“But a year later, here we are, all engaged. It’s hard for me to imagine that everybody was not feeling sort of the same thing, which was first and foremost, ‘How is James? Is he okay? Will he be okay? Will he find the tools, and will he find what he needs on the path of his recovery?’ And then at the same time, ‘How am I feeling about this? How is the band feeling about this?’ and all that kind of stuff. “I don’t know what Kirk told you, I don’t know what Rob told you, I didn’t read James’s interview. There’s a significant emphasis on your family, yourself, and the trajectory you’ve created for yourself outside of Metallica, so it’s an interesting place where all that kind of comes to a head and you have to prepare yourself for the ups and downs. “When you were 19 years old, maybe there was a greater emphasis on the collective or on the gang mentality, and when you’re 156 years old, like I am now, maybe the percentages shift. And then, ‘How is Metallica?’ which is a different conversation, and what gets tricky is that both of those conversations exist on parallel trajectories, but also overlap more often than not. So it’s like, ‘How is James, how is Lars, how is Kirk, how is Rob?’ That’s one conversation. And so like in any next level, strong, binding relationship, there are parallel paths, which are the state of the collective - the group - and the state of the individuals. We live our own lives, and Metallica’s the thing that connects us. We’re independent people from each other. This shit is never easy, but it’s also part of the ride, and so you just learn. “I’m not gonna bullshit you, if I look back to a year ago, there were days where I was more positive, there were days where I was less positive, and there were days where you sit and wonder, ‘How is this going to play out?’ And Kirk, Rob and I were probably talking and communicating closer and more intimately than ever before. We love each other, we believe in each other. It’s part of the ride, and, obviously, none of us are officially married to each other, but you know, in marriage vows you say ‘in the good times and the bad times, in health and in sickness, in ups and then downs,’ and if there’s anything that’s clear almost 40 years later, it is that we’re in this for the long haul. Started getting some more clarity, I mean, we’re coming up on 40 years here.
Then there was the ‘Helping Hands’ concert that got moved, so on and so forth. You just kind of sit there, and obviously your first thoughts are, is he okay? What’s going on? Then the Australian dates got moved.
You know, what does it mean for him, what does it mean for us, what does it mean for scheduling, all that shit.
“, two three days out from ‘S&M²’, I was told that James had some issues, and that he had to go and deal with that, and nobody at that time really knows what that means.