text: Metallica’s James Hetfield has left the Bay Area, moving his family to the supposedly less elitist, and more quiet, Vail, Colorado.
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  Hetfield recently told radio host Joe Rogan on his podcast that he loves Vail because he can feel like “a part of nature” and take part in one of his favorite hobbies, hunting, with less judgment.
  So he loves it so he can kill its animals.
  Sorry. I’m being an Bay Area elitist.
  James Hetfield of Metallica performs at The Fonda on Dec. 15, 2016, in Los Angeles.
  “I kind of got sick of the Bay Area, the attitudes of the people there, a little bit,” said Hetfield, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “They talk about how diverse they are, and things like that, and it’s fine if you’re diverse like them. But showing up with a deer on the bumper doesn’t fly in Marin County. My form of eating organic doesn’t vibe with theirs.”
  Yes. I’m sure many people wait in his driveway to throw things at his animal carcass.
  Hetfield said, in the Bay Area, “there was an elitist attitude there — that if you weren’t their way politically, their way environmentally, all of that, that you were looked down upon.”
  What a savage.
  Hetfield’s wife, Francesca, grew up in Vail after being born in Argentina. And Hetfield said he feels more “at home” in the mountains.
  “I love the ocean, and I love the Bay Area, I love what it’s got to offer, but there’s just an attitude that it was … It wasn’t healthy for me,” he said. “(I was) starting to feel like I was just fighting all the time, and I just had to get out of my own head. So Colorado does it for me.”
  In 2008, Hetfield had an issue with neighbors who were upset when he fenced off a hiking trail that went through his property. He still owns property in the Bay Area, and is developing four homes on 40 acres of his Rocking H 1 Ranch above Lucas Valley in the North Bay. Though, to be fair, Hetfield has bought and donated more than 700 acres to the local open space district, according to the Chronicle.
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  Tony Hicks | Pop culture writer
  Tony Hicks covers pop culture and film for the Bay Area News Group.
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