Metallica: This Monster Lives

by Joe Berlinger

  There’s a point in Monster where Lars talks about how, during Metallica’s early days, he’d often feel very alienated by the macho breast-beating of James and original lead guitarist Dave Mustaine. I thought it was an incredibly brave thing to admit on camera, highlighting both the reality of Lars’s privileged background and his current obsession with making sure Metallica remains relevant in the music world while maintaining a singular identity. There is, of course, no reason why a rich kid can’t feel adolescent aggression; plenty of rock-and-roll bands have taken their cues from the banality of their suburban upbringings. But I don’t think that explains how Lars parlayed his passion for metal into forming the world’s biggest metal band. Far from rebelling against his parents, this is a guy who, even at 40, still runs his band’s music by his dad, whom he considers the ultimate bullshit detector. He trusts his culturally erudite father to understand the intricacies of this ear-bleeding, youthful music.

  When considering the structure of the film in the postproduction process, I searched for a way to use the Copenhagen footage, but Bruce felt it came off looking too much like something you’d see in an episode of MTV Cribs. I didn’t wholly agree, but I did think the material felt tonally different from the rest of the film, because it was less observational and more staged for the cameras, so I let it go. I don’t regret the decision, but had I figured out a way to include it, viewers of Monster might have been better able to notice the deep, complex emotions that run through the Torben-Lars scenes. Especially the point where Torben torpedoes the band’s idea to lead off the album with a droning, echo-laden intro, one of the few decisions Metallica had made about the new album at that point. The song itself arose out of one of those musical epiphanies that musicians live for. One night during the Presidio period, James, Lars, Kirk, and Bob went to a concert by Sigur Rós, Icelandic minimalists known for mesmerizing musical dreamscapes. Blown away by the show, all four went straight back to the Presidio, where they spent the rest of the night jamming on a theme inspired by Sigur Rós.

  I wasn’t there, but I’m guessing the session was kind of like one of those all-nighters favored by adolescents and college students (the brief time of life when a regular sleep schedule isn’t enforced by parents or day jobs), when adrenaline, inspiration, and more controlled substances fuel intense bouts of creativity. By the time the sun comes up, you’re convinced you’ve created an artistic masterpiece. As we mature, we tend to take a more realistic view of these unhinged creative sessions; the things we made during the blush of youth don’t seem so brilliant in hindsight. Imagine being a rock star, paid to remain in this arrested state. Now imagine being a rock star like Lars, for whom parental approval is still important, having to hear from your dad that the result of one of these evenings sounds like unfocused dicking around. When we see Torben tell his son that this song “just doesn’t cut it,” the look on Lars’s face simultaneously communicates adolescent petulance, adult exasperation, and the special panic reserved for those times when you think you’ve done something subpar in your parents’ eyes. But I like the way the moment becomes tender when the two break out in laughter and Lars throws a wadded-up piece of paper at his father. It’s clear in that instant that fear of the status quo isn’t the only thing that comes from “this direction over here.”

  CHAPTER 12

  KARMAS BURNING

  09/13/01

  INT. ROOM 627, RITZ-CARLTON HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO - DAY

  Phil oversees a therapy session with Lars and original Metallica lead guitarist Dave Mustaine.

  LARS: It’s difficult for me to comprehend that the only thing that you feel when you look back at the last twenty years is rooted in [being kicked out of] Metallica.

  DAVE: Okay, I’ll explain in as simple terms as I can, just to make it really easy: I had nothing. Then I had everything. Then I had nothing again. And it was okay going from nothing to everything to nothing. But then having someone stand on the back of my head and keep me underwater made it even harder for me. I would read quotes from you guys that said I was never meant to be in the band, I was just filling a spot, I was just the temporary guy, I was a fucking loser and a drunk—all the horrible things that were said immediately after my firing. I agree, I should have been fired, because I was dangerous, because of my [drinking]. But to watch for so many years as the band continued to become successful, and to never hear you address the way I was let go … My God, Lars, you guys woke me up and said, “You know what? You’re out.” And I asked you, “What? No warning? No second chance?” And you guys said, “No, go.” Good God, man, I didn’t get a … I didn’t get a chance. And maybe for some people, you know, eighteen years is a long time. For me it seems like yesterday that I woke up, and I looked up, and I saw the guys that I love, my extended family … You gotta remember, all I had was my mom. And you and James. We had dreams together. And I sold everything to join that dream. And then it ended. And I agree with you for doing what you did, because of my disease. But don’t kid yourself.

  LARS: What do you mean?

  DAVE: I mean, if … There were ways to address, you know, what was going on. You know, with, with my problem. And who I am sober is totally different from who I am drunk. We never gave it a try. We never gave it a chance. Would it would it have worked? As much as I loved being with you guys, I’m sure it would have.

  I went back and forth between San Francisco and New York so many times while making Monster that sometimes I felt like any other working guy on a daily commute. Flying cross-country became so routine for me that I don’t recall why, a few days before I was set to fly to San Francisco on a Tuesday morning in early September, I changed my ticket to leave on Monday night. Whatever the reason, I wound up traveling to San Francisco on the night of September 10, 2001. I checked into my hotel, looked over my notes for the next day’s shoot, and fell asleep. The shoot was scheduled for ten A.M. When my phone rang a few minutes after seven, it jolted me awake. Our production manager, Cheryll Stone, was on the line. Her voice was shaking. “I assume we’re not shooting today”

  I was still half asleep. “Huh? Why aren’t we shooting?”

  “Turn on the TV”

  I did and immediately saw an image of the World Trade Center. Except there was a plume of smoke obscuring the South Tower. Or was the South Tower not even there? What was going on? It slowly began to sink in that the building had collapsed just minutes earlier. They were showing images of a plane slamming into it, and now it was gone.

  Someone was pounding on my door. Wolfgang, our cameraman at the time, burst into the room. He was panicking because his apartment in New York was just a few blocks from the World Trade Center, and he couldn’t get through to his wife. He sat down next to me and stared at the TV. I was still having trouble processing what was happening. A few minutes later, the North Tower was gone, and the awful reality of what we were watching became clear.

  I tried several times to call home to New York, but I couldn’t get a line out. Not knowing what else to do, I picked up the phone and dialed Phil’s number. I assumed today’s session was canceled, but I wanted to check in. I was surprised to hear from him that the session was happening as scheduled. Oh well, I figured, better to keep busy by doing something. Still numb, still shocked and scared, Wolfgang and I headed to the Ritz-Carlton. The more I thought about it on the ride over, the stranger it seemed that we were going through the motions. But then I figured having Phil here was a great opportunity for all of us to talk about how freaked-out we were feeling. This was one time I didn’t mind bending my own rules by unloading on him.

  The way the sessions often worked, Phil and the guys would talk informally while we set up lights and put mikes on everyone. Once we were ready, the therapy would begin in earnest. As we were setting up on the morning of 9/11, the room’s TV was on, tuned to CNN. The guys were watching it and talking about the unthinkable events that were unfolding, but once the session began, Phil gently guided the band into familiar emotional territory. All of us on
the crew were struggling to do our jobs while inwardly panicking. The band members also tried gamely to go through the motions, but you could tell they were uncomfortable treating this like a normal session, without acknowledging what was happening in the outside world.

  “I thought about calling James yesterday, but I was gonna talk to you first,” Kirk said to Phil. “I talked to you and then …” Kirk paused. “Things are a lot different now. There’s no World Trade Center.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Phil said.

  Thus did Metallica and Phil acknowledge that we were now living in a different world.

  “I’m just so scared that there’s a line out there somewhere,” Lars said at one point, referring to his relationship with James. “And I’m scared that if that line gets crossed it will be impossible to get it back. I just feel so, you know, disrespected.”

  It’s safe to say that those of us on the crew who were from New York were experiencing a completely different type of fear.

  I was anxious to get back home, but all flights were grounded. I was stranded in the Bay Area. I didn’t know it, but so was Dave Mustaine.

  Dave was Metallica’s first lead guitarist. He joined the band in 1982 and was kicked out in 1983 because of his drinking problem. (Given the epic benders “Alcoholica” went on in those days, Dave must have been particularly out of control.) It was an ignominious dismissal. One day, when Metallica was in New York to record Kill ’Em All, Dave was awakened early in the morning by the others. They handed him a one-way bus ticket back to San Francisco and told him to hit the road.

  He definitely landed on his feet. He went on to form the rival metal band Megadeth, releasing nine albums with total sales of fifteen million. Mustaine developed a reputation as a thoughtful lyricist; like Metallica, Megadeth avoided metal’s Spinal Tap—ish clichés. Mustaine’s thinking-man’s-metalhead status even landed him on MTV a few times to comment on politics and current events.

  Dave’s name had come up in therapy a few times, but I’d never heard anyone say anything about bringing him in for a session with Phil. Metallica’s contact with Dave had been limited since he left the band; they’d never had an in-depth discussion about his abrupt dismissal. Lars and Dave had apparently had several phone conversations over the last few months, while James was away. When Lars heard that Dave was in town, and that Dave’s stay had been unexpectedly extended due to 9/11, Lars invited him to drop by room 627. I only found out about this historic summit on the day it happened, September 13, when I got a call from Lars. “Maybe you should film this,” he said. He sounded overly casual, almost as though he had mixed feelings about having us there.

  We showed up at the hotel not really knowing what to expect. Lars had given me Dave’s cell-phone number, which I kept trying, but he wasn’t picking up. So I just waited in the lobby for him to arrive with Lars. I didn’t know it then, but Lars had told Dave about Phil (Megadeth had also spent some time with a therapist) but had said nothing about a film crew. When Dave and Lars walked through the hotel doors, I quickly went up and introduced myself to Dave, who looked like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. Lars wasn’t being much help. He would often adopt a sort of aloof attitude toward us when we filmed him in public, as though he wanted to downplay his involvement with the film. He wasn’t about to explain to Dave what we were doing, other than to make it clear that Lars was okay with my presence. If I was going to get into room 627 today, it was all up to me. I quickly explained our project, half-expecting Dave to think this was some Punk’d-style prank. But he was actually quite willing to go with it. I’m not sure why, though perhaps the week’s tragic events had made him, like all of us, feel like old rules and conventions just didn’t apply; we were all struggling to make sense of the world. I got the feeling that if Dave had walked through those doors a week earlier, I would not have been welcomed. In a strange way, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history had not only given Dave the impetus to confront the source of his ongoing mental anguish, it had also given me a front-row seat.

  Now, by any reasonable criteria, Dave Mustaine is not a failure. Sure, Megadeth never reached Metallica’s heights, but how many bands have? You might think Dave would be proud of all he’s accomplished, especially since he’s done it on his own, rather than in the shadow of the Lars-James juggernaut. But no: Dave is still tortured by his brush with Metalli-greatness. As he puts it in one of Monster's most memorable moments, every time he hears Metallica on the radio, he feels the same sentiment: “I … FUCKED … UP!” (The way he slaps his head while saying this really makes the scene indelible.) The chronic chip on his shoulder may be why he’s also developed a rep within the rock world as something of an asshole, but what I found instead was a thoughtful man struggling to articulate why he can’t be satisfied with his own success.

  The scene with Mustaine in Monster gives you a good idea of his anguish, but it doesn’t quite articulate how fond Dave’s memories of his time in Metallica still are. “In the very beginning, we had a master plan,” he recalled for Phil. “I remember the day I met Lars like it was yesterday. I went to his house, and we talked, and I kept saying that the song he was playing for me needed more solos.” From that day on, “we had this game plan about ruling the world.” Maybe it was because it was Lars who Dave was actually confronting head-on, but it was obvious to me that he and Lars (“my little Danish friend”) shared a very tight connection in those days. (In fact, it seemed very similar to the way Lars described his own relationship with James back then. Perhaps Lars was the glue that held the band together.)

  Another reoccurring theme of that session was how strong Dave’s loyalty to Metallica was. The band really was his family “When my dad went into a coma,” he said at one point, “it didn’t faze me like being let go [from Metallica].”

  Dave brought up the time he beat up a member of another metal band when the guy tried to rough up Lars at a party. “Every time I see Phil, I feel bad for him,” Dave said. “But I wasn’t gonna let him hurt you. I’m awfully protective of the people I love.”

  Lars scowled like he was trying to remember that night. “Who’s Phil?”

  “Phil Sandoval, from Armored Saint. Don’t you remember me breaking his leg?”

  “I remember the incident, but I don’t remember—”

  “He pushed you down, and he hurt you. And I kicked him. And I made sure he didn’t hurt you again. And you heard his leg break.”

  Dave also recounted a harrowing car accident from one of their early tours. “I remember we were in Laramie, Wyoming, and I was behind the wheel. None of us had any experience driving on ice. We hit some black ice, which is something even experienced truckers crash on, and our truck spun out and then fucking crashed.”

  “Thankfully, you were behind the wheel,” Lars said. “Because I don’t think anybody else was equipped to deal with it at the time.”

  Dave managed to keep the truck from spinning completely out of control. Everyone piled out onto the cold highway and surveyed the damage. “James’s Fender [amp] got crunched, and I just remember being so mad at myself. Mark, this kid who was trying to be our sound guy, was standing in front of the U-Haul going, ‘Oh my fucking god, oh my fucking god!’ I looked up the road, and I saw a jeep coming at us. I grabbed him, dug my feet into the ground to get traction, and I pulled him out of the way. The jeep would’ve killed him.”

  Dave’s memories of James were similar to Lars’s and Kirk’s description of James today: proud, aloof, and hard to get close to. Dave and Lars each mentioned at different times during this session that they wished James were there to participate, but I’m not sure the raw emotion of Dave’s and Lars’s encounter would’ve worked with James there. Given what James was going through and the type of personality he has, I think he would’ve been much more defensive toward Dave. As it was, just like the scene with James slamming the studio door, we could have practically made an entire mesmerizing short film from this session. With Dave speaking directly to Lar
s, there was a fascinating give-and-take, a mixture of blame and forgiveness, anger and sadness, regret and reminiscence. Several times during the exchange, Dave became overcome with emotion and asked us to turn off our cameras. Through it all, Phil was uncharacteristically quiet, apparently content to let the intense emotions flow on their own.

  Lars didn’t quibble much with Dave’s description of how the band gave him the boot, but he put his own heartbreaking spin on the events that led up to it. “We had played shows on Friday and Saturday, and things had gotten out of control,” Lars recalled. “By the time Sunday rolled around, we were all pretty tired. We were driving back, and me and you were in one truck together, and the rest of them were in another vehicle. Me and you were just sitting there. I think we were smoking pot and being very mellow. And I can clearly remember being overwhelmed with sadness and emotion about what was about to go down, literally eight hours later.”

  Lars paused. There were tears in his eyes. “I’m not saying that I wasn’t equally responsible for being part of making the decision [to fire you], but I just felt all this guilt and sadness. Because I really felt that when all the bullshit was stripped away, all the boasting, you were a really tender person. You had this really tender side of you that I was really attracted to, that I really felt comfortable with, you know what I mean?”

  After three hours, the session was over. Lars said he’d drive Dave back to his hotel. I made a split-second decision not to follow them. It was probably the right thing to do, but I missed out on a weird moment of synchronicity When Lars started the car, the radio went on, tuned to one of the local rock stations, which, at that moment just happened to be playing Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” “We just laughed,” Lars said when he told the story at the start of the next day’s therapy session. “We went with it for five seconds, and then I leaned in to change the channel.” Lars found another rock station. Metallica’s “No Leaf Clover” blasted out of the speakers. Dave just smiled and turned off the radio. Maybe, once Lars was gone and Dave was alone, he began to beat his head and tell himself he fucked up. But somehow I don’t think so.1