James Hetfield
Overview
James Alan Hetfield is the rhythm guitarist, co-founder, main songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

, and lead vocalist
Lead vocalist
The lead vocalist is the member of a band who sings the main vocal portions of a song. They may also play one or more instruments. Lead vocalists are sometimes referred to as the frontman or frontwoman, and as such, are usually considered to be the "leader" of the groups they perform in, often the...

 for the American heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 band Metallica
Metallica
Metallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...

. Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering a classified advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich
Lars Ulrich
Lars Ulrich is a Danish drummer, and one of the founding members of the American thrash metal band Metallica. He was born in Gentofte, Denmark to an upper-middle class family. A tennis player in his youth, Ulrich moved to Los Angeles, California at age sixteen to pursue his training; though rather...

 in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler
The Recycler
The Recycler is a Los Angeles based, classifieds only newspaper, started by Gunter and Nancy Schaldach in 1973. The Recycler was based in Silverlake and was subsequently sold to the Times Mirror Company in 1998....

, searching for band members. Since then, Metallica has won nine Grammy Awards and released nine studio albums, three live albums, four extended plays, 24 singles.
Quotations

"I like playing music because it's a good living and I get satisfaction from it. But I can't feed my family with satisfaction."

Playboy, April 2001

"Dying, dying, someone told me just recently, dying is easy. Living is hard. for everyone."

MusiCares, May 14, 2006

"If I hadn't have had music in my life, it's quite possible I could be in here. Or nor even in here, be dead — and I'd much rather be alive."

at St Quentin, during the videoshoot for St Anger

"Everybody is born good and everybody has got the same size soul. We're here to connect with that."

at St Quentin during the videoshoot for St Anger

All the drinking and all the other junk that I was stuck in... It was so predictable. So boring. I wake up the next day - somewhere, in some bed, I don't know who this person is next to me... and I'm drunk, competely hung over and have a show to do. The result is the same... When life now is pretty... exciting. You don't know what's gonna happen.

Some Kind of Monster, 2003 - Talking about his addictions and big changes.

 
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