Metallica Troll Tells All!

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 Concert details
WHAT: Metallica, Godsmack
WHEN: 7 tonight
WHERE: Hilton Coliseum, Ames
TICKETS: $57 or $77 through Ticketmaster, www.ticketmaster.com, or 243-1888 in Des Moines
Finally, a heavy metal band has figured out how to reel in Dr. Phil fans.

Metallica has reigned as the world's biggest and boldest arena metal act for more than a decade and has sold more records in the United States than U2, Shania Twain, Britney Spears, George Strait, Bob Dylan . . . the list goes on.
But this year, an older, wiser and humbler Metallica has emerged from behind its veil of menace to turn the heads of a more mainstream audience.
"It was definitely overdue," drummer Lars Ulrich said of the intra-band turmoil that nearly ripped Metallica apart at the seams.
"It's been obviously a very intense year on many fronts," he continued on his cell phone earlier this month, while pacing around backstage at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

Metallica's recent history has been intense because filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky captured all the drama between Ulrich, lead singer James Hetfield and guitarist Kirk Hammett on camera. It was a stroke of luck that they were on hand to chronicle recording sessions for the band's 2003 album, "St. Anger."
The resulting documentary film, "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster," has been praised for revealing the soft underbelly of America's most famously brutal band. It's reputed to be a behind-the-scenes look that unreels with much more gravitas than an episode of VH1's "Behind the Music" or Ozzy Osbourne doddering around his house for MTV.

By talking through their problems on camera, these musicians are making some of the biggest noise of their careers.
The film has yet to reach Iowa theaters, but Metallica will rage on stage tonight in Ames.

Ulrich said that he has "been through a lot of therapy" and has learned to "compartmentalize" unpleasant events.

"You park something in a part of your brain you can't access," he explained.

First there was Metallica's infamous battle with online file-sharing service Napster that heated up in 2000. In the process, Ulrich became the archenemy of tech-savvy music fans.
Compartmentalize .

Jason Newsted quit the band in January 2001 after 14 years as bassist, citing "private and personal reasons."

And compartmentalize .

Then Hetfield made an abrupt exit during recording sessions in July 2001 for a five-week stint in rehab to treat his "alcoholism and other addictions."

Compartmentalize some more .

Hetfield's hiatus segued into the tumultuous $40,000-a-month therapy sessions and intertwining midlife crises shown in "Some Kind of Monster."
Keep compartmentalizing.

Even with the film wrapped and Metallica back on the road, Ulrich's personal dramas haven't ceased. Married since 1997 and the father of two, he and wife Skylar separated in March and are getting a divorce.

How much compartmentalization can one guy take?!

Don't fret too soon that your favorite metal gods have fallen, Ulrich reassured.

"I'm good," he declared. "I'm getting used to single parenting, getting used to kind of a different way of just looking at things. It was a little tough in the beginning, but I definitely feel like I've turned the next couple of corners."

Newsted and Napster
Newsted's exit was what Ulrich termed the "triggering point" for Metallica's unraveling.
The bassist was the first band member in 20 years to depart of his own free will. Lead guitarist Dave Mustaine was famously booted in 1983 and went on to form Megadeth, while Newsted's predecessor, Cliff Burton, died in a 1986 tour bus crash. Bassist Robert Trujillo, a veteran of Ozzy Osbourne's band, has since joined Metallica.

Ulrich said that his first reaction to Newsted leaving was, "You can't leave the band! Nobody leaves Metallica!"

But upon reflection, a more probing question popped into his head, "Why would we drive somebody to leave the band?"
 Lars' playlist
Lars Ulrich of Metallica was stereotyped as a Luddite a few years back when he became Napster's most vocal opponent. How unfair - he owns no fewer than three iPods and is a rabid user of Apple's iTunes software.

"It's so cool that you can slap it all around," Ulrich enthused. "That gives as much relevance to things from 20 years ago as from last week. It becomes more about the library versus the new stuff."

Three most RECENTLY played songs on Ulrich's iTunes:

1. "Wayfaring Stranger," Jack White, from the "Cold Mountain" soundtrack

2. "Charlie's Out of Prison," Warrior Soul, from "Last Decade Dead Century"

3. "Not Right," The Stooges, from "The Stooges"

Three most FREQUENTLY played songs on Ulrich's iTunes:

1. "Tattoo Vampire," Blue …yster Cult, from "Agents of Fortune," play count 52

2. "Fighting for Rock & Roll," E.F. Band, from "Metal for Muthas ," play count 35

3. "Crazy Horses," The Osmonds, from "Crazy Horses," play count 30
Ulrich said that the long and short of Metallica's interpersonal problems was that he and his bandmates "didn't spend a lot of time communicating, we didn't know each other that well, and blah, blah, blah."

The band no longer tours with its pricey therapist in tow, but the change on the musicians' behavior has been lasting, Ulrich said.

"It's ultimately respecting Metallica, respecting the other guys in the band, protecting your own needs," he said. "We live less by the gang mentality than we did."
Some of the most difficult footage in the movie for Ulrich to watch, he said, isn't the discord among band members but the account of his starring role in the Napster saga.

"It's weird that to some people that kind of epitomizes Metallica, because in my mind it doesn't play much of a role in anything," he said. "We took a stance on something we believed in. At that time it seemed like the right kind of thing. It just got sort of misconstrued."
He was labeled a greedy rock star, Ulrich said, which has left a sour taste in his mouth for stepping into the media spotlight apart from the band.

"I'm not interested in being the poster child for anything," he said. "People like Sting and Bono are much better at that than me."

Slipknot and Springsteen
Metallica's current album, "St. Anger," contains the fiercest riffs the band has recorded in more than a decade and has sold briskly in Europe. But America has given it a cooler reception.
"We didn't get a lot of love from U.S. mainstream radio on this record," Ulrich said. "There have been fewer people in America that have got a chance to hear it."

So, prior to Metallica's current tour that launched Aug. 16 in St. Paul, Minn., the California-based band spent much of the year criss-crossing Europe with such allies as Slayer and Des Moines metal band Slipknot.

When Ulrich fell ill and had to sit out the first Metallica gig of his career in June in Donington, England, it was Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison who sat in for a majority of Metallica's set that night and banged out everything from "For Whom the Bell Tolls" to "Enter Sandman."
"Those guys are way cool," Ulrich said of Slipknot. "I went up and watched (Jordison) play a lot. I'm proud that on the one day that I missed roll call, he was the one who took the seat for the better part of the performance."

That Metallica/Slipknot hybrid can be heard and purchased online at www.downloadfestival.co.uk - another sign that Metallica has long since embraced digital music.

Live recordings
Meanwhile, the band has more conventional product to promote, including a new "Some Kind of Monster" EP as a quasi-soundtrack for the documentary, with live recordings from a concert last year in Paris. There's also a new biography of the band titled "So What!" compiled from the pages of the official Metallica fanzine of the same name.
Ulrich says he's willing to make forays into film and onto the printed page, but don't expect to see him set foot in the political arena anytime soon.

"We're one of the last remaining full-on bands," he said. "We don't use the band as a vehicle for individual political statements."

But Ulrich also admitted that he had been moved just minutes before this interview, when he read Bruce Springsteen's editorial explaining his decision to embark on the liberal-leaning "Vote for Change" tour.
"I thought his whole thing was so eloquent and so righteous in a way. It's definitely stuff that's a little gray to me, and I struggle with it a little bit. I don't see the world in black and white."

Plus Ulrich is a citizen of Denmark, which makes him less prone to raise his voice even though he pays plenty of taxes in the United States.

"Maybe by the time the 2012 election rolls around, I'll have the balls to finally say what's on my mind," he said.