Front-man James Hetfield: “It started out as kind of a tribute to people that have fallen in our business, like Layne Staley and a lot of the people that have died, basically – rock and roll martyrs of sorts. And then it kind of grew from there. Thinking about death… just like a magnet, some people are drawn towards it, other people are afraid of it and push away. The concept that we’re all gonna die sometimes is over-talked about and then a lot of times never talked about – no one wants to bring it up; it’s the big white elephant in the living room. But we all have to deal with it at some point.”
THE GREATEST MUSIC EVER CREATED AND HOW IT RUINED OUR LIVES
What happens when you team up the mouth of the metal world and the mouth of the desert? You get an internet television show to end all others. BW&BK and metal know-it-all and smart ass Eric Braverman have teamed up to bring the world The Greatest Music Ever Created And How It Ruined Our Lives. (more…)
DasDing.tv conducted an interview with METALLICA bassist Robert Trujillo at this year’s Rock am Ring festival, which took place June 6-7 in Nürburgring, Germany. Watch it in two parts.
No wonder Metallica needed a shrink. Its head is a mess.
First, the band outed downloaders, then it courted them with online exclusives. As recently as a few days ago, Metallica killed online reviews (which it also courted) of its upcoming, as-yet-untitled, full-length record. And Thursday, the band flip-flopped and posted links to the reviews on Metallica.com.
So, who’s to blame? Someone else, as usual. That’s just how therapy goes sometimes.
According to a post on Metallica.com, the band’s management outfit, Q Prime, is the culprit responsible for the take-down of early, mostly positive reviews from The Quietus and other sites:
Once we re-surfaced on Tuesday after a few weeks on tour in Europe, we were informed that someone at Q Prime (our managers) had made the error of asking a few publications to take down reviews of the rough mixes from the new record that were posted on their sites. Our response was “WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record…that makes no sense to us!” So after a few rounds of managerial ear spank and sentencing everyone at Q Prime to 20 push-ups each, we figured why not take matters into our own hands and just post the links here on our site. (more…)
This is the advice producer Rick Rubin gave Metallica over two years ago, as the band knuckled down to write its next album: “I said, ‘Imagine you’re not Metallica,’ ” Rubin recalls. ” ‘You don’t have any hits to play, and you have to come up with material to play in a battle of the bands. What do you sound like?’ ”
“It was the obvious thing — that we didn’t see,” says singer-guitarist James Hetfield. Rubin, a longtime friend and fan who was producing a Metallica album for the first time, “gave it a focus, instantly, with that statement.”
Set for a September release on Warner Bros., Metallica’s still-untitled new album is their first since 2003’s St. Anger and their first with bassist Robert Trujillo, who joined in February of that year. It is also a stunning, overdue return to the shock and rush of the band’s speed-metal monuments, 1984’s Ride the Lightning and 1986’s Master of Puppets. The 10 long tracks are all multi-riff blizzards with jolting rhythm swerves, while lead guitarist Kirk Hammett makes up for the no-solos asceticism of St. Anger with vintage bursts of cackling-hyena wah-wah.
“Rick said he wanted to make the definitive Metallica record,” says drummer Lars Ulrich, “a step forward that incorporated elements from what he considered our creative peak. Every time there was a fork in the road, we said, ‘In 1985, we would have done this.’ ” One song illustrates Hetfield’s lyric hook “Hunt you down all nightmare long” (there are no formal song titles yet) with vicious-staccato guitar riddled with tempo U-turns and Ulrich’s double-kick-drum thunderclaps. (more…)
You have been working on the new Metallica album for almost three years. How do you know which riffs and solos to keep and which to throw out?
I know whether I’m cutting it or not. And I always try to make a solo the best it can be. I recorded over 100 solos for one track on this album — and the solo is only 25 seconds long [laughs]. But it’s apparent when the solo works that it’s all there. It’s either “Wow!” — or it’s not good enough. It’s that black-and-white.
How would you describe your role in Metallica’s two-guitar sound?
James [Hetfield] and I have always been complementary. We’ve never gotten into guitar squabbles, like a lot of bands with two guitar players do. His approach is primal — rhythmic and percussive. Mine is more technical and fluid. I see the guitar as a bunch of scales and tones. I write riffs and arrange chords to make sure they fit tight harmonically.
A pair of questions: If you’re Edgar Bronfman, do you pay through the nose to keep Metallica, just to temporarily halt the parade of artists leaving the company? If you’re Metallica, do you sign the paper, cash the check, and stick it out with Warner’s sinking ship or go out on your own with crazed pricing and delusions of grandeur?
According to Bloomberg.com, Edgar Bronfman Jr., CEO of the Warner Music Group, of which Warner Bros. Records is a division, declined to comment on the status of contract negotiations with the band during a quarterly conference call earlier this month. The new Metallica album is the band’s last under its current contract with the label, which dates back to 1984 when the quartet first signed with Warner subsidiary Elektra Records.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich told us that finishing out its recording contract was a liberating experience for the band:
According to BW&BK sources, the new METALLICA album is scheduled for release in mid-September. The album will be preceded by an eight-minute single which is being described as “a tour de force that features some of their fastest playing ever.” The record is being produced by Rick Rubin (SLAYER, RED HOT CHILI PEPERS) and mixed by Greg Fidelman. (more…)
To headline Glastonbury? To start a huge mosh pit? To be Shakin’ Stevens? Jaimie Hodgson (music.guardian.co.uk) puts the questions to some of the festival season’s biggest stars
Lars Ulrich Drummer, Metallica
What is it like soundtracking the world’s biggest mosh pits?
When you’re put in front of a crowd of 60,000 who have been partying and living in tents for three days, and generally been reduced to a more primal level of existence, there’s very little rhyme and reason to what goes on both on and off stage. No matter how drilled you are as a band, or how prepared you are, you never feel like you’re more than a second away from something insane happening. When you show up at these festivals there has to be a certain amount of rolling with the punches and going with the flow, whether you’re opening or headlining, and that suits us great. We consider the festivals in Europe the highlight of the year. When you play in a band with as much energy as Metallica, performing in such an unhinged environment, the spirit of what we do really comes into its own. After 25 years of doing this crazy thing non-stop, we feel very privileged to be the last band on at a festival that spans so many genres.
· Metallica play Reading / Leeds on 22 and 24 August (more…)
The video shows Lars Ulrich being interviewed by Spin magazine prior to the band’s May 14, 2008 benefit concert at the 2,200-seat Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles. Watch the four-minute video ahead. All proceeds from the show will go to the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, a nonprofit music school for low-income students that was co-founded by Red Hot Chilli Peppers bassist Flea.
William Goodman of Spin.com conducted an interview with METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich earlier today (Thursday, May 15) about the group’s much-anticipated new record, which, according to Lars, the outfit will cap next week with “a couple of nips and tucks” for release this September.
Here are some bullet points from Lars‘ comments about the forthcoming CD:
(Listen to audio of the interview here)
* The yet-to-be titled new record will drop sometime in September.
* The quartet will wrap production on the record next week, “by Wednesday or Thursday,” Ulrich confirms. (more…)
For well over a year, Metallica have been working on material for their yet-untitled ninth studio offering. And in all that time, the boys have managed to keep a lid on any information regarding the effort, which they’ve decided to work on with producer Rick Rubin (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Slayer), severing their ties to longtime producer Bob Rock.
On Thursday, Metallica’s outspoken drummer Lars Ulrich spoke about the record, which the band expects to finish recording next week.
He said there will be “a couple of nips and tucks next week, and then we should be done with it — hopefully by Wednesday or Thursday.” The album will be in stores “in mid-September, and literally, just yesterday, our graphic designer came down from San Francisco and showed us a few things. We should have an album title very, very soon, and all our songs — which are [currently] entitled (more…)
Metallica is “a couple of nips and tucks” away from completing its next album, which is still on target for a September release, according to drummer Lars Ulrich.
During a conference call yesterday (May 15) promoting this year’s Bonnaroo Music Festival, which Metallica will headline on June 13, Ulrich told reporters that the group hopes to wrap up work on the album in time for the Memorial Day weekend holiday. Metallica recently met with a graphic designer to begin planning the package, though there’s no confirmed title for the album yet and the songs still have working names. (more…)
Metallica has been saying for months that their new record will harken back to some of their older material, and drummer Lars Ulrich reiterated that point in a conference call yesterday. “It’s definitely pretty all over the place: a lot of variation, a lot of fast, slow, melodic, hardcore, nutty, super-fast speed stuff,” he told reporters. “It’s more like some of the earlier records, which were a little more dynamic within the songs. And on those records, there were a lot of long songs that were - without sounding too corny - journeys. You’d go here and then you’d go over here and then this, and then that would happen. It feels like kind of a lot of that stuff. It’s difficult for me to sit down and brand it yet, because I’m still so close to it.”Ulrich also said the band hopes to have the album finished by Memorial Day and they have already met with a graphic designer about the artwork. They plan to release it in mid-September and start touring in October. (more…)
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Front-man James Hetfield: “It started out as kind of a tribute to people that have fallen in our business, like Layne Staley and a lot of the people that have died, basically – rock and roll martyrs of sorts. And then it kind of grew from there. Thinking about death… just like a magnet, some people are drawn towards it, other people are afraid of it and push away. The concept that we’re all gonna die sometimes is over-talked about and then a lot of times never talked about – no one wants to bring it up; it’s the big white elephant in the living room. But we all have to deal with it at some point.”
This is the advice producer Rick Rubin gave Metallica over two years ago, as the band knuckled down to write its next album: “I said, ‘Imagine you’re not Metallica,’ ” Rubin recalls. ” ‘You don’t have any hits to play, and you have to come up with material to play in a battle of the bands. What do you sound like?’ ”
A pair of questions: If you’re Edgar Bronfman, do you pay through the nose to keep Metallica, just to temporarily halt the parade of artists leaving the company? If you’re Metallica, do you sign the paper, cash the check, and stick it out with Warner’s sinking ship or go out on your own with crazed pricing and delusions of grandeur?
Lars Ulrich
The 
William Goodman of Spin.com conducted an interview with METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich earlier today (Thursday, May 15) about the group’s much-anticipated new record, which, according to Lars, the outfit will cap next week with “a couple of nips and tucks” for release this September.
Metallica is “a couple of nips and tucks” away from completing its next album, which is still on target for a September release, according to drummer Lars Ulrich.
Metallica has been saying for months that their new record will harken back to some of their older material, and drummer Lars Ulrich reiterated that point in a conference call yesterday. “It’s definitely pretty all over the place: a lot of variation, a lot of fast, slow, melodic, hardcore, nutty, super-fast speed stuff,” he told reporters. “It’s more like some of the earlier records, which were a little more dynamic within the songs. And on those records, there were a lot of long songs that were - without sounding too corny - journeys. You’d go here and then you’d go over here and then this, and then that would happen. It feels like kind of a lot of that stuff. It’s difficult for me to sit down and brand it yet, because I’m still so close to it.”Ulrich also said the band hopes to have the album finished by Memorial Day and they have already met with a graphic designer about the artwork. They plan to release it in mid-September and start touring in October. 
