Dirty 30

Northern California hard-rock legends Metallica played four nights of special 30th-anniversary shows at The Fillmore last week, which surely were once-in-a-lifetime experiences for metal fans. Winner of nine Grammys, with five consecutive Billboard No. 1 albums, the 30-year-old band featured some special guests and surprises and took ticket prices back to 1981, too, at $6 each for a sold-out show.

“It’s insane. Thirty years, man,” said drummer Lars Ulrich, on the phone from his home in Marin County. “We’re in a celebratory mood. It’s also slightly overwhelming and a little daunting.”

The iconic four-piece act started with an ad in a Los Angeles music rag from a 17-year-old Denmark-born tennis player seeking metalheads with which to jam. L.A. native James Hetfield answered the call, as did another L.A. denizen, Dave Mustaine. But it was Castro Valley-raised Cliff Burton that would draw the band to the Bay Area. “[Burton] just said there was no way he was moving south, so we had to come up here,” Ulrich said.

By 1985, Metallica was playing to 60,000 people. “It went very quickly,” Ulrich said. “When we played the Days on the Green the first time, I think, James got a little loose in the dressing room, and I think he was summoned to Bill Graham’s office for a lecture about rock ’n’ roll behavior and all this type of stuff.”

But, by the band’s 20th anniversary in 2001, success had taken its toll. “Listen to me, 10 years ago right now would be the only time in this band’s career when I was actually unsure of its future, and I was at peace with it. If it wasn’t going to play out, I was going to be OK,” Ulrich said.

Dysfunctional and struggling with addictions, Metallica hit bottom in the early 2000s. That period was documented in the 2004 film Some Kind of Monster. “There wasn’t a lot to celebrate at that point, but obviously, that’s a safe distance away, and we’ve all not only survived that but we’ve managed to become a better band, and so there’s lots to celebrate 10 years later,” Ulrich said.

Newsted left and Robert Trujillo took over. The band battled back from a poorly received St. Anger in 2003 to create Death Magnetic in 2008. Produced by Rick Rubin, it went triple platinum amid an overall depression in CD sales. The band’s copious world touring hit a historic note with a string of Big 4 metal shows with Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth this year. As a testament to its comfortable cruising altitude, Metallica even made a weird, chart-bombing, critically loathed side project called Lulu with Lou Reed, a longtime master provocateur. It’s been reviewed as one of the worst albums of all time.

Now the band is recording again with Rubin and planning another release. But the musicians all live quasi-normal lives. As incongruent as it sounds, they’re all suburban dads in addition to being rock titans. At age 47, Ulrich has a wife and three kids, as does neighbor Hetfield, and Hammett and Trujillo have four more. “I think we have 37 kids,” Ulrich said.

But it’s a delirious, delightful life and Ulrich marvels at it as much as an outsider might. “Monday morning I fly to New York, and I go do a party at a fancy Chelsea gallery for a Lou Reed record, and then four hours later I get back on that same plane and then fly to Abu Dhabi and play a rock ’n’ roll show, and two days later I’m in India, and four days later I’m in the North Bay trick-or-treating with my kids, and a week later I’m flying around Western Europe playing TV shows with Lou Reed, and a week later I’m back here. I mean, it’s a total mindfuck, the whole thing. It’s just amazing how much keeps happening and how many awesome opportunities for creative shenanigans there are.”

Global citizens, Metallica has no intention of pulling up its NorCal roots, though. Ulrich made that abundantly clear. “The hometown fans treat us with love and respect, and a sense of pride and sense of accomplishment, and also a sense that we’re one of them, that we’re in this together.”