Metallica Deny U.S. Military Contact Regarding Band’s Music for Interrogation Purposes
Last week, it was reported that the SEAL Team 6 veteran who claims to have shot and killed Osama Bin Laden also revealed that Metallica requested that their music not be used for military interrogation purposes. Now, Metallica have now come out and stated that they never made such a request.
Within a recently published article written up by Esquire, the anonymous SEAL who evidently shot down Osama Bin Laden spoke in depth about that historic night in Pakistan, but also about Metallica and Demon Hunter. According to the SEAL, Metallica asked the military to discontinue using their music for interrogation purposes, while Demon Hunter offered that their brand of metal be used in Metallica's place.
Although Demon Hunter are staunch supporters of the U.S. military, the band stated, "We have no specific knowledge of our music being used for this [interrogation techniques], nor have we ever volunteered it to be used as such, nor are we commenting beyond that," via an official press release.
Metallica also recently took time to give a statement posted on the band's official website:
There has been a lot of talk recently about us asking the military not to use our music to "soften people up before interrogation." We NEVER commented to the military either way on this matter. Any statements that have been made otherwise are not correct.
Metallica frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich have both commented on the use of the band's music to "soften up" prisoners before interrogations in the past. "Part of me is proud is because they chose Metallica," Hetfield states in a 2008 German interview, "And then part of me is kind of bummed about it that people worry about us being attached to some political statement because of that."
Ulrich spoke about the same issue on 'The Rachel Maddow Show' in 2009, revealing that he did not "advocate or condone" the use of Metallica's music in such ways. "If there are people that are dumb enough to use Metallica to interrogate prisoners, you're forgetting about all the music that's to the left of us," explains Ulrich. "I can name, you know, 30 Norwegian death metal bands that would make Metallica sound like Simon and Garfunkel."
James Hetfield on '3Sat' (2008)
Lars Ulrich on 'The Rachel Maddow Show' (2009)