Metallica -- ha! That was my opinion of Metallica when I was in their target demographic: a pimply, longhaired 17-year-old. Led Zeppelin, the Who, and the Stones were more my bag (still are). Though I owned Master of Puppets I considered them to be nothing more than a curiosity.

By the time I reached my late 20's, though, I had bought all of the classic Metallica catalogue, from Kill `em All to ...And Justice for All as well as the Cliff `em All DVD. More recently I've bought The Black Album and the DVD's Live Shit: Binge 'n' Purge and A Year-and-a-half in the Life of Metallica. Just as I was beginning to really appreciate them, their hardcore fans were washing their hands of Metallica. Why was this?

Because Metallica dared demand that they be paid for the work they do to pay for their houses, cars, kids, wives and possibly ex-wives. Any mention of money, payment, or compensation is very uncool in the music world, you see, whether you're talking to fans, club owners or, from what I hear, record companies.

When the Internet file sharing revolution began via Napster, drummer Lars Ulrich realized the impact it could have on his standard of living. So he went public with his disapproval, going as far as presenting his record company with the names of 200,000 people who had downloaded Metallica songs on Napster (that was his big mistake, I think). His rationale, which was quite rational, was that Napster was not "some kid doing it in his basement because he thinks its cool." It was a well-funded business with angel investors and a desire for a high IPO, he explained. That high IPO, if it had ever happened, would have existed because of the value of the service Napster provided. The service was enabling people to steal Metallica music. Metallica was not asked if they wanted to be involved in Napster; never were they approached with a profit-sharing model.

What a dick, man, huh?!

So for a decade now its been cool to say Metallica sucks (okay, the stuff after Justice largely does) and to single out Lars Ulrich in particular as an asshole.

To the contrary, I say Metallica are good people. From the beginning, even after they became arena stars, they have allowed fans to come backstage and meet them. They released CD's like $9.98 Garage Days Revisited and $19.98 vid Cliff `em All with the prices in the titles so retailers couldn't price them higher. Rather than leak material out slowly every three or four years, Metallica gave fans something like the Live Shit: Binge 'n' Purge box set that contained hours of material that most bands would have saved as one last cash grab for their retirement years.

I'm inspired to defend the honor of these multi-millionaire pop icons because of a video I saw today on You Tube. Ulrich is there talking to the fans, talking about how honored and excited he's been to see fans posting videos of themselves playing Metallica's music on You Tube. They've put a special Favorites section there to highlight fan videos.

As I explored that link I saw other amazing stuff. Metallica holds a yearly contest where winners get to come to their private recording studio and jam with them. It looks like they really go out of their way to make the fans feel welcome and give them a memorable experience. I saw another one where guitarist Kirk Hammett is talking to a young cancer patient about how to learn guitar from tablature. Kirk talks to this little nine or 10-year-old kid like an older brother, and it's beautiful. Then "fans," the same dickheads who insult Ulrich for wanting to keep his business profitable, criticize the kid's haircut! HE'S A FRIGGIN' CANCER PATIENT! Lars must be honored to be a "asshole" in these people's book.

These videos prove to me that Metallica are real pros and stand-up guys. Even if you gave me a million bucks I might not have the stamina and extroversion to be a good host to someone I didn't know at all.

Metallica has a new album that's supposed to sound more like the older stuff coming out today called Death Magnetic. I'm not planning to buy it, but if you're a longhaired, pimply 17-year-old and would like to help Ulrich keep his pool heated, go get it.