INTERVIEW with BEN APATOFF (author of METALLICA: THE 24.95 BOOK)
A great read - even if you are only newly interested in METAL!
Ben Apatoff is a writer for The New York Daily News, Metal Injection, Loudwire, The Quietus, and many more music sites and publications. His nearly lifelong passion for Metallica drove him to write "Metallica: The 24.95 Book" for Backbeat Books/Rowman & Littlefield. "The 24.95 Book" is more than just another fan-fueled work about the masters of Metal, it functions as an examination of their place in both music and society and how it has actually drawn people together - even while they may try to tear each other apart over the merits of this classic band.
T-BONES: Your book is both a “thinkpiece” and sort of the illustrated history of the band. While it is definitely overflowing with love, how did you keep your research in the realm of observer in opposition to devotee?
BEN APATOFF: Thank you! It was important for me to write the book that Metallica deserves, and give them a careful, objective look. Metallica doesn't phone in or sugar-coat their music, and I couldn't write a Metallica-worthy book if I didn't give them a fair, in-depth examination.
T-BONES: You also brilliantly bring the whole career together under the aegis of “they have never been trendy.” Would you say that is the secret to their success? Also, how do you feel they made the necessary change from Thrash-based Metal to the more commercial version on the Black Album?
BEN APATOFF: I think the secret to Metallica's success is unsolvable, which is part of what makes them so much fun to write about and speculate on. Everybody has different ideas about what makes them great. I think it was necessary for them to change because they're a band that thrives on changing, successfully or not, and that their restlessness is part of what makes them relatable to fans, even if we don't always enjoy the direction they go in. As for the more commercial metal on the Black Album, I'd say Lars is right in his assertion that Metallica didn't go mainstream, the mainstream came to Metallica.
T-BONES: With the Black Album celebrating its anniversary this year, you speak highly of its importance. How does listening to it now compare to the first release of it in 1991?
BEN APATOFF: It would be easy to say that I think about how it changed the world, but the truth is that I hear great songs. When I listen to the Black Album I'm not usually thinking about how it paved the way for generations of metalheads, or that it made people reevaluate punk and metal history, or that they made metal that Jane's Addiction fans could enjoy. I'm thinking about how hard "Holier Than Thou" slams, or the great lyrics to "The God That Failed," or how "The Unforgiven" rolls perfectly into "Wherever I May Roam."
T-BONES: Has its importance diminished as the first four continue to act as the necessities of every newly minted Metal fan or is that because their contribution from that album (as you theorize) is basically everything we hear on Metal radio today?
BEN APATOFF: Not at all. If anything, its significance has grown. Artists have been raiding the Black Album for ideas for thirty years now, but nobody has matched or surpassed it. It's also still most people's gateway Metallica record, or their gateway metal record overall. Like AC/DC, Metallica never released a greatest hits album, so people got into them through Back in Black or the Black Album, respectively, and those are now two of the biggest-selling, most influential albums ever.
T-BONES: When you were writing this book, I get the feeling you were cranking up an album or two and just letting the words fly out of your adrenaline-fueled inspiration. Is that so?
BEN APATOFF: Absolutely. I usually don't listen to Metallica while I write (it's too distracting), but I found it helpful to listen to each album again and again while I was writing about it. On the other hand, in On Writing Stephen King says he listens to Metallica when he writes, so maybe I'd have more success if I did that more often.
T-BONES: How long did you research this book and are there interviews or parts you wish you could have fit in it?
BEN APATOFF: 20+ years, if you count the Metallica articles and stories I pored over, remembered, and put into the book. There were some parts I couldn't fit in at risk of over quoting a source, which made me try to find clever ways to retell the stories in my own words.
T-BONES: Which is the most important Metallica album to you and why?
BEN APATOFF: Some serious metalheads will be appalled by this, but I'm going to say the Black Album. It's not necessarily my favorite, but it's a big part of what made me a fan, and I love how many arguments it causes. If metal is supposed to be controversial, there's nothing more controversial than the Black Album.
T-BONES: What if your reader was new to Metallica?
BEN APATOFF: I tried to make the book exciting for people who didn't know much about Metallica, as well as people who are longtime fans. I was inspired in part by books like Gabrielle Moss' Paperback Crush, where even if I didn't know much about the subject (in that case, the '80s and '90s YA,) the fandom and excitement were contagious enough for the reader to be riveted.
T-BONES: Their story remains this sort of Horatio Alger-esque “if you believe in yourself and work hard at it-you will prosper” tale. Does Metal in general benefit from having these origin stories of bands who went against the grain and followed their muse?
BEN APATOFF: I think so. The idea that Metallica had such astronomical success by making such unorthodox music is pretty inspiring, no matter how many of their innovations become normalized.
T-BONES: You mention that Metallica united the metalheads and the punks the same way Iron Maiden (or Motörhead even) did in England-except Metallica did more to blur the lines with covers and connections. Do you think that was a reflection of their sense of community ahead of their consciously trying to widen their audience?
BEN APATOFF: I don't know if they were trying to widen their audience--by their accounts, at the start, they were too punk for metalheads and too metal for punks. That did seem to help in the long run though, as punk and alternative audiences grew--how many other metal bands were covering the Misfits and Killing Joke in the 1980s?
T-BONES: Is it safe to say they worry no longer about widening their audience because they know it is built into their modus operandi now?
BEN APATOFF: I don't think it's safe to assume anything about Metallica, which is part of what makes them so much fun to watch. Who among us saw Lulu coming?
T-BONES: Favorite Metallica album and why? (Ed.: We divulge our favorite is "Ride The Lightning" and that our entrance to Metallica was "The 5.98 EP: Garage Days Re-Revisited" - also where Apatoff derives the title of his book)
BEN APATOFF: Ride the Lightning is a great answer! As I write in the book, several members of Metallica have named that as their favorite, and who am I to argue? Honestly, my favorite changes between the first five albums. But since you brought up the $5.98 EP, I'll say that it's my favorite of the "real ones know" records. If you're a serious metalhead, you know that EP rules.
T-BONES: You talk about how even the debate about old Metallica vs. new Metallica just keeps the myth-building in play. As a fan, what do you hope readers will extract from your book?
BEN APATOFF: I hope they enjoy it, that they learn something, and maybe it'll inspire them to enhance their life with a Metallica soundtrack.
Our thanks to Ben for his time as well as Pamela Nashel at Siren's Call, and the folks at Backbeat Books. For more information on Ben Apatoff, you can follow him on Twitter at @bapatoff. His next work will be a 33 1/3 book for Bloomsbury about the first Body Count album. For copies of "Metallica: The 24.95 Book" visit T-BONES.
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