Here is Part 1 of another rare interview from the archives. This one was recorded around November 1985 with a French journalist interviewing Lars and Cliff about the "Master of Puppets" album. Guess who does most of the talking?
Why are people bitching about Lars talking. Everyone knows that he has been and always will be official Metallica-spokesperson. Cliff and Kirk are/were the quite ones in the band.
At this point, Cliff and James were the leaders. They were gonna fire Lars. Cliff even said its Mustaine or me. well we know how that turned out. After Cliff died Lars assumed control and the rest is, well, history.
Joey, Metallica is Lars' band. He called James. He arranged demo tape on the Metal Massacre. He borrowed money for it to happen. He contacted Zazula and for fuck's sake he called the band "Metallica". He made everything happen and he is the spokesman, because James and even Cliff were totally shy compared to Lars in the early days, so shut the fuck up with your ignorant comments. They maybe wanted Lars to gtfo from the band, because he was a lame drummer - but they were nowhere near being "owners" of the fucking band. "Lars assumed control" - buehehehehe, that's a good one.
(Joey) Uh, no...Lars was the spokesperson for the band. He was back then and mostly is to this day. When everyone else went home for the holidays in December 1985, Lars stayed in Europe to do all these press junkets for most of January, for the release of Master of Puppets. It has come to light, regarding the band sacking Lars after the Puppets tour, as this has been mentioned by Mustaine, Ian and Hammett over the last few years. Having said that, don't kid yourself, as it pertains to who the spokesperson was. Lars was the best versed, when it came to his ability to speak and getting the word out there about Metallica. Ross Halfin has stated many a time, that if it wasn't for Lars, the band would have probably not been the success that they are today. This has zero to do with his drumming accomplishments and everything to do with how he envisioned Metallica's future and his role of marketing the band.
Almeida5 yes yes, great manager, shitty musician-composer. The other guy is right, James and Cliff were the leaders. Hetfield knew what kind of treasure Cliff was and he respected him greatly, but he basically tolerated Lars musically. If you look at their shows from early '83 you get the idea that Mustaine was the leader (having not know what you know now). He talked between songs, he was introducing the next songs, he was even standing as far in the center of the stage he could, almost throwing James out of the picture. The fact that James and Cliff weren't talking that much had to do with their characters, but don't think that they could be pushed around. Well that goes more for Cliff, because James was basically being influenced by both Cliff and Lars to opposite directions. The thing is there couldn't be Metallica without James, but there could be without one of the other two. Lars was trying his way with the management of the band and his general savviness, but of course with little musical substance. When cliff got out of the picture, James was allured by the vision of Lars without any interest to resist anymore because the other pole was gone. If Cliff hadn't died i believe James would eventually follow Cliff in a Larsless road (whatever that might be). But that's just my two cents.
@@Craig-gq4gb apparently James, Kirk and Cliff where ready to kick him out after they finished the damage Inc tour but ended up not doing it because of Cliffs death and they probably didn't want to lose another member as well
