Why do you think the announcement of the original S&M provoked such a divided reaction from Metallica fans?
“Like any deep genre, people want things to stay the same. I learned getting into this genre that there’s the metal police, but there’s also the jazz police and the classical police, so it’s a certain kind of fan who has a moment they treasure that they think is the pinnacle of something, and then when a band moves in a different direction, it’s hard on them. But if you’re an artist, rather than staying in one place and doing the same thing over and over, the impulse to move forward is a noble one, to try things, to take risks. And that seems to have always been part of Metallica’s MO.”