Metallica are on a publicity tear as of late, appearing everywhere that could have them, including having trivia fun with Jimmy Kimmel, going grocery shopping with Billy Eichner and performing "Enter Sandman" on kids' instruments with The Roots.
The band continue their publicity tear with James Hetfield appearing on Joe Rogan's podcast. The whole interview is worth checking out, but the most interesting revelation is that Hetfield moved his family to Colorado, and the reason was he was getting sick of all the "elitist attitudes" about his hunting. Here's the transcription, via Blabbermouth:
"It's quiet. [There's] no frigging traffic. Especially now — super quiet. Snow… Snow does something to calm you down a little bit.
"There's a lone-wolf part of me that maybe you can relate to. But I like being by myself. But I also need people to connect with as well.
"Moving from California to Colorado was a great thing for me. I feel really… I feel a part of nature there. And you don't wanna be inside there. There's something about it. You just wanna be outside all the time.
"We get to look at the Gore Range right out of our mountain. And I've drank plenty of Coors Lights in my life and that's the one on the can. Like, 'Wow! I'm looking at it.' And lots of fourteeners there [mountain peaks with an elevation of at least 14,000 feet], lots of great snowmobiling, rafting, paddleboarding… you name it."
As for why he decided to move there:
"There's probably a multitude of things that made it happen. My wife grew up there. She was born in Argentina, they moved to Vail; she went to elementary school there. We were going to Tahoe a lot to do skiing and stuff like that. And she said, 'We've gotta go to Vail. This is not snow. We'll go to Vail and feel snow.' And we went there a few times, and I loved it."
He continued: "I'm not a huge skier, but I can ski and I have fun doing it. My kids love it. So that. My wife turns into a kid when we go there, which I kind of like. It's a little more like me. [Laughs] She can be a little [makes straight-line motion with his hand] — a little too 'on point.' You know, she loosens up and she becomes young again there. So there's that.
"I kind of got sick of the Bay Area, the attitudes of the people there, a little bit. They talk about how diverse they are, and things like that, and it's fine if you're diverse like them. But showing up with a deer on the bumper doesn't fly in Marin County. My form of eating organic doesn't vibe with theirs."
The 53-year-old Hetfield, who is a member of the National Rifle Association and an avid hunter, added that he increasingly felt unwelcome in a community where hunting was being frowned upon as a cruel and unnecessary act. He said: "It's something I felt. I probably made it up in my head a little bit. 'Cause I'm pretty good at that. I'm pretty creative, and I can start fights with myself in my head all the time. But there was. There was just a… I don't know… I felt that there was an elitist attitude there — that if you weren't their way politically, their way environmentally, all of that, that you were looked down upon. I think in Colorado, everyone is very natural; people are not playing some game, they're not posturing. They're very into, 'Oh, you like doing that? Cool. How's that go? How're you doing with that?' And they're less obsessed with stopping what you're doing and more enjoying what they're doing."
He continued: "I feel more at home in the Midwest or the mountains or something. I mean, I love the ocean, and I love the Bay Area, I love what it's got to offer, but there's just an attitude that it was… It wasn't healthy for me. [I was] starting to feel like I was just fighting all the time, and I just had to get out of my own head. So Colorado does it for me."
Back in 2014, when Hetfield associated with a hunting show, a petition in Glastonbury, UK was launched to get Metallica kicked off a big festival. As for James' reaction:
"I kind of just took it as, okay, that's how it's been for me in the Bay Area," he said. "People don't understand it. It's just like with anything. I don't think they understand that someone can be as passionate about something else as passionate as they are about what they are passionate about. So if you're as passionate about something, there's someone who's opposite, and that's okay. You can get along, you can talk about it. No one's right, no one's wrong. This is my life; I like living it this way. You like living your life that way. I totally get it. But we can coexist in this. And let's really be diverse."
He went on to say: "For me, going out, whether it's planting my own vegetables, having my own beehives, getting our own honey, harvesting my own meat on the ranch, that's what I love doing. I love sustaining my family with as organic as possible. I respect people that don't want the blood; they don't want all that scene. They would rather see their meat, or whatever it is, show up in a nice cellophane package and it's handed to them; they don't wanna know how it got there. I respect that. My kids are like that — they don't wanna see it going on. But I wanna be as close to the earth, I wanna be as part of it as possible. I wanna be part of every bit of it and respect it."
Personally, I think there is a difference between hunting and using your hunt for it's food and resources, and hunting just to say you shot a rare lion. I'm glad James has found peace, and sounds like the dude is quite the homemaker, in the most masculine way possible.
Here's the entire interview:
