatever, I'm gonna sit in my room in Seattle for the four hours and stare at the wall. So I may as well travel and get to the next city because then I can have a more relaxing day off the next day. So there are additional practical benefits to it. I'm telling you, I'm so much more of a baby because like,
Just to be away for more than a few days from my home without my food, you know, like the exact food I want and what's on my TV. I mean, I'm just a creature of comfort and that kind of that. Not luxury. I'm not a person who needs luxury. You should never excuse that. No, I don't. We're the same way. But you, to be out there
the way you are, I mean, oh, look at this thing. But, you know, it's, I mean, we have our version of that. I mean, we like to, you know, we have the same people, you know, a lot of the people that travel with us have been with us for 20, 30 years. You're still away from home. I couldn't, I just couldn't do it. What do you do on the day off? Uh,
Try to do nothing? Go to a museum? Go see a movie? Try to turn... That's something... Comedians, of course, have the same history and lifestyle. And there certainly were many times in my 20s when I was... You know, we would play comedy clubs and you'd be in the city for four or five days. You played the comedy club like Tuesday through Sunday or some shit. So you had to create...
stuff to do when you're away from home. And we were masters at it. The mall was like a... Yeah, but there is also a pretty significant difference between your 20s and your 50s. I'm just saying. Because in your 20s, most of the time you were sleeping off, you know, the 12 hours of shenanigans that would happen after the concert, you know, on your day off. Now it's you go to a museum or you...
catch up on something or you go to the spa. I mean, I would never say that 30 years ago. What did you do on your day off? I went for a massage and a steam. Right. And that's not something you did when you were 26. You know what I mean? But I don't think that, I don't think that
people like us need to excuse. I mean, I've been vocal about, you know, we travel with a chef and we make sure that we have the best food possible. We have two guys that travel with us who stretch us and who, you know, stitch us back together after the concerts and, you know, and all that kind of, but all those things are an investment in the longevity. What do you think of Mick? I mean, it's more like a fucking sports team now. Yeah. You know,
What do you think of Mick and Keith doing it at 80? I mean, I remember when we were doing Rolling Stone or old stones or old jokes when they were 50. I remember that their new hit is number one with an arrow. You know, I listen, I'll tell you this story. I've said it a couple of times before because it so hits right to the center of what you're saying. We
We were fortunate enough to get asked to play with the Stones just about 20 years ago. It was maybe it was '04 or '05, give or take. And so they're playing a couple of shows in San Francisco and then asked if we would play with them. At that time, we had played shows of our career with Deep Purple, with AC/DC, with a few other bands, all the bands that I had posters up on my wall when I was a kid. And so the last one, last one of those boxes to check was the Stones.
So we're playing a couple shows where the Giants play at AT&T Stadium. And we're no spring chickens at this point. We're still in our early 40s, late 30s, early 40s or whatever. But still, so we're sitting backstage and this is in no way a judgment on the Stones. This is really more about us. So we're sitting backstage and at one point a personal assistant or whatever comes and says...
Mick Jagger is going to walk through here in a couple minutes. He's going over to his private gym in his truck and he's going to warm up before the show. When he walks through here, please don't make eye contact with him or talk to him. No. Just Mick is going to walk through here. No. And so we're sitting there. Come on. This is about us, not about the Stones. So we're sitting there going.
What? He has a truck? He has a truck with a portable gym in it? He goes and warms up for 30-45 minutes before he goes on stage?
Q, ha, ha, ha, oh my God, you know, and we're still like late 30s, early 40s. Now, guess who's got a truck with a gym in it? Guess who's got a Peloton bike on the road with us? Guess who's got a chef who walks around and makes us protein drinks and all kinds of other nasty stuff? I mean, we're right there in it, you know? I get your point. I think you're missing the really salient part of the story.
It's not that he was warming up before the show, which is completely understandable whether you're 20, 30 or 80. I know what you're referring to. Come on. That is so disappointing. You know...
We used to laugh a lot at those things. And when did he walk through and you did that and didn't look? You must have talked to him at some point. We were told that, I've told this story a couple of times before, we were told that we could have a picture taken with the Rolling Stones on the way to the, as they were walking to the stage, we were playing, there was another support act,
can't remember who it was but so the two support acts uh the two guest acts were in the tunnel up to the stage and the first band was here and the second man was here and then the stones came and they stopped here and they took a picture i don't think they fully stopped they were sort of caught mid-walk or they slowed down long enough and then they got to us and we got our picture taken with the stones listen but that's the extent of your that was the extent of it
I had dreams. I thought, listen, we're going to play with the Rolling Stones and you know where I'm going to spend my whole time is in Keith Richards' house.
hotel room sitting, doing those legendary parties till nine o'clock, nine o'clock in the morning. I'll be the last one to leave. You know, it wasn't exactly like that, but listen, I, I don't disrespect him for that. I've told those stories before. Um, and now we're sort of turning into a version of that, but we are always very careful about
I always go and say hello to our support acts. I look them in the eye. I ask them if there's anything they need. You know what it is? It's called common courtesy. It's just not even, we don't even deserve. No, it's a human thing. If somebody comes out and plays on a Metallica stage, I want them to feel at home. I want them to feel at home. There's also something involved here called professional courtesy. Professional courtesy. Like if you were like a,
a very new beginning band, it still wouldn't be acceptable, but it would be a little more understandable. But you're a peer who was probably at that moment was selling more records than they were. It just seems, it's just so disappointing. And I've heard, of course, stories like this before. There's a very big rock star. I'm not going to say who it is. I happen to like him personally and my brief encounters with him. But
But someone I know who I know is not lying said she walked up to him. He was having lunch with his wife somewhere and said, Mr. Blow and blow. I hate to bother you. And he cut her off and said, and yet you did. What?
And I've never been able to listen to this person's records. And I do because I can put it out of my mind. I'll play fucking R. Kelly here right now. I don't let anybody tell me Michael Jackson, anybody. The music didn't rape anybody, I always say.
But I cannot put it out of my mind. You know what I mean? I can't unsee that, which is ironic because he wouldn't look at you. I hear. It's terrible. The first time we were exposed to that, and again, I'll refrain from saying the name, but this was the
mid-late 80s and we were just figuring it all out and getting into arenas and stuff like that and our tour manager has just been on tour with this other band that were a little more established than we were
but not, they weren't the Rolling Stones or, I mean, they weren't legends in their own, in their own life. Right. They, they were, you know, and he was telling stories about the lead singer when he walked from, from, from his dressing room up to the tour manager had to go in front, you know, five minutes before whatever, and tell whatever crew people or whatever technicians or whatever awesome people make, make,
rock and roll shows go up and down and all that stuff you know whether it's catering or all the people that work at these buildings god bless every one of them no eye contact allowed and we were sitting we were 25 years old and we were just hysterically laughing going like how can anybody look at another human being and go no eye contact allowed when you're backstage sharing a fucking what
So what is that about? What is it? What is it? It's like they're like some, you know, primitive person in the Amazon. It steals my soul. You know, like they thought cameras did. I just don't understand what that is. Why that is such an imposition to look at a person, I guess, because then it invites the other person to talk to you. And then you got to talk. You got to expend energy to nod in their direction. Now, look, it is. I will. I will say this. Like there are.
we probably both have been put in situations where it is taxing like a book signing. Have you ever done a book signing? Oh, yeah. Okay, so I was happy to do it and like I'm not going to do it and not be like engaging in,
with every single person who comes up with that book. I'm gonna look in the eye and try to be, you know, give them 30 seconds of realness. That can be taxing over an hour. But you signed up for it, so do it. But it's not taxing to walk through a room. I just don't get it. But
Okay. So, but what about being 80 and doing it? I mean, like I'm telling you, we were making jokes about this for 30 years about how old they are. And I mean, we thought 60 was pushing it. Then we thought, wow, 70, 75, 80, 80. And it's not obviously, you know, in, in context, it's not just them. I mean, listen, Paul McCartney is still out there doing it. You know, Neil Young, uh,
so many other incredible artists. A few at 80. You're right. Paul McCartney is at 80. Paul McCartney turned 80 last year at the Glassy Bear Festival. I mean, I...
All jokes about, you know, Pete Townshend writing, I hope I die before I get old and all those ones that have been thrown out there for 40, 50 years. I think it's inspiring for nothing more than... Me too. Yeah, I'm pretty kidding. I'm 67. Because we're right in their fucking footsteps. Right in their wake. I think it's fucking awesome. But it's...
it just, it gives all the rest of us mortals, you know, something to look forward to, first of all, but also, you know, when the audience, I think,
because it's not just, you know, all of Paul McCartney's fans are not the same age as him. No. So it gives the audience a chance. Less and less. It gives the audience also a chance to understand that music or comedy or anything else that you do, it doesn't have to be only the same generation that inspires you or moves something in you. Do you know what I mean? So when we're up on stage...
A couple of us are 60, you know, and we look out and see all these kids that are experiencing Metallica for the first time because of Stranger Things. And there's a, let's call it a 45 year gap or a 50 year gap. That's great that younger kids.
kids can see that older people are also capable of doing something that has value to them or that connects with them. Yes, they need to learn that very badly. Across multi-generations, so it's not that all Gen Zers sit there and go, the only people that speak to me are Gen Zers, and all Gen Xers sit there and go, all the people that speak to me... Which is so stupid. When I was a Gen Zer...
I mean, when I was 20, that's not how I thought. I didn't look up to the people in my own generation. I thought they were douchebags. I wanted to be like James Bond and Johnny Carson. You know, I mean, that's Dean Martin. People who are older than me look like they know how to get a girl and order a steak and a martini and do fucking good adult stuff or rock stars. You know, of course, that was always like, but I knew I couldn't ever be that, you know, but I could be Johnny Carson. I got pretty close. Yeah.
That's right. Come on. God bless you. Listen, it meant so much to me that you would just do this because I know it's... Of course. This is so much fun. It is so much fun. I hope you do it again. Please. Like with or without the cameras. No, it'd be great. It's a great space, isn't it? Doesn't it have a good vibe in this room? This is so cool. This is what we call after hours, like an after hours. Exactly. It has that vibe. Like the after hours. Well, come. I would love to have you here sometime when you're in L.A. and I can play it when we're on tape because then we can put the music on.
Good to see you again. Now, I'm going to take that. Okay, yeah, you can have that. I want to be the tall one.