Brannigan Paul - Into the Black: The Inside Story of Metallica (1991-2014): volume 2 Biography

INTO THE BLACK

Paul Brannigan and Ian Winwood are two of the UKs foremost music writers. The editor of TeamRock.com, Brannigan is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller This Is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl, while Winwood has written for Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Mojo, Kerrang!, NME and the BBC.

The first volume of their Metallica biography, Birth School Metallica Death was published to huge acclaim in 2013, and was a Sunday Times, NME and Independent Music Book of the Year.

A chronicle of rare authority with exclusive access... The superstar years will doubtless make even more entertaining reading. Daily Telegraph

Big, and impressive, and, like its subject, irresistible. Sunday Times

This first part of the bands story is so definitive that, when it comes to the topic of the bands early days, nothing else matters. Kerrang!

The Metallica story has been told many times before, but seldom as entertainingly or as smartly as this... Winwood and Brannigans vivid prose makes this well-worn saga seem somehow fresh and fascinating again. The second volume promises to be an absolute belter. Metal Hammer

A well-researched look at everything from frontman James Hetfields initial crippling shyness to Lars Ulrichs bolshie arrogance and all points in between... what emerges is a refreshingly honest look at the ups and downs of life in the juggernaut of a heavy metal band. Doug Johnstone, Big Issue

The scrupulously researched story of the bands early days with deep detail gleaned from over two decades of first-hand exposure to the guys and new interviews with key supporting figures. Q

Brannigan and Winwood have done a fine job of chronicling the golden age in studio, on stage and among the crowd taking us up to 1991 and the eve of the Black Albums release. Even for those who know the story inside out, its a pacy and punchy read, going from chapter to chapter at roughly the same speed as the riff from Battery and with plenty of nuggets along the way. RTE 10

Though by no means authorized, its hard to imagine the tale of San Francisco metal behemoths Metallica being told any more authoritatively than it is here... Given that the authors rarely flinch from the groups shortcomings, the second volume should make for similarly gripping reading. Mojo

Brannigan and Winwood have worked closely with the band over the years, and it shows, both in the access theyve gained, the anecdotes they witnessed first-hand and the warmth they afford their subjects. No stone is left unturned as the bands insane life is meticulously researched... Volume 2 will pick up the baton next year to complete the picture. On this evidence, itll be worth the wait. Classic Rock

Copyright 2014 by Paul Brannigan and Ian Winwood

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Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-0-306-82189-9 (e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014949548

First Da Capo Press edition 2014

Reprinted by arrangement with Faber & Faber Limited

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CONTENTS

You would be hard-pressed to find a better example of a self-fulfilling prophecy than Metallicas tour of European festivals in the summer of 2014. With James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo having appeared in this setting on no fewer than thirteen of the past fourteen summers, the notion that these are special occasions is obvious nonsense. Realising this, the band devised a gimmick that they no doubt believed to be a Unique Selling Point. Anyone buying a ticket for the concerts was given the opportunity to compile their own bespoke set list by voting for the songs they wanted Metallica to play.

The results made for depressing reading. On each of the sixteen European Metallica By Request dates, fans nominated Master of Puppets as being the track they would most like to hear. Below this the choices were similarly uniform and familiar. One, Battery, Enter Sandman and Fade to Black were titles that attained top five status in towns and cities from Stevenage to Warsaw.

That each selection represents the highest standards of modern metal is not in doubt. Its just that, really, the songs are no longer actually all that modern. Not just that, but Metallica play these tracks all the time anyway.

That fans would vote for a set list that is the same as it would have been without the poll is perverse.

If you were hoping to see Metallica in Europe in the summer of 2014 and to hear, say, Bleeding Me, No Leaf Clover or All Nightmare Long, hard lines.

In once more pushing such big-hitters to the fore, lesser heard but equally fine compositions are again punted into the long grass. At least as far as the fields and stadiums of Europe are concerned, it is a case of Metallica having boxed themselves in to such a degree that their audience no longer cares to think outside of it.

The self-fulfilling prophecy. The band as brand.

To find the answer as to why this might be, one must follow the money. Asked by Rolling Stones David Fricke if these days Metallica toured simply to pay the bills, Kirk Hammett responded with a straight answer.

Thats every year, he said. The cycles of taking two years off dont exist any more. We were able to do that because we had record royalties coming in consistently. Now you put out an album, and you have a windfall maybe once or twice but not the way it used to be a cheque every three months. [So instead] we have to go out and play shows, and were totally fine with that.

James Hetfield put this in even starker terms.

Were doing what we can to keep things alive here, he said.

Despite a scarcity of new music, in recent times Metallica have kept themselves busy. In 2012 and 2013 the band conceived and executed their own bespoke festival, the Orion Music + More event, a jamboree comprising many different styles of music as well as numerous exhibitions and installations. Staged first in Atlantic City and then in Detroit two of Americas less salubrious cities, to be sure each year the event was a critical smash and a commercial failure.

Orion Music + More, Hetfield explained, was a disaster financially and its not able to happen again because of that.

Despite having sold 110 million albums over the course of a thirty-three-year career, it is possible that since 2010 Metallica have lost more money than they have made.