Badass James Hetfield video of the month

I didn't stumble across James Hetfield's tribute to Waylon Jennings at a CMT special until recently. Now that I have, I can't stop watching it.

Any wannabe gangster can talk about how tough he is, how he's bad to the bone or a cowboy riding in a steel horse or whatever. The balls that it takes for a perceived renegade like Waylon Jennings or James Hetfield to sing "I'm for law and order, the way that it should be" is enough to send any carefully packaged, self-aggrandizing gangbanger running back to Hot Topic. Any real badass doesn't have to talk himself up the way most of these guys do.

Thus, Hetfield picks "Don't You Think this Outlaw Bit has Done Got Out of Hand," a Waylon song that talks down his gunslinger reputation. As rough and tough as rock stars get, James voices "just a good old boy, never meaning no harm." A more image-conscious metal god would find that lyric (and the thought of performing a country song) horrifying, but thankfully we have James and the gang to nail this song out of the park.

When asked about why he was on "CMT Outlaws," Hetfield replied, "They think I'm an outlaw, I guess, and obviously all of us in our ways are outlaws..."

This was recorded for a Waylon tribute CD, with James playing all the instruments, but I really like the way the band sounds on this version.

Country metal has a lot more potential than most people think. Rebel Meets Rebel (David Allan Coe and Pantera) was one of the best CDs I heard in 2006.

Still, those guys don't need to talk themselves up so much.