Gojira guitarist and vocalist Joe Duplantier, much like the rest of us, is completely blown away by Metallica frontman James Hetfield's precision and ability to downpick like a jackhammer.
In an interview with Rock Sverige, Duplantier said he became even more impressed with Hetfield after he had the privilege to listen to Hetfield's live in-ear monitors. According to Duplantier, Hetfield pretty much only listens to himself while playing live with a little bit of drums thrown in.
"One time we were on tour with them, we became friends with their monitor engineer because he was doing our monitors too, we hired him. We gave him like $100 in cash every day, 'Can you do our monitors? We don´t have our own monitor guy,' and he was like 'I got you.'
"Then when Metallica played, one time he gave me James´ spare in ears. This little box, a receiver. He said 'Joe, come here,' because he saw me watching James and analyzing his fucking right hand. It´s out of this world. It´s not necessarily impressive on a technical level, it´s the precision and the consistency and it´s sharp. He gives me a little radio there and I plug it in, I have my own in ears and I´m like 'Oh my god, oh my god! This is James´ fucking monitors! What?'
"I plug them in and put it in my pocket and look at him and I was amazed to see that there was almost no drums in there. Who does that? What? Maybe there was some hi hat, but he was flying through the songs, playing and singing and it was only him in his monitors. A little bit of drums to stay connected to the rest, but some people need a lot of drums because they´re so chaotic and are just sitting on the drums, like in my case for example.
"This guy can do a whole show and I´m pretty sure everybody´s following him, even Lars. I think Lars follows James when he plays."
Read the full interview here and check out Gojira's latest single "Amazonia" here.
