METALLICA's JAMES HETFIELD Reveals His Favorite Season Of The Year

During an appearance on the 22nd episode of "The Metallica Report", the recently launched podcast offering weekly insider updates on all things METALLICA, James Hetfield was asked to name his favorite season of the year. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I love spring and fall. They're both great. Summer — I grew up in Southern California. I like the beach. I like getting in the water. I love doing that stuff, but when it's too hot, it's not enjoyable anymore. I don't know why. I used to love — the hotter, the better. And then in the winter, obviously being [at home] in Colorado, when there's snow on the ground for five months, it's, like, 'Okay, I'm kind of over this.' But spring and fall — I don't know… I wish it could be like fall all the time, 'cause the leaves are changing in Colorado. It's all turns golden. The weather is just perfect. And obviously spring too. Animals coming out and they've got their young ones and you see stuff blooming and it's like… I don't know. it reminds me of — eh, it just reminds me of life."'

Back in 2016, James said that he moved his family from the San Francisco area, where he and METALLICA have been based for 40 years, to Vail, because he didn't feel as if he belonged in the Bay Area anymore. "I kind of got sick of the Bay Area, the attitudes of the people there, a little bit," he said. "They talk about how diverse they are, and things like that, and it's fine if you're diverse like them. But showing up with a deer on the bumper doesn't fly in Marin County. My form of eating organic doesn't vibe with theirs."

Hetfield elaborated: "There was an elitist attitude there — that if you weren't their way politically, their way environmentally, all of that, that you were looked down upon. … It wasn't healthy for me. [I was] starting to feel like I was just fighting all the time, and I just had to get out of my own head."

In August 2022, TMZ reported that James and his wife of more than two decades had called it quits. Sources close to the former couple told the tabloid site James filed for divorce from Francesca Hetfield in their home state of Colorado earlier last year.

Hetfield met Francesca in 1992 and they had been married since 1997. The two are said to still be in touch as they co-parent their daughters Cali and Marcella, and son Castor.

In 2019, Hetfield entered rehab, forcing the band to cancel its "WorldWired" tour dates in Australia and New Zealand.

James first entered rehab in 2001 because of his struggles with alcohol abuse "and other addictions," according to a statement posted on METALLICA's web site that year.

METALLICA released its 12th studio album, "72 Seasons", in April via the band's own Blackened Recordings. Produced by Greg Fidelman with Hetfield and METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich, and clocking in at over 77 minutes, the 12-track "72 Seasons" is METALLICA's first full-length collection of new material since 2016's "Hardwired…To Self-Destruct".