JAMES HETFIELD Relies On Audience Members To Help Him Get Through METALLICA Shows When He Is Not Feeling Good

Austria's radio station Hitradio Ö3 recently conducted an interview with METALLICA frontman James Hetfield. You can now watch the chat below.

Asked about whether he enjoys talking to the crowd during METALLICA's concerts, Hetfield said: "Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I mean, we're all human, and sometimes we feel very communicative and sometimes we don't. But most of the time, if I'm not feeling good and then we get up on stage, I just look at somebody in the eye and just say, 'Hey, I need your help tonight.' And they usually… I mean, I'm not asking them directly, but through the eyes I'm asking them, 'I need your help.' And they give it to me… somehow."

METALLICA recently completed a tour where the band played a nearly all-request set, with 17 songs chosen online by fans prior to each gig and the last slot filled by a new track, "Lords Of Summer".

METALLICA drummer Ulrich Ulrich told RollingStone.com that "Lords Of Summer" "is fairly representative of where our creative headspace is at right now. It's one of those things that's like, 'Here, we're writing and we're creating.'"

The drummer recently told "Metal Zone" about the band's next record, "I'm pretty convinced that 90 percent of the record is actually written, it's just gotta be kind of assembled between all those riffs. It's just a matter of connecting this to this and sort of shaping it into a song."

Ulrich said that U.S. fans might get to experience "Metallica By Request" either next year or in 2016, depending on when the band's new album is finished.

METALLICA was featured in a recent ESPN "This Is SportsCenter" ad which plays off the idea that the band members don't know what to do with themselves since Yankees star reliever Mariano Rivera retired last season and took his "Enter Sandman" entrance music with him — so the band begins a desperate search for something else to do.