James Hetfield Reveals His Style Of Writing Song Lyrics For Metallica

Frontman Metallica, James Hetfield (Instagram @metallica)

JAKARTA - Metallica's frontman, James Hetfield is not only good at making riffs, he is also an important figure behind the lyrics of Metallica's songs that are widely memorized by people.

In the latest episode of The Metallica Report', a podcast that offers up-to-date news about Metallica, Hetfield talks about how to use it when writing song lyrics.

For him, inserting words into the song is the same as putting the riff into the song. He admitted that the way he wrote the lyrics was the same as when playing musical instruments.

"For me, putting words into songs, it's like any other instrument," said James Hetfield.

Hetfield doesn't feel like he's learning words like someone studying literature. He also refuses to be said as a storyteller through lyrics.

"So if (the word) 'and, 'the', 'if', those things get in the way, just get rid of them. You just want the words weighing in there and convey their meaning and are quite vague," said the 61-year-old musician.

"But I'm not a connoisseur. I'm not that," he added.

Hetfield also shared how he had to write lyrics for 45 songs as Metallica worked on the album 'Load' and 'Reload' in the late 1990s.

"There are 45 songs that I have to write the lyrics on and I feel like, 'Wait a minute. I have to write lyrics for 45 songs. Crazy.' All 45 songs will not be as strong as one lyric that is written very well," he said.

At that time, Lars Ulrich (drums) and Greg Fidelman (co-producers) would look at the lyrics one by one and comment.

"I'll write what you need to believe," said Hetfield. "I'll talk about it and tell you about it. If it's not pleasing to hear, I understand, but I'm not going to put words that don't matter just to rhythm or whatever. And sometimes it's necessary. Rima can be more important than contexts in certain places, but I want those words to be as strong as possible."