Metallica lives in a little bubble. We just do our own thing. We're not part of any trends or waves or fads. We can just do our own thing, all the time. It's a great luxury. I don't think we were really appreciative of it until recently, and really understood that it is what keeps us alive. It's great to be able to have the freedom to run around and do all this crazy stuff, and at all cost, avoid making another record, just to piss our managers off.

This isn't about fans, greed or money. It's about being morally right or wrong. Nobody is governing the way music gets from artists to fans. It's all running amok.

As the world gets smaller and communication spreads further and further out there, you try to find the right balance.

One of my few shortcomings is that I can't predict the future.

I don't like to be pigeonholed, and I really like that people never really know what's going on with Metllica.

I'm just sittin here trying not to be unhappy.

Stretching your parameters is a necessity if you wan to keep growing, and sometimes the best way to do that is to dive into the deep end.