Doing things the way you see it, going by your own heart and soul, that is pure artistic integrity. Whether the hair is six or sixty inches long, the eyes have make-up or not, the riffs are in 'E' or 'F' sharp, the amps are Marshall or not, all those things don't matter if you are doing it for the right reason, which to me means doing it for yourself!!

As long as it says Metallica on the record it's Metallica.

I would say [Lamar] Kendrick, it`s always fun to see what happens when Kendrick takes the stage. And my two oldest kids are huge fans of him.

What Metallica always tries to do, as we go around and play a lot of the same cities, over and over again, year after year, is to give a different experience. We try to never play the same venues, or if we play indoors, we'll play outdoors, and all that type of stuff. It's always about just trying to do a different kind of experience.

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.

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.