James Hetfield: Lars Ulrich Has Never Practiced Until Maybe 4 Or 5 Years Ago

James Hetfield (Instagram @metallica)

JAKARTA - James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, and Metallica's Robert Trujillo reflect on their experience of performing at the Power Trip festival last weekend.

The inaugural three-day Power Trip rock and heavy metal event starts Friday (6 October) with a set of Iron Maiden and Guns N 'Roses. Next on the weekend are Judas Priest and AC/DC on Saturday, October 7, as well as TOOL and Metallica on October 8.

Hetfield and his bandmates arrived early at Power Trip to see all the bands, and Metallica's old photographer, Ross Halfin, capture them having fun watching Priest.

Now, in the latest episode of Metallica's official podcast, "The Metallica Report", James, Kirk and Robert are all talking about the Power Trip weekend.

"Fakta menarik: Lars [Ulrich, drummer Metallica] tidak pernah berlatih sampai -menurut saya mungkin empat atau lima tahun yang lalu, dia mulai benar-benar melatikan. Dan sekarang dia akan - kata saya, dia akan belatikan empat hari untuk set dua jam, itu yang perlu dia lakukan, dan itu luar biasa," kata Hetfield.

So there will be training [to Power Trip] at HQ [Milllica headquarters in San Rafael, California] for the previous few days. And I said, 'I wouldn't be here friends. I would be happy if we could find a training ground here [closer to the Power Trip festival], because I wanted to see all these other bands.' And Robert got on the boat, then we looked for a place here, on the polo pitch [at Empire Polo Club] to practice," he continued. "And I'm grateful Lars was willing to do it. So we did a practice there, then we came and we had a rehearsal and watched these bands. It's great to have our own complexes at a festival all day-of-day festival... We showed up, practiced and then went there and watched Iron Maiden. I mean, how cool is that?"

So for me, there is a lot of inspiration from every band that appears here. Just seeing age - I know age is nonsense. I mean, there are a lot of people in these bands who are in their early 70s, the late 60s, and that's inspiring. And the fact that they're still there is still hitting in hot weather like this is incredible."

"But every band has been a part of our childhood and our childhood on Metallica's adventure. So it's really cool to be a part of this. And we've been hanging out together in our early days, like at all the festivals we've been to and out. Yes, we'll play from the start and then watch all the other bands afterwards."

"We're going for a walk. It feels like that again. Of course, it's a different day, but we're all gathering here and it's really fun. It's great to see. I just realized that we're at the forefront and looking up, Rob Halford rides a motorcycle and there's fans behind us, looking at us, as if they're watching us. It's really cool? I think it's pretty cool."

"But in the end we are fans. We want to participate and see it. So it's been a fantastic weekend."