Mick Wall on ‘Enter Night: A Biography of Metallica’
If you thought 2004's warts-and-all Metallica documentary 'Some Kind of Monster' was revealing, wait until you read 'Enter Night: A Biography of Metallica.' Metalheads need to make their way to their local bookstore this week, as the much-anticipated unofficial biography finally hits shelves today. Written by veteran rock journalist and friend of the band Mick Wall, the book delves deep into the rich history of Metallica's 30 year career.
While there have been other biographies written about Metallica, Wall's sharp attention to detail and storytelling rhythm make 'Enter Night' an essential read. His chronicling of the group's formative years is especially impressive. Wall takes us back to Lars Ulrich's early days in Southern California, where he first made some of the contacts that would be prove crucial to the band's early success.
Noisecreep recently spoke with Wall about the making of 'Enter Night: A Biography of Metallica.'
You've been interviewing the members of Metallica since the 1980s. Do you remember the first time you met them?
Lars seemed to be around in London a fair amount in about '84, when I was at Kerrang magazine and going out to gigs and parties every night. That's where we first bumped heads. We then hung out when the band played Donington festival for the first time in '85, and I went out a couple of months later to spend time in the studio with them in Copenhagen making the 'Master of Puppets' album, drinking Elephant beer, snorting coke, and talking bulls---, like we did back then.
Since then, they've obviously had tremendous commercial success. Has your chemistry with them changed?
My chemistry with everybody has changed since I was 25 years old. In the case of Metallica, the big difference, of course, is that they became so enormously successful. Just as the band were getting huge in the mid-'90s, I was going through my own changes. I went broke and I was insane. Then we all got past that, and the last time I spoke to Lars on the phone a few weeks ago he didn't sound like he'd changed much at all. Older, like us all, and as he put it, "Who'd have thought we'd have six kids between us one day?" Well, we have. Doing the school runs aside though, I guess we don't have too many other things in common anymore.
In terms of access to their personal lives, was the band comfortable letting you in since you've known them for so many years?
The band declined to be involved directly with the book, something for which Lars took the trouble to talk to me about. He said, "I knew if anybody would write a great Metallica book it would be you," but they weren't ready personally to shake all the skeletons out of their closet yet, and I wasn't prepared to offer them any say in the outcome of the finished book. I had interviewed them all again recently anyway, but when I invited them to participate in the book I made it clear they would have no control, that it would be objective and honest, come what may. It turned out much better that way.
When you were finishing the book, did you find yourself taking certain things out that you thought might be a bit too revealing, or might jeopardize your relationship with the guys?
Absolutely not -- quite the opposite actually. I didn't write this book for the band, or even the fans, I wrote it for those of us that are mature enough to take the truth on its own terms. You don't have to be in Metallica to have made mistakes, to come from a weird family, to have misfired with drugs and alcohol, divorce and death. You do have to be in Metallica to have turned it all into such a fascinating and successful body of work though.
Was there anyone that you wanted for the book that you couldn't secure an interview with?
There are always a couple, but you can't have everything and the great many people I did speak to were courageous and open in their views, doing their best to help me tell the story as honestly and openly as possible.
When most people think about James Hetfield, they picture a brooding, loner type of guy. Lars definitely seems like more of the face and spokesperson of the band. How fair of an assessment is that?
That assessment is correct, up to a point. Over the latter years, however, the lines have become blurred. The last time I spoke to James just before starting the book he was warmer, deeper, more open and caring -- and funnier -- than I had ever known him. There is a public perception of these guys and then there is the third dimension you never see, and that's what the book is about.
What was the most surprising thing about Metallica that you learned while writing the book?
The whole thing surprised me. It was the same with my last book, on Led Zeppelin [2010's 'When Giants Walked the Earth'], I went into writing 'Enter Night' thinking I already knew a great deal about Metallica. Two years of writing and research and just sitting there really thinking about things made me realize I knew nothing.
The whole thing was a huge journey for me. I guess the overriding impression I was left with was of a band of ultimate survivors, real rock 'n' roll frontiersmen who did what it took to make it and stay there, come what may. Not always pretty -- far from it sometimes -- but what guts, what glory. It's the kind of story that will never happen again in rock.
Watch the trailer for 'Some Kind of Monster'
More From Noisecreep
