Enter Night_ A Biography of Metallica - Mick Wall [168]
Late at night they went to the Lexington Queen, a well-known hang-out for rock bands since the days of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, where it was said you could get a free drink just by mentioning guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s name. Strangely, the place seemed to be home also to several dozen beautiful young American models, dancing around in negligees, flown in apparently for regular work in Japanese TV ads and glossy magazines. There were also hundreds of young female Japanese fans who followed the band wherever it went, screaming out their names and begging for a chance to present them with the numerous gifts it is the Japanese custom to give. ‘Kitten toothbrushes, Snoopy towels [and] pictures of yourself stumbling drunk into the hotel from the night before,’ as James ungallantly put it. As Lars and I walked back to the Roppongi Hotel late one night, a gaggle of young female fans suddenly sprang out at us from where they’d been hidden in the bushes, crying and screaming, ‘Rars! Rars!’ One lucky girl got her wish and would not be returning to the bushes – not that night, at least.
At another, more private moment, I sat with the band having a meal, and listened as they talked about the new houses they had all recently purchased, or were in the process of procuring, on the solid advice of their accountants, ready for their return home as millionaires for the first time later that year. They were still new enough to wealth, though, to feign indifference, Lars protesting that he drove around in ‘a piece-of-shit Honda’; James in a truck. Yet all I saw them in were limos and the private jet they travelled in while on tour in America – the same one previously used by Bon Jovi and before that Def Leppard. ‘We put some money back into how we travel while we’re on the road,’ said Lars, ‘because we’re out there a long time and it just makes the whole thing easier.’
The more he went on, however, the more the others sniggered and made faces. ‘How about that house you just bought?’ teased Kirk. ‘Where is it, like on a mountain?’
Lars looked at him, like shut the fuck up. It turned out the house he’d bought was situated so high on a hill that he was considering having an elevator built just so people could get to his front door.
‘Do it,’ I said. ‘If you can afford it, why the hell not?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘you’re right. I will…’
And he did.
Eleven
Long Black Limousine
One on One studios, North Hollywood; late afternoon sliding slowly into evening; everybody’s thoughts now turning to dinner.
Bob Rock and I sat together in a side leisure room chatting idly about a new vegetarian restaurant I’d discovered on Sunset called The Source. The sort of place where dudes wearing hemp shirts and knee-length shorts showed up with chicks in no shoes. Way too cool for school but the food made it all worth the while.
I was telling Bob about the grilled tofu, to die for, I said. He smacked his lips. Then James walked in and the atmosphere instantly changed, like the bad guy entering the saloon via the swinging doors, the piano player stopping mid-song, the guys at the poker table staring but pretending not to.
He didn’t acknowledge us, just grabbed a seat and sat looking at the TV, the volume turned low.
‘Red meat,’ he said suddenly, in that deep slaughterhouse voice so familiar now from the records. ‘White bread…’
We got the message. Bob, already more used to this than me after months holed up in the studio with him, switched gear immediately.
‘Nothing beats a good burger, though,’ he said. ‘You know, you can give