Metallica released their Some Kind Of Monster documentary in 2004, which takes a look at the tumultuous state of the band after bassist Jason Newsted quit and frontman and guitarist James Hetfield went into rehab for alcohol abuse. The documentary also features an honest look at the band as they go through group therapy, and their struggles to keep the ship afloat.
It's something that really resonated with Reddit co-founder and executive chairman Alexis Ohanian. He tells the New York Times that the struggles that James and Lars had echoed the plight of himself and the other co-founder of Reddit.
The topic of Metallica all of a sudden comes up after interviewer and writer David Gelles asks if Ohanian was listening to Metallica when he came into the room.
Was that Metallica you were listening to when we came in?
I’ve been a Metallica fan for a long time.
Did you see the documentary “Some Kind of Monster,” about when Metallica went to group therapy during the recording of an album?
Yeah. What band — what metal band especially — is going to be so open? “We’re going to shoot this documentary, therapist and all, warts and all, and just give it to the world.”
It’s actually a really good example of the kind of thing that I wish we had more of in start-ups. James and Lars are essentially the co-founders of Metallica. There’s this co-founder dynamic, and we always see the polished story of it.
But there’s always strife. There’s always struggle. It’s not always easy. In fact, sometimes it’s actually really tough. Third-party coaching is O.K. Maybe we should just make it required viewing if we do a seed deal: Watch “Some Kind of Monster.” If Metallica can have a therapist, you and your co-founder can have an executive coach.
I think there's one thing most music fans in 2018 can agree on, it's that pretty much everyone loves some era or aspect of Metallica.
Speaking of the Some Kind of Monster documentary, we highly recommend checking out the episode of the RIP a Livecast where we did watch-along commentary on the doc.
