SPOTLIGHT ON ... METALLICA

Rip It Up, Issue 136, 1 November 1988, Page 13

SPOTLIGHT ON ... METALLICA

As the first collection of new, Metallica material since “Master of Puppets" in 1986, “... And Justice For All” has been a long time coming. But there’s a reason for the wait, says Lars. . • * i •y’-.T? “We came off the road from the “Puppets" tour in February, 'B7 and we made a couple of measly attempts to get back into the mode of songwriting over the course of, like, spring and summer. With our band, the way it works, we can’t really force the writing. It’s not like you go to check in somewhere, and say, “We’ll write Monday through Friday between 3 and 7 pm.". It doesn’t work" like that. • ’ Then when we finally sat down in mid- October and started writing it just came together so luckin’ quickly. 1 was prepared for about a four-month stint of songwriting, ’cos that’s roughly what it took to do “Puppets". But all of a sudden, what seemed like two days later, all the songs were written. It actually only took about nine

weeks to write the songs. We started in Mid-October and finished around Christmas time. , 1 think the whole thing was that, over the course of the year the timing just never felt like it was the exact right time. But when we finally clicked into gear and just went for it, the whole thing just came together really quickly." The band’s compositional methods haven’t changed much over the course of four albums. Sounds and ideas evolve spontaneously at sound checks and rehearsals, and are preserved on “riff tapes". The creation of “... And Justice For All” began with a thorough review of those tapes, culling the best and leaving the rest. . James Hetfield writes all of Metallica’s lyrics, though Lars says “the ideas and the content of the lyrics, song titles and things like that, come from all of us.” • “This time around we had a long list of about 20 or 30 gtxxi song titles. Slowly, when the skeleton of a song

conies together and we can start feeling what sort of mood it has, we’ll look over the list of titles and pick' one that fits the feel of that whole thing. , Then we’ll talk about what ideas that song title sorta brings out, then sit down and put all the 4yocs together" “When we were done writing these songs, we felt so good about ’em, we wanted to go in and put 'em down on tape while- they were still really fresh. You can write a sting, learn it, and record it — that’s one way. Or you can write a song, learn it, and get to play it over a couple of weeks. Then you can really get to feel the song. “This time we wanted to take three weeks when we could live with the songs every day, not burn out on 'em or play ’em to death, but to play 'em really confidently. And 1 think, looking back at the album now, it’s really apparent that that made such a big difference. It’s a lot more confident."