You know that Bill Hicks bit about the implausibility of camp metal icons Judas Priest inciting their fans to commit suicide?

Where he goes off on this little improvised rant postulating that Mr. Halford and company had tired of their groupies blowing them dawn ‘til dusk and decided to take drastic action? Well, we all had a good laugh at the brilliantly ludicrous nature of the idea. And yet, when one considers the fractious, schizophrenic relations between Napster-crushing, lumbering rock gods Metallica and their ardent fan-base, it’s remarkably easy to envisage a not entirely dissimilar exchange between the long-standing members of the outfit. To say they’re a self-destructive, tortured bunch is something of an understatement, as a fantastically entertaining new documentary, Metallica – Some Kind Of Monster demonstrates to frequently hilarious effect.
The film, which charts the psychologically-aided recording of the rather turgid St. Anger, has won over audiences beyond the predictable Kerrang! set, with its lapses into Spinal Tap territory. We witness the impossibly macho speed rockers get in touch with their inner-children just long enough to thrash out their 2003 opus. Well, perhaps not thrash out exactly. This is, after all, an album that took years to record and had devotees everywhere wondering “Where’s the motherfucking guitar solos?”
But the dwindling musicality and old married couple bickering of the once seminal rockers proved fecund territory for noted documentarians Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinoksky. Given access to Metallica’s therapy sessions with the band’s fluffy on call ‘life enhancement/performance coach’ (I wonder how many weeks I’d have to do on a correspondence course to be accorded such a exalted title?), Some Kind Of Monster sees the shrink talking his clients through musical differences, alcoholism, “undisclosed addictions”, bass player changes and marital strife, so that they might become “healers of themselves”.
“It’s not Tap”, claimed the likeably laid back director Joe Berlinger when I caught up with him in London recently, “in fact, the comparisons pissed me off a little at the beginning. The whole point of the film is that you come to really care about these guys as human beings even if you hate their music. For the first hour you’re laughing at these rock-stars in therapy. But these guys ultimately rise above it. So this a very universal film about creative process and human growth.”
Certainly, the film is often moving, particularly where gnarled frontman James Hetfield is concerned. Though far less giving of himself to the cameras than his colleagues, his ‘progression’ - as it’s repeatedly referred to – is Monster’s main narrative hook. At the beginning, Hetfield’s a vodka-swilling mess, a survivor of a broken childhood given to outbursts of slurred paranoia and Nugentian boasting about shooting constipated bears. Post rehab, he’s reaching out to the inmates of San Quentin and riding his hog to his cherubic daughter’s ballet lessons. This from the man who once howled “Fuck it all and fucking no regrets”.
“I really admired James”, explains Joe Berlinger, “I mean, he’s spent 20 years spewing anger, and that’s what propelled the band to the top and sold 90 million albums. So for James to tackle his perpetual anger is tremendous. And I think that’s why St. Anger was misunderstood, because now James is talking about the price you pay for anger. I think that’s the emotional pay off you get from the film.”
Still, there’s a seductively reductive logic behind the Spinal Tap analogies, and in truth, the band’s emotional journey is less compelling than the disjointed spectacle of multi-millionaires miserably shuffling around their ranches and auctions in search of meaningfulness. Besides, Metallica happily invite the comparison. Though we had to wait for The Strokes to give us a proper ‘Smell The Glove’ cover, the speedsters did put out that ‘None-so-Black Album’, and during the film Lars himself declares their early St. Anger recording sessions to sound like a ‘Shit Sandwich’.
Equally, the band and their entourage are a fascinatingly mondo bunch, easily a match for any number of doomed drummers. There’s Lars Ulrich, the Basquiat collecting former tennis prodigy and leading academic on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal 1978-81; Kirk Hammnet, the surfing, Zen philosophising guitarist; Skylar Ulrich, the leggy, glamorous rock wife who famously ditched Matt Damon for her drumming hubby; embittered ex-bassist Jason Newsted and even more disgruntled ex-member, Dave Mustaine. “People hate me because of you,” sobs the Megadeth singer during a special healing session. Oh yeah? That’s still no excuse for that lame ‘Anarchy In The UK’ cover.
Best of all though is Lars’ dad, a hobbity Scandinavian who, as one brilliantly observant critic has noted, bears an uncanny resemblance to Led Zeppelin’s Zoso mountain man. Stroking his fabulously wizardy beard, he listens to his son’s initial recording and thoughtfully advises him to “delete that.”
“He’s an amazing character”, laughs Berlinger, “he was a world-class tennis star and a filmmaker and painter and jazz aficionado. The Ulrich household was the centre for the Copenhagen jazz scene in the sixties. Dexter Gordon is actually Lars’ godfather, and Lars spent his childhood tripping over jazz musicians first thing in the morning.”
It’s the pringle-attired therapist Phil Towle who assumes the unenviable role once occupied by David St. Hubbins’ girlfriend. His flaky methodology stops short of consulting the runes, and to be fair, at the end of his rather long tenure, the band are a more cohesive unit than they were 700 days earlier. Still, given his retainer fee of 40,000 dollars a month, I’d be demanding nothing short of a love-in. The therapist has predictably taken issue with his depiction in the film, but Mr. Berlinger insists that it was never his intention to portray Towle as a charlatan.
“I’ve spoken to Phil about this many times”, says Joe, “and I think without question he did good work with the band. Quite simply, they would have broken up without him. Now they function as a unit. Are they bosom buddies? No, but they’re a band again.”
At one point though, the band are suggesting that the increasingly clingy Phil has become an unwanted fifth member. That’s hardly objective behaviour befitting a therapist, surely?
“No, you’re right”, nods Joe, “Phil’s method of wearing his heart on his colourful sleeves was both his blessing and his Achilles’ heel. He considers himself to be a performance coach, not a therapist who maintains a distance. And ultimately, that meant he got too involved, and stayed too long.”
Speaking of getting too close to your subjects, I wonder if Joe had the control over the final edit he would have liked, particularly given the rather unconventional way the film came about. Originally intended as a puff piece for the purposes of album promotion, the dysfunctional aftermath of Jason Newsted’s departure prompted the record company to consider releasing the director’s material as an Ozzy Osbourne style comedy series, until Metallica themselves intervened.
“I was worried about that at the beginning”, admits Joe, “but I knew that the band were safer hands than anyone else. Metallica paid the record company – who originally hired us – two million dollars for the film, but they didn’t ask me to make a single change.”
Nevertheless, the film cagily glosses over St. Anger’s less than rapturous reception, preferring to go with Lars’ observation that, “We’ve learned to make aggressive music from negative energy”. And who knows? Throw in a few guitar solos next time, and he might just be on to something. Failing that, another documentary like this one would be just peachy.