60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Metallica—“Enter Sandman”

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

Rob explores thrash metal icon Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” by discussing the band’s trajectory from their early work to their mainstream turn and their wide influence thereafter. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Dave Chang Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and talk segments play together only on Spotify. Best of all, you can create your own music and talk show for free with Anchor Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm-fm-f-M-C-H-O-R-F-M-U-S-I-S-I-S-M-U-S-I-S-E-L-K. A lot of spelling there, but just do it. I need you to hear as soon as podcast. this fan parody song, inspired by the 2003 Metallica album, Saint Anger. This is a fan doing this,

a Metallica fan. You have to love a band. You have to know a band intimately to savage them this thoroughly. St. Anger was the album Metallica was recording during that Rad 2004 documentary Some Kind of Monster where they do group therapy and whine at each other for two and a half hours. Lars calls James a complete dick and Kirk face palms. It's the best movie ever made. The drum sound on St. Anger, the snare drum. Some fans found the drum sound to be a little tinny, maybe. I'm being sarcastic.

It sounded like Lars was banging on a folding chair with a soup ladle. Anyway, listen to this. Let's a step. I'm sorry. I laugh like an idiot every time. time I listen to that. Let's establish that making fun of Metallica is fun. It's fun if you hate them or if you are indifference to them, but it's extra fun if you love them, if you are devoted to them. Here's the thing about selling 16 million copies of one album in the United States alone. My name is Rob Harvilla.

This is 60 songs that explain the 90s, enter Sandman. We're doing Enters Sandman. Obviously, Track one, the black album, 1991. Technically, it's self-titled. The album's called Metallica, but it's the black album. 16 million copies sold in the U.S. alone. And so at that point, it's not that your band is a self-parody now. It's that your band is so prevalent, so ubiquitous. You have self-actualized so thoroughly that it is now extremely easy to parody your band.

I suspect that if you've never listened to a Metallica song by choice, you still have a Metallica song template in your subconscious, and thus you know why that parody is funny. You know what James Hetfield's barking vocals sound like, and what James and Kirk Hammett's guitars sound like, and what Lars Ulrich's drums are supposed to sound like. It's all supposed to sound like this. Bonus points also, if the biggest song of your career does not sound the way your most devoted fans would prefer you to sound. Again, even if you're a Metallica agnostic. I suspect that subconsciously you also know what the phrase back to our roots means. With regards to Metallica, you know that they used to be a thrash metal band, the original thrash metal band.

Their songs used to be much longer and gnarlier and faster, and the fast parts were automatically good. They used to have no interest in pop stardom whatsoever, or so it appeared. The first big jolt delivered by Enter Sandman is that Metallica was trying to write a pop song. The second big jolt is that they succeeded. One of my many Metallica theories is that the Metallica logo is responsible for half of all their success. Again, pretty much guaranteed that you know the Metallica logo, the M and the final A are super pointy and badass. Great logo. Half their success. Picture the word Metallica written in Comic Sans.

That Metallica's version of the Black album would have sold half as many copies. So only 8 million domestic. But still, every little detail, every visual cue, every stylistic divergence, no matter how minuscule or silly, matter so much with this band, matter so much to people who love this band or love making fun of this band or both. And if you compress the real Metallica logo to just the M and the final A, so the outside edges are now slopes. So now it's a super pointy and badass mountain. Enter Sandman is at the very peak of that mountain, but there's no room on either side. There is just the slow, righteous,

grueling, and tragic ascent to enter Sandman. And then immediately, you're rolling back downhill. You're still selling shitloads of records and making shitloads of money and being the biggest heavy metal band on the planet, but nevertheless, downhill. The Black album defined heavy music in the 90s

just as surely as Nirvana's, Nevermind did, but Metallica spent the rest of the decade letting the 90s define them. Never mind, and the grunge and alternative rock explosion more broadly, rattled Metallica quite a bit. The band's reinventions, the makeovers, the zeitgeist schemes of really the next 20 years or so, it's all baffling. Just incredibly strange behavior.

Not terrible even, necessarily. Some of it's actually pretty good, but all of it is just so strange. If only every rock band sold out with this much zest, I don't mean sold out as a pejorative at all. The Black album is fantastic. Enter Sandman, over-exposed as it might be, is still fantastic. It's commercial heavy metal at its finest. It's the King Lear of Jock Jams.

And before we get too bogged down by anything else, Enter Sandman is great because of the guitar riff. Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett's riff. Let's not overthink this. Pretty soon, that'll be Metallica's job. Kirk has said that he was trying to write the heaviest thing he could think of. He has said that he was inspired by the heaviness and righteousness of the early Sound Garden record, Louder Than Love from 1989. For reference, here's a song off Louder than Love.

So like that, but you know, for the radio. Okay, Metallica chasing radio play, doing radio edits, shooting videos for MTV. This was all unthinkable once. Metallica formed in Los Angeles in 1981, which is when Lars Ulrich met James Hetfield. Lars played drums. He was born in Denmark. His father was a professional tennis player. Lars himself was a tennis prodigy. That's what brought the family to L.A. He was an only child. His godfather was jazz great Dexter Gordon. He traveled widely, bought tons of albums, and talked constantly. James Hetfield was born near L.A. and had a rough childhood. His parents were Christian scientists, and James would talk a lot in interviews about not being able to see a doctor or sit in health class. His father walked out on the family. His mother died of

cancer. He couldn't afford to buy many records, and he didn't do much talking. James played guitar. He was more of a grunter than a singer at this point. It would take him quite a while to get comfortable as a front man, though it arguably took Lars quite a while to get comfortable as a drummer. James found Lars to be quite spoiled. We ate McDonald's. He ate Herring is how James will later sum up the early band dynamic. These two dudes nonetheless bonded for life and that they agreed to argue with each other for the rest of their lives. One day, this will make some kind of monster the best movie ever made.

At first, though, it was enough that James and Lars agreed on the new wave of British heavy metal, a genre that started in the late 70s and condenses nicely to NWOB8. I had never actually said that out loud before. Clunkiest acronym in music history. I love it. A few NWO.BHM bands would get quite famous. Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Death Leopard, and a few more, Saxon, Diamondhead, Tigers of Pan Tang, would get famous enough. Lars and James are lurking amid the 80s, L.A. metal scene that soon will tip toward hairspray, toward spandex, toward cheeseball debauchery, toward rat and motley crew, and poison, and,

climatically, future Metallica tourmates Guns and Roses. Bad idea, that tour. Metallica, a name the fella settled on after considering Hell Driver and Blitzed and Nixon and Thunderfuck. Lars really liked Thunderfuck. Metallica were after something harsher, grimy, or trashier, some punk rock in there still. They wanted to call their first studio album, "'Mettle Up Your Ass, not a metaphor. They'd already named a live demo that. And the album, was going to be a machete sticking out of a toilet. And in their defense, early Metallica sounded like a machete sticking out of a toilet. Go to the bathroom with one eye open.

They settled for the debut album title, Kill Em All. This is 1983. There was some early lineup calamity. They had a hothead lead guitarist named Dave Mustaine for a while, who was a huge pain in the ass and acted like more of a frontman on stage than James did. But they kicked Dave out. and by this point, Metallica's lineup had solidified. Lars on drums and virtually all the business shit.

James on rhythm guitar and grunting. Kirk Hammett on lead guitar and Cliff Burton on bass. The whole band moved to San Francisco to accommodate Cliff. We could hang out in this era with me talking for 45 minutes. Many devout Metallica fans would prefer to live in this era for the rest of their lives. I don't blame them. Early Metallica is pretty incredible. At this point, they'd functionally inventing.

thrash metal. Not their term. They'd get sick of the term pretty quick, as one does. But they are, nonetheless, canonically, one of the four horsemen, the big four of thrash alongside Slayer, anthrax, and Megadeth, the latter being Dave Mustaine's revenge band. I had this whole big riff where I was going to describe each of the big four as sex in the city characters, but that would demean us all. I got enough problems. Slayer is definitely Samantha. If you equate satanic imagery with on-screen nudity, big four status is both a huge honor in a super tiny box stylistically, and all four bands would bust out of it in their own inimitable ways. Metallica, of course, most spectacularly and immediately.

In 1984, they put out Ride the Lightning, which is pulverizing and badass and merciless, and that applies even to the honest-to-god near power ballad fade to black. But Master of Puppets from 1986 is the real shit. this is where thrash metal peaks, certainly. 86 was the same year as Slayer's rain and blood. But for most fans, I suspect, or at least the most intense fans, Metallica

never topped this artistically. Forget Enner Sandman, forget everything after. This is arguably the best metal album of all time, a violent argument being the whole point of heavy metal in the first place. Double bassa!

What would this version, this lineup of Metallica, have done for the next 30 years. And more importantly, what would they not do? What would they righteously refuse to do? We'll never find out. On September 26, 1986, Cliff Burton, and Cliff Burton alone, was killed when Metallica's tour bus crashed and flipped on its side on a treacherous backroad in Sweden.

The driver would insist he'd hit black ice. James Hetfield immediately took off running down the road in search of that black ice and found none. It was an awful scene. It is the central tragedy of Metallica, and Cliff Burton would haunt the band thereafter. Beyond mourning, their friend, who James Kirk and Lars all clearly revered, the problem now is everything Metallica did from this moment forward was suspect, was sacrilege. What would Cliff have done? Would Cliff have done that? What made it worse was that Cliff was Metallica's avatar of integrity of staying true to their roots. but he was also the most open-minded guy in the band, musically and visually.

You read about Metallica now, and you're constantly reminded that Cliff wore bell bottoms and looked like a hippie and was obsessed with Bach and listened to Yes, and Leonard Skinnerd and Kate Bush and R.E.M. So post-Cliff Metallica is screwed now if they stay the same, because Cliff wouldn't have done that. But they're extra screwed if they radically evolve

and get more commercial, because Cliff wouldn't have done that either. But it's time to reach for the big time. Metallic has a new bass player, Jason Neustead, within weeks, which feels mercenary, but as a commercial prospect, the band is skyrocketing. Jason Neustead is hazed mercilessly, Animal House style, up to it including the fact that on the band's next album, 1989's, and Justice for All, the bass is inaudible, not an atom of low end to be detected anywhere.

Incredible. Metallica's sound, even relative to their thrash metal rule, is now super thorny and harsh and grueling and complex. This is addressed, actually, in that sate anger parody. Justice, though, is also the album with a song One on it, a harrowing and intense and, yes, complex anti-war dirge that gets Metallica some honest-to-god radio play and a ton of MTV play. The universe is bending to the band's will,

or at least mainstream rock, is bending to the band's will. And at first, it really is the mainstream embracing Metallica, not the inverse. One is not the sound of a band compromising to get famous. It's the sound of a band getting famous for refusing to compromise. But now it's time to reach

for the really big time. Lars, quote, the idea was to cram Metallica down everybody's fucking throat all over the fucking world. The Black album was conceived from the onset as a heavy band goes supernova record.

Think ACDCs. back in black. Think Death Leopards hysteria. Hysteria was my favorite album when I was nine, by the way. Both of those records were produced by Mutt Lange, who thankfully was not the only guy who could make a metal band sound 20,000 feet tall and shiny. Metallica guy, the guy named Bob Rock. He'd worked wonders for lover boy and Motley crew and Bon Jovi. Metallica did not care for Bon Jovi.

And yet, Lars, quote, if the guy's name is really Rock, how bad can he be? Bob Rock was a taskmaster, a perfectionist, a 50 takes of one guitar part guy. He had a David Fincher aspect. He wanted Metallica to generate something as heavy and iconic as Led Zeppelin's cashmere. And with sad but true and wherever I may roam, the fellow certainly tried. There was a punching bag in the studio so the fellas could blow off steam. Motley crew bassist Nikki Six, quote, Bob whipped us like galley, His line was, that just isn't your best. Nothing was good enough. Let's talk for a second about Lars.

Lars is not the focal point of Enter Sandman, and this is progress. Let me remind you that to love Metallica is to make fun of Metallica, and now, let me tell you about how Lars Ulrich is the Derek Jeter of drummers. If this is your home team, if this team is your whole lifestyle, he's a god, he's an all-timer, his numbers up in the rafters, whatever. If this isn't your team, he is crazy overrated. He is flash over competence, all booting routine ground balls, all ostentatious, all diving all over the field unnecessarily, all diving into the stands, all being short. The Lars Alrick experience in the thrash years is basically one giant drum fill. Every early metallic album is like falling down the stairs for an hour.

But he struggled, as some people observed, to keep time. James Hetfield, quote, to this day, he is not drummer of the year. We all know that. James was talking to Playboy in 2001. In the studio, while recording the Black album, Lars talked about how he used to idolize the flashiest drummer's imaginable, Neil Pert from Rush, Ian Pace, from Deep Purple. But now, Lars was learning to love the unflashy, laid-back rock steady. guys, Phil Rudd from ACDC, Charlie Watts from the Stones, Lars, quote, I used to think that stuff

was easy, but it's not. It's hard. Fucking hard. So let's enjoy listening to Lars here, finally committing to making the routine plays. The Black Album is the first Metallica album where the song titles on the back cover don't have the song lengths, the times, proudly listed in parentheses, every little thing matters. Enter Samman is five and a half minutes long. The shortest black album songs are just under four minutes. The longest songs don't quite make it to seven minutes. The Unforgiven, which is the spaghetti western of Metallica's dreams, is the best song that's even slightly longer, even though there are no fast parts. None of this is revolutionary or blasphemous by Metallica standards, but the triumph of this album lies in their willingness to rein things in just enough.

And in James Hetfield's case, open up just enough. Enter Sandman lyrically is maybe boilerplate, child's nightmare, stuff, but he's tapping into a more personal darkness. And elsewhere on the Black album, a more personal lightness and warmth. Nothing else matters, which is an honest-to-god power ballad at long last, is shocking, both because he's singing, as he's never quite sung before, and he's copping to meaning it to a degree that he's never quite meant it. Nothing else matters at the top 40 at number 34. One spot higher than the song 1 for what it's worth. The Black album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard album chart, of course. But here's a fun fact.

Enter Sandman is not Metallica's highest charting single on the Billboard Hot 100. It peaked at number 16. I've been staring at the Hot 100 chart for August 12th, 1991 for the past two hours. I can't make it make sense. Mariah Carey's Emotions is number 1. That's fine. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunches Good Vibrations is number two. Also fine. From there it gets nuts. Songs that charted higher than Enter Sandman include an extreme song that is not more than words. Wholehearted. A Jesus Jones song that is not right here, right now. That would be real, real. I liked that song, actually.

A color me bad song that is not, I want to sex you up. I adore me more. R.E.M.'s shiny happy people charted higher than enter Sandman. I blame George Bush Sr. for this. I don't even know why. I just do. Speaking of R.M., it's time to ask, would Cliff Burton have done any of this? Earlier, I called the Black Album a sellout.

Is it a sellout? Lars will tell you that he'd been called a sellout from Ride the Lightning forward to remind you that was Metallica's second album. This can't be the right framework or even the right insult. Metallica's problem, post-Black, album is less that they were selling out than that they seemed confused about what selling out would even entail. Whatever one remembers now about Lode, their next album from 1996 is the makeover that accompanied it. Makeover is the right word. They cut their hair. It was like Carrie Russell and Felicity. Some of them wore

mascara. Kirk got his librette pierced. Lars got his nipples pierced. The glow up, as nobody called it, is what you probably remember now. You may not even be aware that the highest charting metallic single of all time is the LODD song until it sleeps. Load was just the black album, but smoother.

But the full visual load experience from the album cover on down, it was an Andre Serrano photograph titled Seaman in Blood 3, and don't worry, it wasn't his blood. It was all just such a bizarre reaction to grunge, to alternative rock,

what they would perceive as mainstream rock. But to be honest with you, I live from Metallica's bizarre reactions to the mainstream. James Hetfield in Playboy, quote, "'Lint Biscuit seems a little cartoony to me. "'I don't like some guy just yelling. "'Like Rage Against the Machine. "'It wasn't singing. "'It was just some guy kind of pissed off telling you his opinion.'

"'End quote. "'Spot the lie. "'That is actually a very accurate description of rage against the machine. These are the guys who would stumble into the 21st century, richer than God, but the most confused of all God's creatures. These are the guys who in 2011 would make Lulu, which co-starred Lou Reed of all people and at the longest songs of all. People hated Lulu.

It was genuinely impressive how much people hated Lulu. You've got to love it. And way before that, these are the guys who would come up with the infamous Saint Anger drum sound, which for the record sounds like this. Let me tell you my favorite moment in some kind of monster, the best movie ever made. You get to watch Robert Trujillo audition to be Metallica's new bassist, and he seems like a lovely guy, but that's not it.

It's Kirk Hammett complaining that Lars and James don't want any guitar solos on St. Anger, because guitar solos would sound dated. This is Kirk's response. If you don't play guitar solo in one of these songs, that dates it to this period. And that cements it to a trend that's happening in music right now. I think that's stupid.

I think it's totally trendy. That's very possibly the smartest thing I've ever heard a musician say. Seriously, I saw some kind of monster in the theater and people cheered when he said that. This was in Berkeley, California, and people still knew to cheer for that. Lars and James didn't listen. Of course, they didn't. No solos on St. Anchor. That's the Metallica Way.

I wonder what Cliff Burton would have thought. I'd like to think the real Cliff Burton wouldn't have given a shit with a hypothetical Cliff Burton might have hypothetically thought. Anyways, keep all that in mind the next time you're listening to Enter Sandman when Kirk's solo dates the song to nothing other than the exact moment. Metallica were at their biggest, and, yes, arguably at their best. This is a band worth eternally loving. And better yet, this is a band worth.

eternally mocking for all their worth. My guest today is Dave Chang, host of the Dave Chang show here at The Ringer and recent winner of $1 million, among many, many other accolades. Congratulations. Thank you so much for being here, Dave. Thanks for having me, Rob.

Of course. Dave, what is your personal journey with Metallica? You know, of all the bands I thought I'd ever talk about publicly, the last one I'd ever choose is Metallica, but it may be fitting simply because, growing up, as maybe some people know, a lot of Koreans are into

evangelical church, religion, Christianity, and my family was very into the Presbyterian Church. We weren't able to listen to certain kinds of music. And Metallica was definitely one of the bands that was foreboded.

You were not supposed to listen to Metallica. And I think over the years, my parents certainly relented on certain things. So I think they didn't care as long as it wasn't heavy metal. Like anything not Slayer and Metallica, that was in it. And growing up, some of my friends, you know, I remember this kid, I would sit next to on the bus, would wear the typical heavy metal outfit that I don't know if kids wear today.

Do kids still wear that outfit of black jeans, you know, ride the lightning, t-shirt, long hair? I think typically, I'm not an expert on the kids today. but let's say yes, just for the sake of a market. You know what I mean? You know that look, and it was a certain genre and a certain group of students in at least the late 80s, early 90s. And I always thought they were the bad seeds in school, but they were nice to me. And that was another reason why I couldn't listen to Metallica. But I love music, and we'd, of course, sneak music into our lives.

And I would probably put Metallica Black Album as the album that, made me realize like, wait a second, what have I actually been not listening to? It made me actually question the way I was raised and also question sort of how culture perceives things. And then as I've gotten older and better understanding of what the black album was for the band Metallica, it became a cultural, like, touchstone for me that I constantly draw upon professionally. Yeah, because for me, growing up, if a kid liked Metallica, they were a stoner automatically. Whether they had actually ever smoked pot in their lives as immaterial,

Metallica equals stoner. Was that your experience? I don't know even if it was stoner, because I think stoner to me was always dead. Okay, right, right. Metallica was always satanic worship. Yes, Slayer. Slayer would be the band to keep you away from

if you had Presbyterian beliefs, yes. Did you listen to Christian metal? Were you pushed in that dress? No, no, God, no. No striper? Yeah. We definitely just listen to music, all types. But if I listen to something like Metallica, you know, Master Pupp is Right of the Lightning.

These are albums that I think are terrific and I love them well after the fact. But when I first listened to these things, I was like, this is not music that I can appreciate, not even appreciate, this is bad. Like, bad for me to listen to as I'm like, you should it be listening to this kind of stuff. Bad influence. my conscience would tell me. And the only other music that I thought that around that same time that came out that made me really question my identity as like, what is music? Was Wu-Tang's Enter the 36 Chambers?

Right. And when you listen to that, you're like, what is this? This is like crazy. And it sort of fit into that Venn diagram for me. And the Black Album was something that shattered all those things because it was also a band that was in transition. and I think when that album came out in 92, 91, right? 91, yeah.

This is when people are still watching MTV videos and headbangers ball. Head bangers ball. And it was a very different video. It was a very different thing. The fact that Metallica was being played at all on top 40 radio was insane. And we were just coming out of the grunge. Like, it was Pearl Jam versus Novvon. and like this drops.

And this was like way more hardcore than that was. So I don't know. It resonated a lot more with me because when I started to listen to the album, I were like, wait, I really like this. And it wasn't something I would tell anybody. It was the CD that I would have that I would listen to by myself. It's like, wait, I need to understand what's going on here because this isn't like anything I've listened to before.

It is pop heavy metal. Right, right. Did it push you into more metal? Did you go for Slayer from there or what happened from there? No, it basically led into me listening to One by Metallica like every hour. That's a good hourly, just very soothing, you know, serene kind of feeling. Yeah, one's a good song for that. It feels way more common now for a young person to be both into metal and rap.

But like my memory of the 90s is like people who are into Wu Tang and people who are into Metallica were just completely different universes. Was that true for you? Did they feel like just two fundamentally different things? The kids that introduced me to this. My older brother was very much into music, was in the music industry later in his life, but he's the one to introduce me to Metallica, the Black album,

because it seemed like something that you shouldn't be doing. And then, and again, Wu Tang was that again, the kid that was listening to it was the coolest kid that I knew. So it just was polar opposite. I admired my brother and I admired my friend sort of being these cultural conduits of like the things that I should be aware of. Right. Everyone knew about Nirvana and Pearl Jam because that was like this beetle-like zeitgeist thing. But this was more on the extremes.

This is way out there from the mainstream. But weirdly, Metallica now is considered very poppy. Very. So you started with the black album. Like the black album is a very different proposition. If you've loved them, you know, kill them all, ride the lightning, master of puppets, you know, justice. Like, now this is, oh, my gosh, they're going pop. But if you start with the Black album, if you start with them at their biggest and poppiest,

I imagine it's a totally different experience. Absolutely. And that's why Metallica as a band has always been a reference point to me, because I was very aware of Metallica in their earlier years, you know, the day of Mustang era and the kind of culture that sort of represented in this, again, this taboo-like thing, even though it's not. It was all made up why I couldn't like it. And realizing that they got tired of selling out to 4,000 people and selling 100,000

records, you know, gold every record. They were the biggest band in the sort of smallest universe. Right, right. And they got bored. And what I love about the Black album is that is the BCAD of Metallica, right? And anything post-Black album is garbage for the most part, right? Like, if you're a true hardcore Metallica fan, at least from my opinion, it's the early three albums. And that's it.

And Metallica, Black album is like the last thing you can sort of like. Okay. Well, not a secret Lode fan then. I don't love the later stuff too much myself. Load is probably the last for me. but it's not like I don't love it it's just to me not as culturally significant for me

no I don't think for anybody really did you see some kind of monster I did that documentary that was what it's great one of my favorite movies honestly you don't have to like their later stuff to like find that in a totally engrossing movie

I don't think absolutely not so is there anything that you loved in the 90s that has aged especially well or especially poorly like did you have good taste at the time, you know, in a retrospect? I don't know if it's good taste.

I think what I like now, when I think about it, was very white male, southern rockish type of stuff because that's where I grew up, right? Sure. And I can look back at it now being, well, that was pretty insular, pretty myopic, but how would I have known better? When, you know, I'm also close to Washington, D.C. area,

and, you know, there's amazing music happening there, like 930 Club right there, but they're only supposed to be. specific kinds of bands that I wanted to but you know you have go-go music you have all this amazing shit and I just was still like it's out of my comfort zone. Sure. So I think if

anything I regret not embracing more that was available to me. Did you have a Fugazi phase, a discord phase? Later. Later. Yeah. But like for me like waiting room and that genre is probably like my favorite but the minor threat stuff

like I'm not going to be opposed to be like yeah I appreciate it. There's some songs that I like, but that wasn't my scene. Right. I think you have to be a teenager at the time to get the full effect of that. So you once tweeted, this was quite a while ago now, but you once tweeted, you can infer a lot about a cook's personality if they are pro or con on Metallica's Black album. And I would love to know what that means. Well, I must have said that a long time ago, but it's like seven years ago.

Yeah. But when you're in a restaurant and you're like drinking beers or you're at a bar after work, inevitably, when you're not talking about what happened during service, you find commonalities. And you always talk about music. And basically how I spoke about any music post-black album or pre-black black album is how you would have these like hot take over beer. And I really think you could tell a lot about a person if they're like strident, no way. anything after 1992, I can't listen to. Or if someone says, I love all of Metallica up until the most recent albums,

I think that tells you a lot about a person. They like everything for the most part. You know, they genuinely love the band and the evolution of it. And you rarely meet someone that says, oh, I only like anything past 1992. I love their later work. Right, yeah. I don't think that person exists. Doesn't exist.

but if anything, it tells you more about somebody that refuses to, that's the thing, in terms of the conversation I've had about Metallica, and I'm not a Metallica, hardcore fan, but having had these conversations, you can tell a lot about an individual that refuses to admire what they try to do to become as popular as possible. If they say, I hate them with a white, hot heat, I think that tells you a lot about individual, right? It's like they probably feel hurt. They probably feel betrayed.

And you can extrapolate a lot, I think, from that thing. And I think even from a cook's perspective, that kind of openness, if a cook is open, you're going to see them be like, hmm, I want to know how to make that better. Oh, I'm going to read this book because it's going to tell me why the method of way I'm cooking right now is wrong. And, you know, you get this multi-dimensional perspective that I think ultimately makes you a better chef. And there's nothing easy about cooking professionally, but if you just want to learn to cook with fire and that's it, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think you're going to be

limited in scope. What you're telling me is that you would rather eat the food of somebody who is into late period Metallica. That makes a lot of sense to me, actually. No, I would probably say I would rather eat. I'd rather have someone say, I don't like the later period of Metallica. I prefer the earlier Metallica. I like what they try to do. it's just not for me. They actually have a reason as to why it's not for them, not just outright, I hate it. Right, right.

Is Metallica or metal in general ever appropriate or helpful, like in a kitchen environment? Like, is the soundtrack to cooking at home or in a restaurant? Like, is it motivating? Does it get the adrenaline pumping? Or does it just induce chaos? There was a good stretch where that was our pre-opening music during, right after Family Meal,

we'd play probably either ride the lightning or master puppets. Wow. That's quite an image. I like that. I like that. I mean, for sure, that would happen a lot. You know, you would just crank it up as loud as possible. After you do the staff notes, the pre-service notes, and you're wiping down your station getting ready for service, it's like pump up music. Because like you're getting ready. You're getting in this zone. And it's, you know, when you think about it now, it's probably not the right kind of music to play. And it's too testosterone. It's too bro-y and it's all of these things, but there certainly was a period where we listened to stuff like that or, you know, it wasn't a beach boys. Beach Boys is not locker room music. You're in the locker room. You're pumping yourself up. What I'm trying to say is we probably shouldn't have been listening to any music. Right. Okay. Yeah. We should have in retrospect gone outside done some stretches and some breathing exercises. Really, no joke. That's what should be happening. Sure, sure. That's not what always happens,

but that's probably what should be happening. I understand your big playlist curator. What is your philosophy in terms of what you want playing in your restaurants? Like, what are the do's and don'ts of soundtracking the actual dining experience? You can't play music that people are going to sing along to. The worst case scenario is like a tiny dancer scene or Bohemian Rhapsody or something like that. No, you can't do that. And like anything that was super popular or of the moment, you can't play, like OASY.

and stuff like that. And like if you were going to play stuff like, say, the Who, it has to be maybe more of an obscure B side. Not to be cool, but you don't want your customers like jamming out to music. Right. Okay. If you want one or two people getting into a song, it's because it's like they're playing my song that no one ever plays out loud.

And that's a very rewarding feeling. But for the most part, you're trying to create some kind of list where it's good ambient music. and there's a beat to it, there's a harmony or whatever, but it's not something that is immediately recognizable. So, like, you know, maybe instead of playing a lot of Velvet Underground, you'd play a lot of Luna. Okay, Luna.

You know what I mean? There we go, yeah. Like two people in the restaurant will be like, Luna, yes. Yeah. I never, right. Okay, that's perfect. You know, even if you're not listening to Dean Wareham's voice, which I love, right? If you just listen to it as, like, background music,

it's very melodic and it's very nice to sort of listen to when you're not thinking about the music and you're thinking about the food or having the conversation. And that's the kind of music that we'd like to go for. Okay. A very early episode of your pod, you talked about the parallels between the hip-hop world and the culinary world. Is there any equivalent with Metallica with metal? Like, is there any genre of food or flavor profile that you associate with chefs who might be really into metal? I think if you're into metal, unfortunately, it's probably typecast in a potentially negative way

in the kind of cooking that and culture that unfortunately I've been associated with a lot, like super, super dude, super broie, like umami, everything. And I hope that we're coming out of that. But it certainly was there. And it just was maybe not as diverse. of like what you should have been listening to. You know what I mean? Right.

Who do you think is the best cook in Metallica? Well, Lars is really into food. Is he? That makes sense. That doesn't surprise me. Yeah. He knows what's going on at food. And I know, I mean, I've heard stories and I think I've even seen, like, they go out to restaurants.

Yeah. You know, James and Lars, for sure. But Lars, I know has like, he knows what's going on, I think, more than most people probably would assume with food. I can't say that for sure. but I know he goes to some of my friends restaurants and he's been a big, big fan of there. So, yeah. Have you played any Metallica for your son yet?

I think you've said that the point of playing music for him is to keep things calm. So, you know, maybe not. No. That probably won't happen until much later. I think the most hardcore thing he's listening to is probably Paul Simon. He can get pretty hardcore. He can get emotionally hardcore. Yeah, post-barfunkle.

He's, he's, that's the most hardcore. Yeah. It's pretty pissed, yeah. Is there anything you want out of Metallica now going forward in terms of legacy management? Could they win you back to their current stuff? They don't have to. I mean, I admire them so much. The fact that they've rotated some of the band members out for the most part, but I don't

know if the world at large understands the, their musical abilities as much as they should. and to do what they've done is just insane to me. Yeah. You know, my good friend, Wiley DeFran, always claims, and I used to hate when he would tell me this, you're just a populist, Dave. You know, you're just a populist. You want to make popular food.

And I was like, what's wrong with that? Yeah, I want to make food that people listen to and like. And I love growth in artistry. I love the fact that they were able to kill themselves in order to reach a new audience. they effectively did that, right? They knew that if they wanted to reach a different level to push themselves out of their comfort zone, the hardest thing for them to do wasn't to be more hardcore to play it faster. It was, how do I make someone that hates heavy metal, love heavy metal?

That to me, at that time, if you think about it, was a wildly difficult challenge. And I admire that tremendously. And the fact that it was such a monumental huge album was a testament. And I love it when anybody doesn't have to be a Metallica tries to shoot for the moon and it could have really been

just terrible. Right? Like it could have been like Garth Brooks like a fake pseudonym album. Remember when he came up with that? Chris Gaines. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It could have been that bad but it wasn't and I love that when you can grow and do something different and I don't know if they get enough credit for doing that.

So that black album to me is what I always explain to someone that's becoming a chef for the first time or I'm working with them. And they're like, they're getting out of the, I'm just trying to be cool face. Right, right. Right. It's like the hard thing isn't to make five people happy. The hard thing is how do you make as many people happy as possible simultaneously? That's really hard. 16 million.

Yeah. You know, I have a friend that is in the music business and he left corporate banking to start a punk label. And I was like, dude, we hit punk gold. And I was like, we did like five punk gold albums. I'm like, 10,000 albums. That's amazing. I'm so happy. Like, he's so into it.

But I was like, in some ways it's a microcosm Metallica. It's like, okay, they're in a band. Maybe your next step as their record label and their managers is to make sure they have health care, to make sure that they're able to pay a mortgage, to make sure that they're not going around in a van with a U-Haul, making sure that they're constantly, upgrading. It doesn't mean that they have to as long as they're happy, but your job, I think,

is to at least tell them what's around the corner so they can make that option. And the hardest thing to do is to legitimately kill yourself, metaphorically speaking, as an artist. And you don't have to, but that's just part of the world that I sort of resonate with. I think about a lot, about how do you tell new stories? And oftentimes when you don't, it hurts like hell. So I love it, and I think we should celebrate more things like the Black album when they become these these zeitgeist-like moments because I hope we have more of them. I want more people to try to do what Metallica did because you don't have to be the biggest heavy metal band out there.

You could be doing whatever you're doing and realizing, I'm really good at this. I want something else. I want to challenge myself differently. And I listen to the Black album all the time to remind myself of that. This has been fantastic, Dave. Thank you so much. Thanks, man. Thanks very much to my guest, Dave Chang. Thanks to my producers, Isaac Lee and Justin Sales. And thanks to you, as always, for listening. And now, without any further ado, here is Metallica with Enter Sandman. See you next week.