Metallica’s Voyage to the Mainstream

The easiest way to see that Metallica has begun attracting mainstream rock fans is to check out the T-shirts worn by fans at the band’s concerts.

Most of the shirts on this day at the Oakland Coliseum carry the images or names of the usual metal heroes--Ozzy Osbourne, Slayer, Iron Maiden. But there is also a sprinkling of shirts pledging allegiance to such mainstream rock acts as U2, R.E.M., Guns N’ Roses and Van Halen.

This influx of newcomers doesn’t make everyone at the stadium happy. Some longtime Metallica fans grumble that the the band has sold out by eliminating the complex arrangements and dense textures of its landmark “. . . And Justice for All” album in favor of a more accessible or “pop” approach on the new “Metallica.”

Mostly, however, the disgruntled don’t seem to like all these new shirts rubbing elbows with them. It takes away from the exclusivity of the Metallica world. This band was supposed to be a rejection of everything mainstream.

“I still like Metallica,” declares a 17-year-old from nearby Richmond. “But it’s getting too popular. . . . It’s more fun when it’s just your band.”

Lars Ulrich, Metallica’s drummer, rolls his eyes when he hears that kind of complaint.

“People want to have a real close relationship with a band; be the first one to fly the flag for it and want it all to themselves,” he says backstage. “Now some of our fans see what is happening to us, and they are starting to look elsewhere because, obviously, we are not the best-kept secret anymore.”

Metallica, in fact, wasn’t a secret for long--at least in the metal world.

Formed in Los Angeles in 1981, the group--then consisting of Ulrich, lead singer James Hetfield, bassist Ron McGovney and guitarist Dave Mustaine--celebrated its metal instincts with its name.

Because of its black clothing, audio assault and ties with the rough ‘n’ tumble world of metal, Metallica can be intimidating on stage, exuding an ominous mystique.

But Hetfield, like Ulrich, is quite down to earth. Rather than fit easily into the larger-than-life stance of Guns N’ Roses’ Axl Rose or U2’s Bono Hewson, he tends to be just one of the players on stage--intense but not flashy. Similarly, he seems to resist questions that suggest that he, personally, has become a rock hero. He appears the most comfortable talking about the band’s origins and goals.

Like many of Metallica’s fans, Hetfield, 28, responded to the aggressive, outlaw side of metal. Asked to name the first band that meant anything to him, he offers, without hesitation, the name of metal pioneer Black Sabbath.

“I think I was looking for something a little beyond (traditional) rock ‘n’ roll,” he says. “That was too common. I liked the fact that my friends at school would ask who was my favorite band, and when I’d say Black Sabbath, they’d gasp and say, ‘Wow, my mom won’t even let me own that album.” And I’d think, ‘ Oh, good. ‘ Sabbath was forbidden, not the right thing to do. That was part of the appeal.”

Metallica started off playing dark, threatening songs by British bands that mixed metal and punk. This made the group stand apart from the glam-conscious Hollywood bands of the time. After moving to the San Francisco area (picking up new bass player Cliff Burton), Metallica recorded its first album, “Kill ‘Em All,” for Megaforce Records.

The group (with Kirk Hammett replacing Mustaine, who went on to form Megadeth) attracted so much attention on the metal circuit that it was picked up by Elektra Records. Despite almost no airplay and no videos, Metallica--with its intense but imaginative music design--kept gaining fans and respect. Except for one other change (Jason Newsted replacing Burton, who was killed in 1986 when the group’s tour bus skidded off an icy road in Sweden), the lineup has remained intact.

Though Hetfield didn’t profess much interest in themes or lyrics as a teen-ager (“All I cared about was the sound . . . the heaviness of the music”), as a lyricist he has moved far beyond the macho posturing so often associated with metal.

On the new “Metallica” album, for instance, “The Unforgiven” is an affecting tale of regret, while “The God That Failed” deals with disillusionment.

“The word God kind of scares people, especially when it is (used in) context with the word failed ,” Hetfield says, with a smile, as he talks about the latter song. “But you can use it to mean anything you respect or anything you trust fully. The song’s about what happens when you put your trust completely into something and it doesn’t work . . . how it turns your world upside down.”

Ulrich, 27, says rock was just a hobby until he moved with his family from his native Denmark to Newport Beach in 1980. His main interest was tennis, and he considered following his father Torben Ulrich onto the professional circuit. But Ulrich, who wore his hair long in those days, felt so alienated from his mostly preppy schoolmates that he turned increasingly to rock--and the music he liked was the dark, aggressive sounds of such British groups as Motorhead, Iron Maiden and Saxon.

“I was living in Newport Beach, but my head was in England and Europe, which was home for this new wave of metal,” he says. “I’d get all the music magazines sent over airmail. In ‘81, I went to England and spent six months there, researching everything I had read about, hanging out with Motorhead and stuff.

“As corny as it sounds, I saw the light. Those bands gave me the inspiration to go back to L.A. and call James (Hetfield) and say that we’ve got to get a band together and capture some of this attitude.

“There were no metal bands in America like those in England. All the ‘metal’ bands here were the bands wearing lipstick down at the Starwood (a club in West Hollywood). There was just a lot more passion in England, a lot more of a street thing--and that’s what we wanted.”

If that sounds ambitious, Ulrich denies that Metallica was designed with a commercial strategy in mind.

“We weren’t doing what made sense from a commercial standpoint, because everybody told us we were doing it wrong,” he recalls. “We’d open around town for bands like Ratt and Quiet Riot, and it would just go over people’s heads like you wouldn’t believe. But we were happy because we loved the music.”

Similarly, Ulrich rejects the assumption that the new “Metallica” album was a deliberate attempt to crack the mainstream market. “I’m not an idiot. I know when I put the album on that it is an album that can reach a lot of people,” he says. “But that is just the way the album turned out. We were just bored with what we were doing. Things had become so complex that the only direction for us to go was to simplify, which I wish we had done a long time ago.

“I think we told ourselves (before) that what we were doing was a lot harder . . . playing all these progressive, sideways things. But I think we were running away from the truth. Now I think it is a lot harder to sit down and write a three-minute, one-riff rock song than hiding behind a 10-minute version of the same thing.”

Asked if he feels any pressure because of the band’s new leadership role, Ulrich pauses.

“It’s difficult for me to deal with questions like that,” he says finally. I don’t want to think about how Metallica fits into the whole picture of rock or the fact that kids might be looking to us to give them answers, because that can interfere with the creative process. It can make you too self-conscious.

“Ask Bono if you want to know about Greenpeace or Ronald Reagan or the political situation in Albania. If anything, the only thing we ever advocate is for people to make up their own minds about things. Don’t listen to what I have to say or what James Hetfield has to say, but listen to what comes from inside you.”