The Influential Songwriter That Metallica’s James Hetfield Believes Is the “Master Craftsman at Lyrics”

Since helping form the heavy metal band Metallica, James Hetfield watched as the band sold millions of albums and helmed numerous tours over the decades. Releasing albums like Load, St. Anger, and their latest, 72 Seasons, the band continues to entertain fans and record new music. Metallica’s ongoing success even landed Hetfield in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009. While an icon in the music industry, Hetfield recently listed the one person who he believed was a “master craftsman at lyrics.” 

Videos by American Songwriter

Appearing on the Metallica Report podcast, Hetfield dove into the work of lyric writing. While writing songs for Metallica, the singer didn’t shine the light on himself as he named Tom Waits. “As far as Tom Waits just being a master craftsman at lyrics, painting a picture in one sentence, it interests me, and it takes work. I saw Tom kind of live it. It was his vocabulary as well. He could sit and speak like that. I can’t.”

[RELATED: How Metallica’s James Hetfield Still “Channels” The Spirit of Late Bandmate Cliff Burton]

James Hetfield Not Only Praised Tom Waits

While Hetfield praised Waits for his ability to write, he wasn’t the only one to make it on the rocker’s list. Throughout the conversation, Hetfield also discussed the songwriting of bands like Greenday. “[Writing lyrics] is kind of like building a vehicle, building a whatever, collecting lots of little words. And how do they fit together? What does this really mean? Is this enough for a subject matter?” He continued, “Then I go and I watch a band like Green Day, and they have some simple [lines like] ‘Know your enemy’ or ‘Do you know your enemy?’, something like that. It’s so hooky and great, it sticks in you, but that’s not really literary geniusness.”

With a band using several instruments to bring a song to life, Hetfield considered songwriting to be just another instrument in the process. “For me, putting words into the song, it is like another instrument. So if ‘and’, ‘the’, ‘if”, those things get in the way, just get rid of ’em. You just want the meaty words to get in there and get the point across and be vague enough. But I’m not a storyteller. I’m not that.”

(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)