Following the premiere of their new fan-focused documentary, “Metallica Saved My Life“, at the Tribeca Festival this week, Metallica frontman James Hetfield gave a candid and introspective look into the psychological challenges of his life as a rock icon, revealing that he often feels more at home on stage than he does in “regular life.”
During a question-and-answer session after the film’s screening on Wednesday, June 11, Hetfield opened up about the stark contrast between his public and private personas.
“When I get up on stage, I feel so much more comfortable up there than I do in regular life a lot of the times,” he confessed. “I feel like I’m so easily able to be me with these fans, and the more I’m me, the more they like it. It’s just so opposite of how I was brought up. Being yourself wasn’t always welcomed for some reason.”
He described the jarring experience of returning home from tour as a “brutal transition,” where the adoration of millions is quickly replaced by domestic reality. “The family around you that has to deal with that as well. You come home and they go out of their way to make you not a premadonna. ‘Here’s your list of s**t to do.’ ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was just pampered,'” he said. He even detailed the “anxiety dreams” that precede a tour, including nightmares of “guitars made of rubber and I can’t get to the microphone.”
Guitarist Kirk Hammett shared his own method for staying grounded. “I like to put myself in situations and around people where it’s like an instant equalization, and it just knocks me off the pedestal,” he said. “And that’s usually putting a surfboard in the water, going down the beach, surfing, getting beat up by the ocean and getting worried about getting beat up by other surfers. It instantly puts me down to Earth and just brings me back down.”
This theme of shared humanity is the central focus of the new documentary. As drummer Lars Ulrich explained, the film is about “turning the spotlight away from us and on to the fans and celebrating how unique our fanbase is… and how we’re all in it together.”
The idea for the film came from comedian Jim Breuer, who toured with the band and immersed himself in the fan community. “He says, ‘James, you have got to hear these fr*cking stories. They’re unbelievable — where these people came from, how they got into music and why,'” Hetfield recounted. “Such deep emotional human stories… everyone knows our bio; we wanna get the fans’ bios out there.”
For Hetfield, the process of making the film and connecting with fans has been part of a larger life lesson in acceptance and self-discovery. “It’s okay to be human and to f**k up and learn from it,” he reflected. “I’ve grown probably the most in the darkest of times. So accepting the great stuff and the dark stuff as just life… Life isn’t happening to me; it’s happening with me… I got the best job in the world. The end.”
