One Song - Metallica's "Master of Puppets"

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Are you ready to go metal, listener? Because this time on One Song, Diallo and LUXXURY are here with a real riff monster: Master of Puppets by Metallica. It’s a song that is bursting with musicianship and angst and intricate instrumentals. Come for the stems of Lars Ulrich bashing away at his drums, and stay for LUXXURY’s metal origin story and his thoughts on the infamous ‘Some Kind of Monster’ documentary.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And sometimes, a smooth, silky latte just wins. It's exceptional but effortless. Like actually effortless. Simply press, brew, and explore. Nispresso, what else? Keep exploring at nespresso. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, Diyah Dio Liddle. And I'm producer, DJ, and songwriter, Luxury, also known as the guy who whispers interpolation.

And this is one song, Now, Luxury, you chose today's song, Master of Puppets. That's the song on today's episode. I guess let's just start here. Why? Why this song? Why is this special? You know, it's funny. Like, there is a real question.

This show so far, Metallica seems a little bit of an outlier. And in fact, it wasn't on the short list for me when we first put together our dream list of songs. for season one. Out of our years of experiences, music fans, we had a hard time coming up with, like, the right songs. It's really important to us to pick them. And it took me a minute to realize that buried deep in my psyche, in my youth, was this major moment of my life as a teenage boy, where Metallica was everything to me. Wow. Both as a person, like, because of what they were singing about, the aggression of the music, but also as a budding musician, like I was learning instruments. And Metallica, like, I literally brought, this is how I learned guitar. I'm showing

Oh snap. For those who are just listening to the podcast, he has brought out the advanced edition. Guitar, what would you call this? This is the... This is guitar tabs. This is how you learn guitar if you're a young metal head. They've got all the notes like classical theory, but they also just have where your fingers should go. So it's like a simplified version with the numbers.

It's before there was YouTube. It's how you would have learned guitar. And yeah, this is where I began as a musician as well as it being such an important. important part of my life. Was this the first music that you played guitar too? It might have been, if it wasn't literally the first song, it was certainly the first where I would buy a book like this to try and master the entire album. You know what? I'm going to ask you a question about yourself. The, a lot today. Did you learn, because we're both drummers, did you learn the drums first? Because I learned the drums and I was good. I never learned any other instrument. Thank you

public schools. But I wish I had. Yeah. But you learned the drums first and then at some point you transition to guitars? Yeah, I started on drums when I was in high school, and I had, I think I've mentioned before, two of my best friends, shout out to Scott Stafford and Alex Mandel. They were the master guitar players, so I couldn't keep up with them. And I was like, I want to, I want to hang out with these guys musically. So I learned drums so I could hang with them. So I would be behind them at school assemblies where they would. But at some point, you were like, I'm going to learn that instrument. It was actually at the end of high school that I bought my first guitar from the aforementioned Alex Mandel. Okay. Yeah, I bought my first guitar and I bought this book. And I, that's

where I started to learn. Tell me about the first time you heard Metallica. All right. So this is like one of those life moments that you never forget because it changed the course of history for me. But I was in high school, probably sophomore year, and it was one of those break periods in between classes. And a friend of mine had to leave to his class and he gave me his Walkman and I put it on. I'd never heard Metallica before. And he had been, this is Ari Gold. This is Ari Gold. This is the episode where I shout out on my high school homies. So Ari Gold's Walkman. He was playing a Metallica song. And not only was he playing a song. I'm going to play it for you in a minute. This is the part of the song that he played for me, which, like, destroyed my little brain. Why did you destroy your little brain? Was it the

aggression that you heard? What was it? I'm going to play it, and then we'll talk about it because it's hard for me to articulate. So part of the beauty of music is you don't have to. You just listen or talk. We're not dancing about architecture. We're not dancing about architecture, which was the original title of the show, by the way. And I think we made a good choice with the one song change. So this song is called Fight Fire with Fire. It's from Metallica's previous record, is ride the lightning before the Master of Puppets record. And this is what I would have heard on a spring afternoon when I was in high school. Here it's a guitar.

The guitars fade out and you hear this. I was like, what? Of those, that moment of those 16 notes on the kick drums, this is a human being doing this. Yes. And not just any human being. like in time to the tempo and for like a long duration. And not just any human being, but a pretty famous one. Right.

So this is Lars Ulrich. By the way, on this episode, we're going to talk about Lars Ulrich. We're going to talk about all the members of Metallica. Lars Ulrich, we kind of alluded to in a previous episode where we talked about drummers, right? We talked about he is in the same category a little bit with maybe Meg White from the White Stripes and Ringo Star from the Beatles, where these are musicians that are all. often malign. They're people that are like, well, the band would be better if.

Well, I malign Lars because he's the guy who came after Napster and always seemed to me, we'll get into my first impressions of Metallica because a lot of it has very little to do with the music and more of what they were saying in like the public sphere. But this was teenage aggression. And that's what I had a lot of in that moment. And this, at the time I would have been listening to, again, alluding to previous episodes, if you haven't heard our New Order episode, Blue Monday. That was like, I was listening to a lot of like synth pop and sort of post-punk.

And I still loved it. But this was a, this switched a new gear on it in for me. This was like an aggressive, this spoke to that feeling of like, why don't girls like me? Why doesn't, you know, like a million different questions that flow through your hormone adult body at that age. Yeah. And so this metal music was kind of the lock turning the key a little bit for me. That's so interesting. And this was, this was.

this wasn't senior year of high school. When was this? I'm going to say sophomore year. Oh, yeah, because Ari was two years older than me. It's helpful to have that reference point. I'm a sophomore in high school. I think, look, there are a couple of things I want to say real quick. First is that, you know, suspiciously everybody feels like music was never as good as when they were

suspiciously between the ages of like 15 and 25. Like, I think your brain is just open to things in a new way. I agree. Second thing I want to say is that I had a similar reaction to the very first time someone put on a public enemy CD for me. Like the very first time I heard that, it was like everything else fell away. And I was like, why doesn't all music sound? Like in a weird way, that was my teen aggression, just thinking about it.

But getting back to Metallica, let me just say right at the top of this episode. I want to state this pretty clearly. I have so much respect. I consider myself a music nerd, but I have enough respect for metal as a genre that I will admit right at the top to all of our listeners. I don't know this genre. I know a handful of groups in this genre, but you're going to be teaching me this episode. So I wanted to make that very clear from the start.

Okay, so before we get into Master of Puppets, I was hoping that you would just tell me and some of the folks who don't know what is thrash metal. And specifically, what is the difference between hard rock and metal? Right. Because I, you know, yeah. Yeah, please tell me. I mean, at some point in the 60s,

we've got, like, white people starting to play, like, blues music and adding some distortion. You get like the stones and Zeppelin. I love the kinks. I love the kinks. And not just white people. You got like Hendricks, you got Santana. This music starts to become known as hard rock. It's harder because maybe it's a little louder.

It's maybe the drums are a little louder. Some of that is how it's played. Some of it is production through the 70s. And that's Sabbath, right? And Sabbath absolutely comes in there. And I would say that Sabbath, Zeppelin into Sabbath, we have kind of a shift happening partially because of the sound gets a little darker. But also thematically, Sabbath starts to introduce these, you know,

Topics. Topically, they're more about like horror movies and darkness. Yeah, yeah. So that all starts to coagulate. I mean, they're called Black Sabbath. It's right there in the title. Don't have to look much further. That starts to, in the 70s and the Queen, a lot of bands are what I would call hard rock, but there's with Sabbath a little bit of metal beginning out of the ashes, so to speak, of hard rock. So where one begins and one ends, it's kind of a fool's errand to try to chase like, well, you've got like Sabbath albums that literally have ballads on them. So it's like, there's a lot of eclecticism in there. But in the 70s, hard rock starts to turn into punk rock. Punk rock, you know, from the stooges through the Ramones into the sex pistols.

That's just rock music that's kind of a little faster. And topically, it's a little more political. So the changes that are happening sonically are a little subtle, but they've got a lot to do with loudness, distorted guitars and speed, I would argue, sonically, outside of the subject matter. By the time we get to Metallica forming in 1981 in. And by the way, side note, shout out to, I'm wearing this t-shirt. You can't see it.

But there's a radio station called KUSF, and there's a pretty funny story about how Metallica got their name. The guy who at the time, Ron Quintana, was running a fanzine. And he met Lars when they were young and touring in San Francisco. And he really liked the band. He really liked this unnamed metal band. And he's like... They were unnamed? At the time, they had an earlier version of the name, which is lost to my memory, at least.

It may exist on somebody's notepad somewhere. But they said, this guy Ron Quintana says, hey guys, I'm starting a metal zine. I'm either going to call it Metalmania or Metallica. What do you think? And according to legend, Lars goes, Metalmania is a great name. And he took the other one.

And he took Metallica for himself. According to legend, this is how the origin of the name Mataka. So shout out to Ron Quintana. It seems very Lars. It seems very Lars to do that. And be like, you know, I think the best name of those two is definitely Metalmania. Yeah. So Metallica.

uses the name Metallica. And then Ron Quintana goes on to do a show called Rampage Radio, which he still does to this day. And this is the radio station that I used to work at in high school. So I met him at the time, and it was a big deal to me to know the guy who named Metallica. There's a lot of teenage me is happening here on this episode, I realized. When we were preparing for this episode, at one point on your guitar, you were playing the song Barakuta, which I do know.

Yeah, yeah, by heart. But I feel like you said that's more hard rock, maybe not pure metal. What's the difference between hard rock and metal? So, again, like, anticipating that there's a lot of, like, yes, buts in this topic, I would say the difference between hard rock and heavy metal has a lot, excuse me, hard rock into thrash metal specifically, which Metallica is. Thrash metal. One of the big four, as they're called, Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax, and Slayer are considered the big four of the specific subgenre of heavy metal called thrash, which I'll explain to you, adds the punk energy and speed, arguably. and some of the attitude, some of the lyrics, lyrical content, but mostly I would say it's about speed

because prior to this, you know, Iron Maiden has a couple of fast songs, but for the most part, Barracuda, Zeppelin, all these hard rock bands in the 70s, they are not doing 260 BPM, like crazy riff-oriented technical songs. Well, 260 is just 130, technically.

And it's 65, technically. You heard Fight Fire with Fire, like Hart and Led Zeppelin are not doing, like those are insane breakneck tempo so big part of it is the punk speed aspect which you know if you go back to the Ramones the Ramones are sort of like just sped up Shangri-Las songs with crunchier guitars

in the way it's very girl groups but faster a lot of bubble gum pop in those early punk I mean I feel like I'm not going to win a lot of fans in the metal community with some of my opinions on this because but by the way they're born out of my ignorance of the genre to me one of the reasons I think I one of the reasons I probably did not get into metal

is because to me, one of the fun things about punk is that it is raw and that it's so like, it's just raw and it feels unfinished. And I feel like a lot of times when I think about metal, I think of these like very like almost like harpsichord things that they're doing with the guitar like and you're just like, man, that guy sounds classically trained on guitar, but it doesn't, it's not, it doesn't, it lacks that raw

in punk, but you're saying that there actually is that punk thread in ThrashMow? But you're actually tapping into something specifically with Metallica that makes them interesting, that there is a rawness and a sloppiness in some ways to some of the performances. But it's also mixed with specifically, like, in this song and in this era of the band, when Metallica still had Cliff Burton in the band. I've heard of Cliff Burton through my nephew, who is a metalhead. And he was the bassist, correct? And he was the guy who, like, because he's sort of the reason why early Metallica albums don't

sound like the later metallic albums, right? He's a little bit the answer to your question about he's part of the reason why Metallica is so special because he did bring a music musicology aspect. Like he is a storied musician with a lot of he understood he was into Bach and

what you're describing when you talk about classical is likely to be some of the choices he made melodically. Some of which we're going to hear when we get into the stems in a minute. But Cliff brought in a very deep musicianship which Lars and James They had a lot of energy.

They had a lot of ideas. Their musicianship certainly developed over time. But on day one, they are more coming from a punk ethos of let's just do this. We're good enough, which is another part of what I love about punk. And I think that is part of why Metallica and Thrash Metal, it has at its core a little bit of all of those things happen. As was told to me, they go down to Los Angeles and they see this basis who is playing with another band. And they absolutely fall in love with him. And then they're like, dude, you have to come and join our band.

and he's like, well, I'll consider it, but there's no way I want to be a part of a corporate band. Is that sort of, did I get that story right? I don't know about the corporate band part. That would make sense. I mean, you have to remember Cliff Burton famously kind of looks like this disheveled hippie, like with his long hair and bell bottom jeans and he had a mustache. He did not look like kind of the sunset. Stereotypical hair metal band. Not at all, which, I mean, this was a new, it was sort of developing at the time.

We weren't at Motley crew levels yet, although they were around the corner. But he definitely looked a little bit out of place. Although I've since learned that it's been described. His hair has been described, even though it looks in photographs like he's a disheveled hippie. Apparently it was immaculately combed and very clean. He smelled nice. It's a very interesting detail about... Shout out to clean smelling men.

So you're right about the formation of the band. At a certain point, Dave Mustaine, who later went on to famously, after being kicked out, Metallica went on to form Megadeth. He's the original guitar player. It's the four of them. At a certain point, he gets kicked out, and Kirk Hammett joins the band. And they go on to record their first three records, Kill them All, which is originally called Metal Up Your Ass, Ride the Lightning, which I just alluded to, that song Fight Fire with Fire is on their second record. And then they record this, their magnum opus, Master of Puppets, which comes out in 86 with this classic lineup.

And then unfortunately, tragedy hits, as we were just discussing earlier. Yeah, I mean, like, Burden's on the bus and there's an accident in Sweden, right? Yeah, they're on a tour promoting a promotional tour, and it just, he's dead. I mean, like, it's a pretty brutal death, too. This is before there was a lot of safety measures. You know, I've done deep ties on this because we all want to know why did Cliff die? And apparently they're just like the window just... He was thrown out the window and then the bust lands on it.

It's almost like comic overkill. It's horrible. And it's tragic. And this is the last record that he ever made with Metallica. And sort of the rest of their career, you know, they're very reverent towards Cliff. And, you know, how seminal, how important he was to the band's DNA. Like all these elements that came together really were cemented with his musicality and his choices. And he plays bass unusually, and we'll hear this in a minute, not with a pick, but with his fingers.

So all of these great creative choices. And a lot of amazing stuff comes from Cliff Burton. Let's build up Master of Puppets. So the first stim you want to play for us. Where are we starting? We're going to hear a little Lars Ulrich on drums. And this is from the pre-chorus section. And I'll get into a minute, like the significance of calling something the pre-chorus.

That's a real choice I've made. because there are nine different sections of this song. So this is one of these nine sections. And here we go. Lars Ulrich. Raw. I'm just going to rip the band-aid off. Lars, as a person who's not a Metallica fan, Lars comes across to the rest of the world.

Like, he does not seem like... Like, when I think about metal people, I'll be honest. My opinion has changed over time. When I was a kid, you know, like they seemed like they were the bullies, you know, quite honestly in school. You know, that was probably because I was... raised on 80s and early 90s movies where like the person who's dressed like metal

is inevitably like the drug dealer you run into an alley and he wants to beat you up that's what Hollywood taught me now I know that people who are into metal are some of the warmest usually like the nicest you know closeted nerds if you will that you can ever run

into present company accepted but Lars does not seem like that he seems like a is that am I completely wrong to me he's the guy who's sweet Napster and is like way too rich is that fair is larzid i'm trying to like stay measured in this show and i know we never come at people at the show we always stay positive i'm just i'm speaking on the behalf of those who've seen him in interviews but it's not really a hot take you know let's face it like this is a pretty pervasive feeling he didn't

do himself any favors with the whole napstra episode where he comes out and as a millionaire and you know sues i need more boots sue's children for downloading i mean his song to so he doesn't make that dollar like that was not a good move for prs from a PR standpoint point, I would say. And then he doesn't do himself a lot of favors when he's being interviewed. And you can tell, like, I was listening to Stern interview them. And the interview was over. And Stern was like, thanks for coming on. It was a two-hour interview. And Lars was like, I got one more thing to say. And then there's a five more minutes of like a soliloquy from Lars Ulrich. So I like that you use Stern like that. I would be like to some of our listeners, Howard Stern is the Steve Harvey of White Radio.

But seriously, I mean, like between Lars and James Hepfield, you know, their collaboration is that of legend. Like, are they the metal, Lenin and McCartney? That's a great question. And the answer is, absolutely, they are the Lennon and McCartney of metal. I'm just going to go out on the limb and say that's accurate. The way they write music from what I understand, it starts with James basically making riffs. And they would make these things called riff tapes. And they would just compile riff after rift.

And again, when we get to the guitars, you'll hear exactly what I mean, because especially their earliest compositions, their first three records. Once you know this, you're like, oh, I can see how this song unfolded. So James is the riffmaster and Lars is, according to what I understand, the two of them sit down, they listen to the riff tapes and they decide, hey, this would go well after this one. This could go with this. Hey, this is its own song. And they kind of arrange things together.

And the songwriting process really goes down that way. And the way they're writing sometimes, I'm sure, they're playing, they're probably performing together as well, like Lars is playing drums. But the main thing is they come up with all of these individual ideas and then piece them together to form a song. together collectively. I love that. One more thing I just want to say about this whole riff tape idea and their songwriting process is that there's something funny I heard I heard Lars mentioned an interview that like back in the days before they even had the tape machines or maybe

they would be like sitting in front of the TV writing something and they didn't have the tape machine available. You know how would they remember the riff was the question was asked and the answer was they would just like Kirk would just sit there and you'd play it over and over again and make sure you wouldn't forget and then the next day when they finally had access to a tape machine. If they'd forgotten it, then it just, it wasn't good enough anyway. So they would just let it go. But like, the sign of a good riff was like, oh, yeah, the next day I remembered it so I can record it. So I thought that was pretty funny. That's pretty funny. You know what else I'm realizing, I'm realizing you are a middle head because every single metalhead I know rocks band

t-shirts. Like, I've been a fan of so many different genre of music. And yet, I think maybe I've had a Fuji's t-shirt and I might have a vintage da-punk t-shirt somewhere. But like only, I feel like, Only metalheads literally will not leave the house without a band t-shirt. Have I just, have I stayed at the obvious? I can't think of any other genre that's like that. I think that's not only is that nailing it, but I'm kind of realizing, as you say it, that that is totally accurate.

I definitely wear band shirts because on the cover of this album, Metallica's Master of Puppets, James is wearing, iconically, there's a Misfits T-shirt with artwork by Pusshead, who's this iconic punk and metal, illustrator. And so is actually, I'm noticing now, so is Cliff. He's wearing a different

Misfit shirt. This is how I heard of the misfit. I was just about to say, I never heard the Misfits music long after I saw those T-shirts. The Misfits 100%. First of all, by the time this record came out, they were a defunct band. Glenn Danzig had already gone on to do Sameen or Sowing

as some people pronounce it pretentously. And then Danzig, his more recent incarnation, but they were a tiny, like, relatively unknown. They made their own 45s, and they only had 500 copies. So these Metallica broadcast to the world, their influences, their inspirations, not just with the T-shirts, but they also did some really important covers records called the Garage Day series.

And so here is the first Misfit song I would have heard, thanks to Metallica, covering it on their covers album. Here's the original. This is the Misfits, and the song is called Last Caress. Okay, I'm going to call this out because if you'd put it, played that for me on any other episode, I would consider that punk. I would not consider that metal. No, no, you're right.

That's the misfits. That is punk. No, no, I know. But I guess that's my thing is that like, and I feel like this is one thing that hip-hop is done. I feel like early on and in the hip-hop, after the source stopped giving out five mics on stuff. Like, we didn't let the journalists and the musicologists define anything

in the genre, because I think one of the problems that rock music in general, but also specifically like hard rock, heavy metal, metal, thrash, Like, there are too many genres. And, like, there's so much overlap. Yeah. And at the end of the day, like, a lot of this stuff,

especially to the untrained ear, sounds very similar. But then, like, it gets so, it gets so granular that it's hard to talk about any of it, you know? But I think the case you're going to make is that Metallica saw themselves as part of the punk lineage before the sort of term thrash metal comes in. But your comment actually leads perfectly into an explanation I'm realizing because really what we've been talking about with the whole the differences between the genres

and like how does it go from hard rock to punk to metal? Like actually listening to the Misfits original and then the Metallica cover of it is a perfect way of explaining it. So now that we've heard the Misfits were a New Jersey based punk band from the late 70s here is, that was their

original song called Last Caress and here is what Metallica did when they covered it. So it's awful. Those are some awful lyrics, but let's just say we are not here to defend any former lyrics. We did not write them. The point is that that's the same song, but what Metallica does, and the reason why what they've done

is new and different, even though it seems small and subtle, is perfectly encapsulated in that. You have to remember, Metallica starts as a cover band. They start their career playing songs from England that were a part of a subgenre called the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which Lars knows

because he's from Denmark, so he brings over his record collection. Doesn't really exist in America. Of course he is. Of course he is. You know what, what a weird name. It never occurred to me that dude wasn't born in Cincinnati. His dad's like a tennis star in Denmark. And they go out and they play these covers of bands that no one in America has heard of, like Budgie and Diamond Head.

They play four Diamond Head songs, I think, and they don't necessarily point out that they aren't their own songs. So they're like a cover band, and they play the song. They're not lying. They're not saying, this is our new song. They're just not saying that it's a cover, which is important because they're embodying this material that they love. And the only way they're changing it is by crunching the guitars a little more, shouting a little more hoarsely, and it's a little faster.

And that is the transition from punk to thrash, almost in a nutshell, perfectly encapsulated by this last caressed before and after from Misfits into Metallica. This is a confessional episode for me. First time I heard Master of Puppets, I'm pretty convinced was on Stranger Things when I was watching with everybody else. I think a lot of people. I was like, oh, wow, Eddie's shredding during this song. But like, you know, that was the first time I heard this. Obviously, I knew Enter the Sandman and some of the other stuff that they had done because I watched the MTV Video Music Awards back in the early 90s.

But I didn't know Master of Puppets, so this is all... Metal is fairly insular in part because there isn't a lot of radio play. There wasn't any... They didn't make any videos on purpose. Like Metallica for their first four records were like MTV's not going to play this anyway. Let's not even bother to release singles or make albums. We have our own fan base. They are tour monsters.

That's how metal exists really at that time, especially. It's just being on the... road and every time they go to, you find, you know, the metalheads, the gutter punks, the sort of misfits, really, no pun intended. These are people for whom they are kind of outcasts in high school, but this music, like for me, I was a funny version of this type of person, but I totally identify with and recognize I do not belong here. You know, that's interesting that you gravitated this music because it was aggressive. Yeah. I think that the prevalence of aggressive music in sort of underground hip-hop when I was coming up was

was so stark that we had to find antidotes to that. So we would gravitate towards public enemy or we gravitate towards de la soul because there was politics there and it was and to a certain extent it was all about improving your community. You know what I mean? So it was less about I hate my parents, you know?

And it was more about like oh man how are we going to get rid of the drugs? How are we going to get rid of the gangs? I'm only speaking from a personal experience. There are so many African American metal heads out there. There are African Americans in groups, and we would be wrong

to not mention groups like Hyrax, you know, Derek Green, who is a front man. You know, he's an amazing front man. And I remember body count, like there are so many you know black metal bands, for the lack of a better

term, both in the past and currently. Yeah. So I am only speaking for myself. I don't want to make it seem like this is a purely white and black thing because there are a lot of people who are black and are into this music. And I just want to state that very clear from the time. Well, and I was, I'm so glad you said that because I wanted to give a shout at some point to my favorite, one of my favorite bands of all time who happened to be black and they are maybe the greatest black heavy metal slash punk band. They're more punk than

metal. But bad brains. Yeah, bad brains. I think so many people. Another good that I saw the t-shirt before I heard the music. They're one of these bands that they're a, I mean, they have a lot of actual fans that are just non-musicians but they are a musicians musician type of band i don't know a single musician who doesn't adore bad brains and if you haven't heard them because it's surprised they do not really get their due in culture in general and they're kind of undersung so i just want to play one of my favorite i feel like musicians know them yeah and hopefully the connection between metallica so again bad brains starts as a punk band and then morphs a little bit into not quite a heavy metal band but they have heavy metal moments such as this one this is soulcraft by bad brains

So hard. Have you heard that before? No, but I'm immediately intrigued. Not even because they're black, but just because there's something sonically in it that I'm really into. They are so unique, and Bad Brains need their flowers in this culture. Yes, I totally agree. But getting back to Bastra Puppets, you want to play this one more drum.

Yeah, here's a little more Lars Ulrich in the nude. I said it like that. It's just him playing drums. He's not naked. So he's gone to town there. It's not perfectionist. It's a little messy. It's a little sloppy.

Yeah. But that's sort of the goal, right? But it sounds great. And in the mix, it sounds dope. In fact, I'll play that part for you in a minute with some of the other sections. So you can hear how it all gels together. In fact, if you'd like to move on to the bass section, let's get into that Cliff Burton magic. I mean, that sounds incredibly difficult to play.

It's pretty hard to play. It's two fingers doing 16th notes like in time, to the meter, to a very fast tempo. Cliff was kind of a genius in that way. And his sound, that rumble, that low growl. is he put a lot of time and effort into getting his sound in the mix. Like he wanted to shape how he sounded. I love that. And that happens also a little bit more with fingers.

That's part of the reason why bass players play with fingers is you have more control. You can control with a pick as well, but it's just a different type of control. It's more personal. You're really getting into the string. He's trying to find a sound. Yeah. I think Cliff had a vision for how it all fit in the mix. So I'll play you another section.

This is Cliff, and this is playing along with, then I'll add Lars's drums in the mix. So you can kind of hear how it all. Okay. We'll build it up. Plugs in. I'm going to play you one more thing. This is the slow section in the middle. I'll play the whole thing, and then I'll show you what Cliff's doing.

It's really incredible. You know, when you play the headfield moments, I'm like, okay. All right, this sounds like metal. But I feel like the bass is just a welcoming instrument. It welcomes you in no matter what genre you're into. It's a melody. It's something and it's... It tickles the pleasure centers because it's doing...

It's playing almost like a singable melody. and not just sort of laying down the groove, like maybe an ACDC song that just plays the bone, don't, don't, don't, or Van Halen. I totally agree. I totally agree. After the break, we'll be getting deeper into the meaning of Master of Puppets, and we can't do a metallic episode without talking about some kind of monster, the documentary. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to one song. Luxury, what could you tell me about your lifestyle determines your death style? Well, the first thing I can tell you is that just hearing those lines together, I have a little cringe part of my body just does this. Like when you're trying to get the bowling ball to go a certain way, I'm like, oh, there's a fantastic documentary about Metallica. Right. It's called Some Kind of Monster.

It details the making of the album St. Anger, which is not my favorite record. It makes me think, actually, it's so funny. You know that, have you ever seen that Weezer SNL sketch where Leslie Jones and Matt Damon have this wonderful... Kind of a modern S&L question? It's like a dinner table argument about Weezer's first three records, kind of their first two records. And Leslie is taking the position like they were never the same after Pinkerton. And that's a little bit the case, I think, for a lot of Metallica fans, myself included. It's these first...

I'm related to one. It's these first three records. It is Kill them all. It is Ride the Lightning and it is Master of Puppets. And we'll give Anjustice for All, maybe a little side eye, but we like And Justice for All right. it has no bass content because Cliff Burton dies and the new bass player takes over Jason Newstead and they're like razzing him so much

that they turn his bass down on the album this strange cutting off your nose despite your face thing. And it changes the sound of the band. I feel like it's a very different sounding band. That record has no bass in it. It's a very strange audio experience. I was going to say in preparing for this episode

I did go and listen to those first three albums and it didn't sound like when I think of Metallica it was a different sound than the one I was thinking about. But for those people who haven't seen the documentary, some kind of monster, can you walk us through what it is and why it's so groundbreaking? I think everyone should see some kind of monster,

even if you're not a Metallica fan. If nothing else, you will see, it's basically that it's a documentary. It's a film crew following them as they're making their album, which turns out to be St. Anger, but in the middle of it, they happen to capture, as the best documentaries do, real life happening. James quits the band. He goes to rehab.

There's fighting. There's arguing. There's like a new producer. there's a therapist, this man with funny shirts, excuse me, sweaters, Phil Towel. They hire a band psychiatrist because when James comes back, there's like this whole new dynamic and you're watching this all unfold and your jaws on the floor

because this is a heavy metal band and they're talking about their feelings. And in 2003, 2004, when this movie's out, that's kind of a revelation. This is a genre that is about just kind of toxic masculinity. The sopranos of metal music. That's a great analogy. This is like, the genre of heavy metal is very much about like aggression and anger and it's not about your feelings.

And I mean, it kind of is buried in there. But the outward display, it's metal and spikes and, you know, all of this like gear, right? And that's meant to convey the sort of protective layer, this armor, which in this documentary, you see James kind of a light bulb go off. And he's like, all of this anger comes from my past and my mom. And we were a Christian, they were Christian scientists. So they didn't believe in medicine. and his mom dies of cancer, and they didn't treat her. And he's angry and understandably so.

So knowing that backstory with James, I think, gives you kind of some insight into these first few records where it's just rage, and their nickname was Alcoholica because they drank all the time. And they're living this hedonistic life, and it's fueled by anger. And this album they make in the movie is called Saint Anger. You're watching him figure out anger.

Guitars, obviously, play a very prominent role in this song. Can you walk us through some guitar stems? Guitars are everything in this band and in this song. It's absolutely true. Interestingly, in these guitars, you'll hear it. There's not a lot of sonic differentiation. From one part of the song to the next, from one album to the next even. Like Metallica kind of always sounds like Metallica.

They have a guitar sound that's present all the time with slight variations. But crunchy guitars, that's what the sound of metal is. That's the sound of Metallica. So you'll hear that in a moment when I play for you some of these guitar stems. This is James Hetfield. And this is arguably the main riff from Master Puppets by Metallica, although it is actually the third riff you'll hear in the song. And there's one thing I want to say about that.

It's been hotly debated on the internet. What exactly is the time signature of that? I was just about to ask, is this three, four time? That's a great... Exactly. I was literally going to ask that. I'll play it for you in the mix so you can hear what's happening. One, two, three, four, one, two, three.

It kind of comes in early. So it could be technically done, two, three, four, one. one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, one, two, three. It could be where they drop one, so it's a bar of three. So three, dun, dun, regular bars of four. And then, but it's kind of not precise. And there's some technical dissections on the internet where people go in and they're like, well, actually, it's 2132. Yeah, no, it gets, listen. The precision. You want to see drummers lose their mind is when you start getting into like six, eight. Yeah. And, and, and all these weird, like, time signatures, which, You know, depending. I mean, like, I, you know, long-time listeners of the show know that I'm a huge Beatles fan. Happiness is a warm gun is one of my favorite songs because it changes time signature so many times. But when you get to changing time signatures, the DJME hates you. Oh, yeah.

It's just like, people can't dance to this stuff. But, of course, people aren't supposed to be dancing to some of this stuff. And we're not here to always dance. We're not playing any Kim Krimson in our sets or, you know, early Genesis. It's just impossible. In my humble opinion, this is for guys playing music and feeling how to have that moment take place. Yeah. It's not precise rhythmically to like the metron.

In defense of time signature weirdness, it does elicit a reaction. Right. You know, like, and absolutely like that, that. It leaves you a little breathless. Yeah, well, that jumping of the last, you know, beat or whatever it is, it is, it speaks to the aggression. It's like, I won't even play that last beat. I'm going where I want to go right now. You know, like, it's just very visceral.

Right, right. The anger takes the form of reducing, changing the meter by dropping. Yeah, there are no rules. That beat, man. That fourth beat. I won't play as you play, Dad. That's metal to me. I'm guessing you got more guitar stuff for me.

Hit me with it. The hardest part of this song is out of the nine riffs, which riffs do I play and which do I not play? There are many riffs. There are so many riffs. Here is technically, well, I'm just going to call this the pre-chorus. We heard this is what I played earlier with the drums and the bass. So I'll play you the guitar and then you'll hear how it all fits together. This is that come crawling faster section.

And now bring in Lars. Let's bring Slip in. Which will get to the end. Okay, so I just quickly want to play for you the one and only interpolation, potentially in this song. This has been widely discussed. You know, we're not sample snitches on here. But this is kind of a fun thing to hear.

So there's this moment in what would technically be the not. ninth riff in the song. And here it is. That reminds me a little bit of this. Not a little bit of that David Bowie, Andy Warhol. It's not exact, but you know they heard that song. I hear it. I hear it.

I mean, like, we're not snitching. We're not snitching. This is out there. But influences, look, you're going to wear your influences on your sleeve or on your shirt. To me, that's an homage. That's a shout out. That's a shout out to their love of Bowie.

You know, that's what that is. I will say that, yeah, I'm seeing more and more of the, the through line between metal and classical. You know, maybe jazz is to punk as classical is to metal, because I feel like these guys are such technicians. Yeah, it's very precise. It's very precise. And, you know, you have to, as I think, as a creator,

figure out that balance between what is planned and what is, you know, unforeseeable and kind of magical when it happens. There's very little spontaneity, it sounds like, right, in this song, in the production of it, at least, or at least in the final, like, recorded form. Totally. Yeah. It doesn't have that punk or jazz to your comparison, right?

Is that kind of what you were saying? Yeah, but you know, I'm also seeing, I'm also seeing through lines between hip hop and Metallica here. Because, as you said, like, that was like maybe the ninth riff of the song. Yeah. And, like, usually if you come up with a cool riff, if you come up with nine cool riffs, you might come up with nine cool songs and you might put that riff in the spotlight. But I'm reminded of how. a lot of ludicrous songs and a lot of Little John songs.

Like, you could argue that, at least in those two cases, they take their verses could all be choruses. What's an example of that? I'm going to find it to talk about it. If you think about get low, the sort of the ultimate Little John track, back it up, back, back it up. Aw, snap, back, back it up.

That's just a verse. Okay. This is not the chorus, but this could have been the chorus to a song. It's like another idea. It's like another idea where they're like, you know what? Let's just do it. Ludicrous said he would actually work on in songs like this. Like he would be like, you know, I want people to be chanting along and singing along during the verse.

So I'm going to take like verse ideas, I mean, chorus ideas and make them part of the verse. So you know. But you're saying it's the same musical bed, but with a new lyrical and melodic idea on top. I'm just saying, you know, usually, again, if you have nine. great ideas for a chorus you might try and write nine songs what those two hip hop artists did and what

Hetfield I guess Battalica did was like no I'm just going to put all these great ideas into one song because I've got so many great ideas and sometimes it works. An interesting connection from that is that that's also a classic Max Martin technique we were talking about Max Martin of Britney Spears

episode right for Toxic but think about a lot of his songs like think about my loneliness is killing me that's the main chorus. But at the end, she goes on to with the same musical bed. We have, My Loneliness is killing me. I still believe, I must confess that my loneliness is killing me now. It's like a second idea. I guess what we're saying, folks, is don't save anything for the next song. Throw it all at the wall. From the window to the wall, just throw it all in. All right. Final part is the vocals. You would call it singing your father. The Robbins in general might call it screaming, coming from

Blake's teenage Blake's room. But Hethfield, he apparently really worked on his voice over the years. He did, but not yet in this song. What you're going to hear is pre-work Metallica, where he really is just shouting it and the anger and the rage has not been matched with technique and saving your vocal cords from destruction. At this point, this is just you're only hearing the raw, young, angry Christian scientist, you know, upbringing of James Hedfield.

But you're right, later in life. And actually, another shout out to this great documentary, you know, that's the beginning of him trying to learn to sing properly. And he becomes a really good singer. And now when you see them perform live, he's still able to perform these songs. And they sound the same, but you can... Even in the 60s. It's richer. He's in a 60s now, right?

Yeah. And his voice is richer than ever. He's obviously protecting it. It's a smart move to learn how to sing properly. But at the time, these nodules galore, I'm sure, are going on in those vocal chords. Well, let's hear a little bit. Okay, I'm going to start with the come crawling faster part. Again, there's nine different sections of the song.

We can't get to all of them, but here are some of my favorite. Your life burns faster. This might have been the other reason why I didn't want to listen to this song, because the white guy's screaming, obey your master? I'm like, nah, I'm checking out. I want to talk about this just for a minute, because if you watch any live footage of Metallica, what happens in this song is Master Master is being chanted by 50,000 mostly white people,

mostly males with their arms in the air. And spikes on their wrist. It looks like Master. master, they have a bunch of songs where there's a fist, like there's die by my hand. Like this is a rally in a way and there's something about it that makes me uncomfortable. And it's part of the reason why I took a minute for this show to remember that this is on my short list and to get to the point where I wanted to do the episode. There's enough about this that is meaningful to me from my youth. It's still music I like to listen to.

But there's something about its culturalness that I'm working through. You're working through. I'm working through. Right. Can we hear some more vocals? Let's do it. Master, master, where's the dreams that I've been after? Master, Master, promised only lies.

Laughter, laughter, laughter, laughing at my cries. So that's all happening during... Laughter at my cries? Is this a political song? What is Master of Puppets actually about? That's a good question. I should have asked you this before we do. did an episode about it.

What is this song actually about? In your opinion? Or is there a codified everybody agrees opinion about what this song is? James is famously, like, reticent about, like, being explicit about what his songs are about. He has just talked about, what I've heard him say many times is that it's about powerlessness, it's about addiction, and it's about control. I hear the powerlessness.

And by the way, I made the- It's about being manipulated, actually. Yes, I made the joke about, like, no, I don't want to hear a white guy screaming, obey your master. Clearly, he is, I think, singing from the point of view of the bad guy. That's right. He's talking about... Whether the 50,000 fans are singing from that point.

He is singing for the point of view of, like, you should not like the master. It's the untrustworthy narrator voice that you're hearing. And I think that's clear. I don't think... I think when you're listening, I mean, the lyrics are about, like, being succumbing to drugs or maybe religion and mind control of many different means. I'm reminded of the J. Rood, the Damages song. You Can't Stop the Prophet, where...

J. Rew rapses himself, but then there's another voice, which is clearly J.Rue's manipulated voice, I believe. And he's rapping as the purveyor of all the bad things of the black community. He's like, oh, you think you're going to defeat me, Prophet. You know, like that is almost like a hip-hop version of what I think, you know. Yeah, but that's interesting comparison. They're doing a Master of Puppet. Because also we just kind of heard that, like, low voice that we layered in there saying, Master! Master!

There's also like a master. Like, you know, he's overdubbing the regular singing shouting. This is not the good guy, boys. Yeah, that's the people guy boy. Famously, this song has this moment. We were just coming out of the slow section with the solo section with the faster solo. So James does it a little slow one. Kirk's about to do a fast one.

And this is how he introduces it. So what is he saying in this moment? Well, it turns out many years ago. Free steak? I'll play one more time before I play it for you isolated. Sixthes a! Free steak is what I hear. There's a really great story behind this moment.

So the story goes that Anthrax and Metallica are touring together many years ago. And they're having breakfast and it's Charlie from Anthrax and Cliff from Metallica. And Charlie says to Cliff like, okay, I've always wondered this. What exactly is James saying in that moment? Before the big solo, before Kirk takes his big solo, what does he say? And apparently Cliff Burton turns him and goes pancakes. And so now for the rest of Metallica, his career, they say pancakes in that moment.

I'll play that for you guys. Pancakes go is what he says to this day because of what Charlie and Cliff talked about. This is an inside joke for many years. I'll play one more time. Pancakes go. So now at long last, here is what James is actually saying in the famous pancakes go moment. Fix me! It's me?

Fix me. Fix me. Fix me! So he let Fix Me go to say pancakes go. Now it's just an inside joke for 30 years. Which I think is pretty awesome. That actually is, you know, hey, you learned something to do.

And I feel like people are really learning something new on this episode. That's the whole goal. We are here to educate. Fix Me is now Pancakes Go. Pancakes Go Fix Me. Now you know. Now what, Charlie from Anthrax didn't even know that. So now you know it.

Even I know. Even I know that. One thing about Metallica is that they still play live and they're like 60. I think we mentioned this earlier. What is it like for you as a fan to see these emblems of angry youth get old? I think it's great. So I think we grew up in an era when rock and roll was still like relatively new in a weird way. Like, you know, it's rock and roll begins arguably in the early 50s. By the time, you know, we, when I remember when Mick Jagger turned 40, and it was on the radio like, Mick Jagger is 40. And like that was a big deal. Because we have,

Because we have this idea right from the who in the late 60s. I hope I die before I get old. There's this whole idea that rock and roll is youth. There's a club of 27 and all that stuff. There can only, like rock and roll equals youth. I think what I'm literally investigating in this episode of this show, in the same way that the existence of this band is investigating. And kind of that documentary is investigating is what happens with this music as a maker of it,

listener of it, like when you're no longer a teenager. Right. When you're no longer even in your 20s, when you're no longer pushing in your third. Like what... Does it get embarrassing to rap or sing about the things that you thought were great when you were 17 and had no kids? I think the short answer is a little bit, a little bit embarrassing because... But here's the thing, to be really vulnerable and to answer you in real time, it's because it evokes that teenager who's still in me. Yeah.

And who I want to honor and, like, I'm so much happier at the age I am. It does get better, as they say. Yeah, yeah. I'm a much happier grown up and father and, like, life has gotten better. So I kind of want to reach out to that. And maybe by when I literally bring in the album that I had when I was a teenager and just think back with this physical object, I want to embrace that, you know, teenage me and say, you know, it does get better. But those feelings are also okay to have. And it's okay to grow with anger and rage and kind of reconfigure it.

They're still singing angry songs with angry music, but they are happy people. And that is okay. That's a beautiful thing, in fact. Embracing that maybe is what we should all aspire to. Okay, luxury. to end this discussion. Is there anything else that needs to be said about Master of Puppet? I think we've said enough.

Let's let Mr. Hetfield himself have the last laugh, if you will. I think they got the whole band in it. And I heard something funny in there. Did you hear? And then there's like a high-pitched one, he-he-ha-ha-ha. Yeah. It's feeling like Halloween.

Luxury help me in this thing. I am producer, DJ and songwriter, luxury. And I am actor, writer, director, and speaks for all black people, Diallo Riddle. And this has been one song. Remember, you can find us on socials. I am at luxury, L-U-X-X-U-R-Y on Instagram or L-U-X-X-U-X-U-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-O-L-O on Instagram. I am at Diallo at Dial-L-O on Instagram or at Diallo.

on TikTok. This has been one song. We will see you next time. One song! One song! One song! One song!