METALLICA's JAMES HETFIELD Featured In New GUITAR CENTER Commercial

METALLICA frontman James Hetfield is featured in a new commercial for Guitar Center, the largest chain of musical instrument retailers in the world. The 30-second clip was cut from a longer video that the retailer filmed to accompany a cover story about METALLICA in Guitar Center's catalog, Dustin Hinz, VP of brand experience and entertainment marketing, told Adweek. In that 13-minute video — which went up on YouTube in February and has since generated more than 1.7 million views — Hetfield talks about his first guitar, feeling "in the zone" when he plays, and how, as a kid, he was painfully shy. "Music was the voice I didn't have," he says.

The original video "blew up overnight online," said Hinz. "We went back to James and we said, 'James, we would love to cut this into a 30-second commercial because it so perfectly fits our campaign.' And he was ecstatic to do it because he loved the piece."

Hetfield took up piano at the age of nine and began playing guitar at 14. He was in bands called LEATHER CHARM and OBSESSION during his teen years. In October 1981 he answered a classified ad placed in a local paper called Recycler by Danish drummer Lars Ulrich, and METALLICA was born.

Hetfield told The Pulse Of Radio he still recalls the group's first gig, with original lead guitarist Dave Mustaine. "First METALLICA show was at Radio City in Anaheim. I remember the first song we played, Dave broke a string, and I was stranded up there. I was just singing, I wasn't playing guitar back then, and I was so uncomfortable, I was like, 'So, how's it going...' There were about 200 people. You know, your first gig, everyone shows up. Second gig, there's about 20, you know. [laughs]"

METALLICA recently completed a South American 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 the new track "Lords Of Summer".

That song or possibly another new one will also feature in the set list for the band's upcoming European festival run, on which it will repeat the "by request" format.

METALLICA did spend some time this spring working on material for the follow-up to 2008's "Death Magnetic", but the band's 10th studio effort is not expected out until 2015.