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appeared to be directed at the outside world with the old familiar pathos – ‘Cure’ (drug addiction as metaphor for moral ‘sickness’); ‘Ronnie’ (based on the real-life shootings in Washington, in 1995, by schoolboy Ron Brown) – but essentially this was a one-way trip to the dark centre of the Hetfield psyche. As such, ‘King Nothing’, ostensibly about the kind of king-size egos he had sneered at on the Guns N’ Roses tour, became in reality a song about the so-called anti-star James now saw in his own dressing room mirror. Similarly, ‘Hero of the Day’, not really about ‘them’ but ‘us’, and ‘Wasting My Hate’ – ‘I think I’ll keep it for myself’. This was Hetfield not being vague but disturbingly open and, for the first time, sounding utterly unsure, almost pleading for help.

Musically, there were now even greater revelations taking place – an area where James suddenly had far less to say than the newly ‘reinvented’ Ulrich and Hammett. Ironically, in fact, James suddenly had more in common, musically, with Jason, now living with a new, post-Black girlfriend in a quiet East Bay suburb, playing basketball with the neighbourhood kids: ‘I come home from a tour, I’ve got a box-load of shirts for them.’ By default, both James and Jason had become the metal purists of the band. Neither had felt particularly moved or threatened by the grunge years. Neither even knew of Britpop. And neither would be over-impressed by the musical – and/or sartorial – expositions of latter-day MTV sinners such as Marilyn Manson or The Prodigy, although Jason was more open to at least learning about these phenomenon, becoming most fascinated by the advent of funk-metal evangelists such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Faith No More, with particular reverence for the flamboyant bass playing of Chili Pepper co-founder Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary.

All of this had almost no bearing whatsoever when it came time to record the Load album. More influential than ever, Kirk would share credits with James and Lars on seven of the album’s fourteen tracks. But Jason didn’t even get one co-credit this time, so firmly was he excluded from the process. This was particularly galling as he had ‘submitted more material than ever before for a Metallica record’. They had tried out some of his ideas, he admitted, but ‘James writes this shit that is just so good, it’s hard to compete with it’. Hiding his real feelings, he would only say, ‘I feel more satisfied putting my bass parts on James’ cool writing than I would getting five of my songs on the record.’ In truth, however, it was eating Jason up and he began working on a variety of extra-curricular projects, recorded in his home studio. Even that avenue of expression was closed to him, though, when Hetfield decreed he should not be allowed to release any of this music, lest it weaken Metallica’s own fan base. This situation turned ‘pretty ugly for a while’, according to Lars, when a demo Jason had made with friends under the band name IR8 was played on a local San Francisco radio station. ‘I was fucking pissed,’ snapped James. ‘I always thought that when one guy jams with somebody else, that will fuck with Metallica. The fist is no longer four fingers. It’s not as strong. But he was strangled. He wants his music to be heard.’

Even working on Load, Jason could fall foul of James’ temper: ‘There were times on this record when I’d walk into the control room while he was doing his bass thing. He’d be doing some Flea funk part, and I’d count to one hundred before exploding.’ James would laugh it off later, start to see Jason’s side of things. ‘Why did we get him in the band if we didn’t like him?’ But that was one question never answered quite adequately enough. According to Jason at the time, ‘I said, “You guys are always getting to be out there doing your thing. And I always want to back you up. But somehow, somewhere, I gotta let my shit out.”’ Or as he put it wearily eight years later: ‘James has the last word on everything.’ The day of reckoning, though, was coming.

They had started out with thirty tracks, demos recorded over