Metallica's the only band I've ever been in and it's the only band I ever wanna be in.

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

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.

The worst day of my life was once that my mom didn't allow me to go to a Queen concert because I was grounded.

Back then, I was really into composing the entire solo, beginning to end. I wanted to have it at least 80 to 90 percent complete before going into the studio. I didn't improvise in the studio. I was young, and I didn't really have the development in my playing or the ability to show up with nothing and then put down 500 ideas. I can do that now because I'm so much more of a musician now.

The day Metallica's over, i'm not going to put an ad looking for another band. I'll put my drumsticks on the shelf and there's 14 other things I wanna try. Metallica's the only band I've ever been and it's the only I ever wanna be in.

The music business, or what`s left of it, is obviously a very - it`s like a wild west now.