“Metallica in the playlist of terror: From torture rooms to the services of Hegseth
The dark interview of Metallica’s James Hetfield about the use of his music in the torture of prisoners by the American Army
If the American Armed Forces had a favorite Metallica song, it would probably be “Enter Sandman” (1991). Indeed, it was reportedly among the preferred tracks in the playlists used by interrogators and torturers at Guantanamo. What is not widely known is that no member of the band openly condemned such a sickening practice; on the contrary, comments were even made jokingly.
“We have nothing to do with all this and we try to remain as apolitical as possible, because I believe politics and music, at least for us, do not go together.”
__________
The “Apolitical” Stance of Art as a Smokescreen for Its Enlistment.
Neutrality in the face of crime is not virtue; it is complicity disguised as prudence. Art, precisely because it reaches deeply into the human soul, cannot escape moral responsibility. The creator who remains silent before barbarity while his work is used to serve it does not remain neutral; he becomes part of the historical shadow that allows evil to endure.
We will not remain only with Metallica. Today’s reflection was prompted by last night’s concert at the Olympic Stadium, where thousands of fans followed the band in a state of collective frenzy and hysteria. Nor shall we remain solely on the cynical justifications of James Hetfield, who for decades openly and shamelessly declares himself APOLITICAL. He even goes further by insisting that “art and politics do not belong together.”
But the noisy artist who acoustically pollutes the environment with deafening music does not convince us at all. History itself answers him with authority and knowledge: from the beginning of civilization until today, EVERY INDIVIDUAL OR COLLECTIVE ACTION in this world has been political.
From the deadly polluted air that the servants of capitalism force you to breathe, to the plate of food that you yourself throw away as surplus while thousands of children slowly die of hunger across the planet — all these are political acts and realities.
You, too, are POLITICALLY EXPOSED, which also means MORALLY RESPONSIBLE.
We wrote in an earlier article titled
“ART IN THE SERVICE OF TOTALITARIANISM AND BARBARITY” (March 25, 2022):
“It is not new that art and those who serve it often directly or indirectly support totalitarian regimes, dictatorships and atrocities in every era…
Artists themselves have countless times stood ready, for their own reasons, to serve authoritarian systems and to use their talents to cover the groans and screams of victims tortured in the hell created by their executioners.”
For example, many of the greatest and most technically advanced spectacles, theatrical productions, films, musical compositions and choreographies flourished during Nazism. “Art” was one of Goebbels’ most powerful weapons. Many famous German artists willingly offered him “earth and water.” The ashes from Auschwitz reached even the foyers of theaters and cinemas in Nazi Germany while classical plays and celebrated cultural works were being performed on stage.
The same occurred in Franco’s Spain and during the Greek military junta. Golden names and fortunes in music, cinema and theater — with countless famous and anonymous singers, actors, directors and screenwriters — became the hidden and most effective tanks of the dictatorships, sustaining them through the stupefaction and neutrality of the masses.
History can neither justify nor conceal neutrality in the face of crime. Silence, especially regarding political crime in any form, is participation.
Sophocles himself was categorical in assigning responsibility to the “neutral” but verbally sympathetic Ismene in Antigone. The heroine rejects her sister’s support after Ismene declares that heroism belongs to men and that “we are women and should stay inside our homes.”
Diotima, with the authority of a voice echoing clearly from antiquity to the present day, is called upon to explain with her own arguments why no “James Hetfield” throughout the ages can escape responsibility when standing before crime and declaring himself “neutral,” unwilling even to condemn it.
Especially when knowingly or unknowingly, the perpetrator uses the artist’s own work — in this case his music — as an instrument in the commission of the crime.
Diotima’s Response:
Neutrality as Political Complicity and the Illusion of “Apolitical Art”
When an artist declares himself “apolitical,” this is not an act of neutrality. It is already a political position — and perhaps one of the safest and most convenient forms of political positioning within a world where crime, power, exploitation and violence are never neutral.
Societies are not empty rooms within which artists create isolated from History. They live, breathe, gain wealth, fame and influence within specific political, economic and cultural systems. Therefore, even silence before crime is participation in preserving the system that produces it.
James Hetfield of Metallica, when he claims that “music and politics do not belong together,” does not express some transcendent wisdom about art. He merely reproduces a historically recurring stance among artists who wish to enjoy the privileges of public influence without bearing the burden of public responsibility.
Yet History has always been merciless toward such evasions.
Art has never been “innocent.”
From the triumphal parades of ancient Rome to the Nazi propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl, from royal courts to the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, art has repeatedly served as a mechanism for aestheticizing power and anesthetizing society.
Music in particular possesses an almost primitive power over the human nervous system and emotions. It is no coincidence that it has been used in armies, religious ceremonies, nationalist spectacles and even torture chambers. Therefore, when a musical work becomes a tool of psychological humiliation or coercion, its creator cannot simply hide behind the excuse: “It has nothing to do with me.”
One need not be a direct accomplice to bear responsibility.
Responsibility begins the moment one knows and remains silent.
Or worse — when one responds with irony or humor to the use of one’s own work in acts of torture.
Refusing to condemn barbarity is not neutrality. It is indirect legitimization.
The great historical illusion of “apolitical” artists is the belief that politics concerns only parties, elections and governments. In reality, politics is the everyday management of power, life, death, rights, freedom and fear. Consequently, every artistic work that massively shapes emotions, consciousness and behavior is inherently political.
Even commodified entertainment becomes political when it functions as a mechanism of stupefaction, distraction or social sedation. Totalitarian regimes understood this perfectly. That is why they never truly fought art as a whole — instead they absorbed it, financed it and weaponized it.
Joseph Goebbels did not consider art a luxury. He considered it more powerful than artillery.
History indeed does not absolve the neutral.
The Antigone of Sophocles remains one of humanity’s earliest and deepest condemnations of neutrality. Ismene is not evil. She is not a tyrant. She is not a murderer. She is the “reasonable” and fearful human being who chooses not to confront injustice. And precisely for this reason Antigone morally rejects her.
Human dignity is measured not only by whether one commits the crime, but also by whether one tolerates its domination.
The same principle runs through all human history:
in the silence of intellectuals before Nazism,
in the tolerance of artists toward dictatorships,
in the commercial coexistence of art with wars, propaganda and torture,
in the transformation of mass culture into a narcotic of social oblivion.
The artist is not obliged to become a partisan militant.
But he does carry a historical and moral responsibility not to become a laundering mechanism for barbarity through silence.
Because art is not merely sound, image or spectacle.
It is influence over the human soul.
And every influence without responsibility eventually becomes an instrument of power.