Metallica At Lollapalooza: Organizer Perry Farrell Didn’t Want Them There

Metallica is headlining this year’s Lollapalooza festival, which hasn’t made the Lollapalooza festival creator and organizer, Jane’s Addiction founder Perry Farrell, very happy in the past.

Metallica, along with none other than former Beatle Paul McCartney, will do the heavy lifting on this year’s Lollapalooza tour from July 31 to August 2 in Chicago. This will be the second time Metallica has appeared on the Lollapalooza tour. The first time Metallica graced the stage for the alternative music festival was in 1996 alongside the likes of Soundgarden and the Ramones.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Lollapalooza creator Perry Farrell said that he wasn’t too happy about Metallica being included in the festival the first time around.

“I was very angry the first time they [Metallica] played Lollapalooza. I helped create the genre ‘alternative,’ and ‘alternative’ was against hair metal, teased-out hair, spandex, bulls–t rock music. Metallica, in my estimation at that time, wasn’t my thing. I was into alternative and punk and underground. My friends were Henry Rollins and Gibby Haynes and Ice-T. I’m all about genuine, authentic, heartfelt, the real deal. So I was not sure about Metallica back in those days. It’s my f–ing party and I’ll have who I want.”

Metallica fans the world over will quickly tell you that the band was as anti-hair metal as anyone else. For example, in Metallica’s documentary, A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica, lead singer James Hetfield relishes in throwing darts at a picture of Kip Winger, the frontman from the short-lived hair metal band Winger. When all hair-metal bands were featuring scantily clad women performing suggestive acts on MTV, Metallica was featuring videos showing a World War I soldier sans face and limbs tapping out messages with the back of his head.

Now, however, with 20 years of hindsight in his rear view mirror, Farrell seems to have changed his tune about Metallica. In the interview with Rolling Stone, the former Jane’s Addiction frontman says that he’s “honored” to have Metallica playing Lollapalooza, stating “I actually like their music.”

For their part, Metallica issued an excited press release when they signed onto the gig.

“It’s been nearly 20 years since we’ve been lucky enough to take the stage at Lollapalooza, so we are over the top that we’ve been asked to play this year at the now annual extravaganza held at Grant Park in Chicago.”

As stated earlier, former Beatle Paul McCartney will be headlining on Friday, July 30, and the next night the headliner will be Metallica.

[Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images]