It’s hard to believe that Metallica’s first album, Kill ‘Em All, will turn 31 years old next month. With the band members’ ages averaging 50 (Robert Trujillo is the only member in his ’40s – until October, anyway), they’re definitely not kids any more. That was one of the topics that was brought up  to the band recently when they were interviewed by Kerrang!. In fact, Trujillo was the only member of the band that didn’t discuss it, and the band admits that they’re getting older:

“It’s the physical aspect. Tendonitis, tinnitus, ligament atrophy, accidents, repetitive stress injury, tennis elbow… those things creep into the mix,” METALLICA guitarist Kirk Hammett stated about the prospect of one day calling it quits. “It’s like, ‘Fucking hell, man, I want to play guitar, but my shoulder and elbow are screaming ‘no!’ Your head wants to do one thing and your body wants to do another thing. That’s a big obstacle that we’ll have to confront in our individual way.”

Drummer Lars Ulrich concurred, telling the magazine: “The main thing that I truly don’t feel that I can really help shape is the physical side of what we do. It’s getting tougher and tougher. I don’t know how long it can last in terms of the physicality of it — can we do this when we’re 60 at this level? At 70?”

That doesn’t mean that Metallica is in any huryr to hang it up. James Hetfield adds that while the band’s physical ailments bother them, they work through them and “pay attention to them.”And when asked is there’s a point where he’d step away from the band, he said that he almost quit at the turn of the century around the Some Kind of Monster era, but (obviously) didn’t. And while he says that he doesn’t think he wants to do music once Metallica ends, he concludes “hopefully, it will last forever… The question mark is, I just don’t know physically. The physical element is just the unknown. If we can find a way to deal with that, then I think we could stick around for a while.”

[via Blabbermouth]