Sirius-Xm’s Jenny Eliscu was interviewing James Hetfield of Metallica during this weekend’s Lollapalooza festival. One of the first questions was along the lines of “So, you’ve never played Lollapalooza before?”
Since we considered this a pretty uninformed interview on a North American-wide alt rock station, we have some tips for interviewing Metallica:
1. Questions that begin with “So you’ve never done this before,” are either going to lead to a response, “No, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” or “You’re right, we haven’t done this before, and is there a question that can lead somewhere in there?” In other words, don’t ask questions that either lead to one word answers or looking unprepared for the interview.
2. Before asking such a question, Google “Metallica” and “Lollapalooza.” Hey, you’ll see that they headlined Lollapalooza 1996. That’s solid research!
3. Do more “in-depth research” on Wikipedia. Then don’t ask Metallica about Lollapalooza 1996 on your Alt Rock station. Because many Alt music fans would argue that mainstream 1996 Metallica ruined “alternative” Lollapalooza, which is why the entire festival was cancelled in 1998.
But if you ignore all the above, thank 2015 Metallica’s James Hetfield for being a good sport, despite often looking mean and angry on stage, after you asked a band that arguably ruined Lollapalooza if they ever played Lollapalooza.
