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James Hetfield might be one of the biggest rockstars alive, but he still gets "nightmares" before heading out on tour with Metallica. During a recent episode of The Metallica Report podcast, the frontman admitted to feeling anxious before the band's current European tour.
“The normal thing happens, where I start to doubt myself,” he confessed. “I start to feel insecure – ‘Well, we’re old; we can’t do this; blah, blah, blah.’ All that bull***t everyone tells themselves before they go into something they care about.”
That anxiety translates into “having the nightmares [where] I’m the only one who cares about what we’re doing here. … I show up at the gig, everyone’s goofing off. Where’s my stuff? Where’s the set list? The guitar neck is made of rubber and there’s only two strings on it – where’s my roadie? And the guitar cord won’t let me get to the microphone. Silly stuff like that.”
“That has to happen, and I don’t freak out over it," Hetfield noted. "You have anxiety build up, and don’t let it get the best of you because you have that balance of anxiety and faith. And as soon as you get up there, it’s all gonna be good.”
Metallica plan to tour North America this summer. See the full list of dates here.