James Hetfield Shares The Cost of Fame: ‘They Think They Know Me’

Summary

• Metallica debuts Metallica Saved My Life at Tribeca Festival, focusing on deeply personal fan stories gathered from 23 countries.
• James Hetfield opens up about personal growth during dark times, balancing on-stage comfort with the anxieties of real life.
• The documentary, directed by Jonas Åkerlund, features fans who answered the band’s 2023 casting call for ‘superfans’ with unique and emotional stories.

Metallica’s new documentary, Metallica Saved My Life, made its debut at the Tribeca Festival in New York City on June 11. After the screening, all four band members joined The New Yorker’s Amanda Petrusich for a conversation that pulled back the curtain on both their private lives and the inspiration behind the film.

Life Offstage

James reflected on the peculiar duality of their existence. At home, he’s simply another guy taking out the garbage in his underwear, while on the road he deals with strangers projecting intense emotions onto him.

“They think they know me and they really don’t,” he said. “I don’t have time to get to know everybody. But it is really great to be able to go home and feel comfortable… This is all just wonderful dust. It’s not real out here, essentially.”

James Gets Candid

As always, James didn’t dodge the darker corners of his own life. When asked about how performing helps him, he admitted that being on stage feels far more comfortable than ordinary life.

“When I get up on stage, I feel so much more comfortable up there than I do in regular life a lot of the times,” he said. “The more I’m me, the more they like it. It’s just so opposite of how I was brought up.”

James spoke frankly about personal growth through struggle.

“I’ve grown probably the most in the darkest of times,” he shared. “It’s okay to be human and to fuck up and learn from it. And that’s why we’re here. We’re here to learn.”

The Post-Tour Crash

The shift from rock god to regular dude is not always smooth. Coming home from tour means confronting normal life, and chore lists. James described it with his usual dry humor:

“You come home and they go out of their way to make you not a premadonna. ‘Here’s your list of shit to do.’ ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was just pampered.’”

He also confessed to anxiety-fueled dreams before tours, guitars turning to rubber, mics slipping away. But once behind the mic, all is well. “As soon as I get behind that microphone, all is well,” he said. “We get to be people again. But we get the best of both worlds. So no complaints here at all.”

Hammett’s Equalizer

For Kirk Hammett, the antidote to fame is getting smacked around by nature. His post-tour ritual is surfing, which, as he puts it, quickly levels any inflated sense of self.

“It just knocks me off the pedestal that I might have been on for the last three or four weeks,” Kirk said. “Getting beat up by the ocean and getting worried about getting beat up by other surfers instantly puts me down to Earth.”

The Fans As The Story

In 2023, Metallica put out a call for “superfans” to share their stories. They were looking for what they called Fifth Member types, people for whom Metallica isn’t just a band, but a part of their very identity.

In their own words: “‘Metallica Saved My Life’ explores our world through the lives of fans who have supported each other through highs, lows, trials and triumphs for over four decades. And yeah, we’re in it a little bit too.”

The documentary, produced by Metallica and Mercury Studios (under Universal Music Group), is expected to drop later this year.

Stories From The Crowd

The documentary flips the usual rock-doc formula on its head. Instead of obsessing over the band’s own history, this time the spotlight shifts to the fans. Directed by Jonas Åkerlund, the film collects stories from 23 countries, capturing the strange, deeply personal connections people have built with Metallica’s music.

“This is a celebration of the diversity of our fans,” Lars Ulrich said. “If you line up 10 Metallica fans, you get 10 different stories. If you line up a hundred, you get a hundred different stories.”

Lars explained that the goal was simple: strip away the imaginary wall between band and audience. “We’re turning the spotlight away from us and on to the fans… trying to celebrate the oneness of all of it.”

Birth Of The Idea

The seed for the project came from comedian Jim Breuer, who toured with Metallica and spent serious time in the trenches with their followers. James Hetfield recalled Breuer saying, “You have got to hear these fricking stories. They’re unbelievable, where these people came from, how they got into music and why.”

Initially, the band wasn’t sure what form it would take. Podcast? Book? Eventually, they landed on the documentary format, pulling in Åkerlund, whom James described as “our kind of favorite go-to guy.” The Swedish director’s metal background and previous collaborations with the band made him the natural pick.

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