• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 469 0

and held it together at least we had each other. It was a pretty cold realisation that we hadn’t heard from James for X amount of time and I had to think of a back-up plan. I’m the kind of person who always needs back-up plans or, as my therapist says, exits, escape routes. So I sat down and thought about it long and hard and thought, “Do I have enough things in my life to fill the void if Metallica is gone?” And I discovered that I did. I also asked myself if I would carry on in music, and there was no question; it’s what I do. But was I ready for the big drop? And it would have been a drop; right back down to the ground, it would virtually have been like starting over for me. [But] after realising that I could, it gave me enough confidence to wait things out rather than just panic about the situation that was going on with the band.’

James, too, was conscious the band might be on the brink of collapse without him. ‘I think each one of us went through that possibility in our own minds, and what that meant to us, and that was a healthy thing,’ he reflected, ‘to identify that each one of us as people is more important than Metallica the thing, the machine and the creative force. I certainly went through that in rehab; I completely stripped everything about me to the bone and rebuilt myself as an individual. Growing up in Metallica was all I knew, and I didn’t realise how much I was using and manipulating with it. But yeah, after Jason left and I went into rehab the other guys certainly spun the wheels in their heads wondering how to control their futures when it wasn’t up to them, it wasn’t up to any of us really, but coming to that realisation was important. It made us stronger as individuals and it gave us real perspective on how much we mean to each other and how much we’d taken each other for granted.’

Kirk recalled how when James finally sent them a message, four months after leaving for rehab, ‘saying that he still needed some more time to sort things out and he had no idea how long that would be’, the band really did think it was over: ‘It was a long time coming. After we hadn’t heard from him for six weeks or so, Lars and I were driving each other loony speculating on what he was doing and why we hadn’t heard from him and what was going on in his head. In the meantime, friends would come up to us and say: “I ran into James at the mall. Damn, he looks good.” And we’re like: “What is this? Friends of the band are seeing James and we’re left in this holding pattern.” That continued through the whole of September and October until the third week of November. My wife had a surprise [birthday] party for me and I saw this guy standing in the corner, casting a familiar shadow, and it was James. I was so glad to fucking see him, and I could instantly see from looking into his eyes that there was a new clarity there; a new awareness and a new sensitivity that I didn’t detect before. It was totally amazing, we were able to exchange a few words, and I was able to make sure for myself that he was okay and functioning on a somewhat sane level. But he told me, “You know, it’s still going to be some time.” So we actually didn’t start hooking up until March [2002] and only then did we start having meetings and reconnecting with each other. But that was the adjustment period that we had to go through to adjust to the new James Hetfield, and it was just as much of an adjustment for him to us.’

For James, his first time back with the band, was ‘very scary. Any of the firsts in sobriety are scary, just leaving rehab was scary. Going through some absolutely cathartic experiences [and] then coming out into the world was scary. You were in a nice little cocoon of safety there, so you can tear down and rebuild. But, oh boy, coming out was scary. “What should I do? What should I not do? Where should I go? Uh, I don’t want to go in here, because something might trigger me into this and that.” You know, the fear of just living, it was with me for a little while. So coming right back into the band, it just didn’t work. And it was hard to explain