When James Hetfield Bared His Soul on ‘Nothing Else Issues’

Metallica shocked followers and critics with their self-titled fifth album — colloquially often known as the Black Album — which pivoted from topical, breakneck thrash metallic to pulverizing, catchy and even introspective exhausting rock.

Listeners had been particularly gobsmacked to listen to “Nothing Else Issues,” a bona fide energy ballad impressed by James Hetfield‘s homesickness. However followers who had been listening to Metallica’s ongoing musical evolution ought to have seen the music coming.

Earlier than releasing the Black Album in 1991, Metallica had pushed the boundaries of thrash with 1984’s Journey the Lightning, 1986’s Grasp of Puppets and 1988’s … And Justice for All. This triptych of albums discovered the Bay Space four-piece writing more and more technical, progressive preparations whereas additionally exploring uncharted melodic territory. Lightning‘s gloomy suicide ballad “Fade to Black” earned Metallica sellout accusations, whereas Justice‘s epic warfare dirge “One” earned them a Grammy and put them on the Billboard Sizzling 100 for the primary time.

Metallica had traversed all kinds of sonic terrain throughout their first 4 albums, and Hetfield had whittled his sociopolitical commentary to a razor-sharp level. On the Black Album, and significantly “Nothing Else Issues,” it was time for the singer to look inward. It wasn’t tough to do, with Hetfield wore down by the exhaustion and debauchery of the highway and lacking his girlfriend, Kristen Martinez.

Hetfield was initially reluctant to indicate “Nothing Else Issues” to his bandmates. “At first I did not even wish to play it for the fellows,” he advised Mojo in 2008. “I assumed that Metallica might solely be the 4 of us. These are songs about destroying issues, head banging, bleeding for the group, no matter it’s, so long as it wasn’t about chicks and quick vehicles, though that is what we appreciated. The music was a few girlfriend on the time. It turned out to be a reasonably large music.”

Regardless of Hetfield’s reservations, the demo of “Nothing Else Issues” acquired optimistic suggestions from his bandmates, significantly drummer Lars Ulrich, who welcomed the change from such intense, topical material. “We went by our CNN years, as we name it, the place me and James would sit on the sofa and watch CNN and go, ‘Yeah, we are able to write a music about this new political turmoil,'” Ulrich advised Rolling Stone in 1991. “The political factor has been performed out. Among the issues on the final album had been issues that pissed me off. … This time, the songs are the results of what’s been lingering in James. You possibly can go searching for issues that make you mad and also you write about them. This time, it is a matter of wanting inside, on the experiences you have been by.”

Watch Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Issues’ Video

“It is a music that is not secure,” Hetfield asserted in the identical interview. “It takes some nerve to do. We’re not purported to do one thing like that. Then you definately flip round and go, ‘Nicely, who mentioned we could not? We’re working the present right here.'”

Nonetheless, Hetfield was terrified when Metallica debuted “Nothing Else Issues” on the Black Album listening celebration at Madison Sq. Backyard on Aug. 3, 1991. “I needed to run on the market and see what they thought, in the event that they had been killing themselves or killing one another. Or falling asleep,” he admitted. But he was pleasantly shocked by the viewers’s response. “They had been actually attentive,” he enthused. “They had been actually listening to what it mentioned.”

Though early indicators pointed to Metallica having successful on their palms with “Nothing Else Issues,” they nonetheless waited greater than six months after the discharge of the Black Album to premiere the music dwell on March 2, 1992, in Cincinnati. “We saved placing it within the set and taking it out till we had been sure we had been truly in a position to play it,” guitarist Kirk Hammett advised The Village Voice in 2012. “I needed to relearn that entire intro half to play on my own onstage, which was a bit bit intimidating for me at that time. We by no means had a music that began that manner. After some time, as soon as we acquired it down, it was no drawback. As soon as we put our sights onto whipping a music into form and getting it collectively and able to play, we’re fairly good about placing it collectively and making it occur.”

Metallica launched “Nothing Else Issues” because the third single off the Black Album on April 20, 1992. The music peaked at No. 34 on the Billboard Sizzling 100, one rung above “One” and the Black Album’s second single and fellow energy ballad, “The Unforgiven.” However its modest chart placement belies its influence and legacy.

“Nothing Else Issues” proved that Metallica had the heart and the ability to put in writing poignant, heartfelt songs that resonated with listeners throughout generations. Hetfield, particularly, put his coronary heart on the road, and followers rewarded him by making “Nothing Else Issues” probably the most vaunted songs in Metallica’s catalog. Within the many years since its launch, it has been used for every part from first dances at weddings to tributes to fallen members of the Hells Angels Bike Membership. Elton John even praised the observe as “among the finest songs ever written” and lined it on 2021’s The Metallica Blacklist alongside Miley Cyrus and Chad Smith.

“It is completely loopy, that was the music that I assumed was least Metallica, least more likely to ever performed by us, the final music anybody would actually wish to hear,” Hetfield marveled to The Village Voice in 2012. “It was a music for myself in my room on tour after I was bumming out about being away from house. It is fairly superb. It is a true testomony to honesty and exposing your self, placing your actual self on the market and taking the danger, taking a chance that somebody’s both going to step in your coronary heart with spikes on or they are going to put their coronary heart proper subsequent to it, and also you by no means know till you strive. That solidified, I feel, that we had been doing the precise factor, writing from the center about what we felt, and you’ll’t go mistaken that manner.”