Metallica’s James Hetfield Is ‘Skeptical’ of the Vaccine, He was never vaccinated as a child due to religious reasons

It doesn’t sound like James Hetfield will be receiving a COVID-19 vaccine any time soon. The Metallica frontman, who’s also a hunting and gun enthusiast, recently appeared on the Fierce Life podcast—a show produced by Fierce Firearms—and shared his thoughts on vaccines when asked if Metallica had plans to resume touring soon.

“I have no clue. It’s not up to me. It really is up to the safety of everyone—not just the fans, but the crew and us. I’m not sure what that means in the future as far as vaccines. I’m a little skeptical of getting the vaccine, but it seems to be rolling out and people are getting it and I’ve got lots of friends that have done it,” he explained.

“I’m not totally sure about it,” Hetfield reiterated. “But I hope it doesn’t come to a point where you have to have that COVID stamp in your passport or something to go everywhere. But if it comes down to that, then I’ll make a decision then. We got vaccinated to go to Africa, so it’s not like I’ve never been vaccinated before. But as a kid, I never got vaccinations ’cause of our religion [Christian Science]. So that was the only time I got one—when we were going on safari in Africa.”

As Stereogum points out, the interview was conducted in March, so perhaps Hetfield’s had a change of heart since then. If not, we can only hope he fares better than fellow skeptic Ted Nugent, who recently thought he was going to die after contracting COVID-19.

Though Metallica’s touring plans remain to be seen, they are slated to headline two nights at the Aftershock festival this October.

Elsewhere in the interview, Hetfield confirmed that Metallica was working on new music. “It’s either touring or writing, so COVID chose for us,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of touring going on, so we get to write music … We wrote quite a few songs. So we’ll see how many we like first, and then we’ll put ’em out. We’re pretty selfish that way; we like what we write as well.”