New Metallica Album.com

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich says he still can’t understand why no other metal band has overtaken the group’s popularity.The group, who have been together for over twenty years, have sold over 100 million albums worldwide since they formed.

Speaking to the Guardian, Ulrich said: “I was thinking the other day about how everyone expects us to continue to release albums that define the genre, to ’save’ metal. And that’s a lot of fucking pressure, really.

“Why hasn’t anyone dethroned us yet? We support all the great new metal bands, take them under our wing, but people still want us to carry the whole genre on our backs.” (more…)

METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich has commented on the premature release of the band’s new album, “Death Magnetic”, via a French record store. A shop in Paris reportedly sold a number of copies of the CD this morning well ahead of its official September 12 worldwide release date — with illegal “Death Magnetic” MP3 files making their way online by this afternoon.

During a guest appearance earlier today on “The Woody Show” on the San Francisco, California radio station Live 105 (KITS 105.3 FM), Ulrich stated about the French leak, “Listen, we’re ten days from release. I mean, from here, we’re golden. If this thing leaks all over the world today or tomorrow, happy days. Happy days. Trust me. Ten days out and it hasn’t quote-unquote fallen off the truck yet? Everybody’s happy. It’s 2008 and it’s part of how it is these days, so it’s fine. We’re happy.”

Watch video footage of Ulrich’s appearance on “The Woody Show” in two parts below.

Part I,  Part II

In the first of an occasional Quietus series, Lars Ulrich puts himself through the Rumour Mill and answers Joel McIver’s questions on cocaine, whether ‘St. Anger’ was bobbins, and that little reviews hoo ha a few months back.

Lars, rumour has it that you’ve enjoyed a line or two of coke in your time.

“I don’t do that any more. That’s all done, thank you for asking! A couple of years ago I was like, ‘You know? Enough of this. I don’t need it’. It was literally something that happened one morning, like ‘Y’know? Fuck that’. I was very impressed with Noel Gallagher: as you know, I’m an Oasis fanatic, and Noel was like [adopts stentorian tone] ‘You know what? No more cocaine!’ and I thought, ‘If he can do it, everybody else can do it’. I had my fun with it, it was always more of a social thing. We were never like rolling around and spending days in bathroom stalls, and peeking out the keyholes of doors for days.” (more…)

Metallica’s Lars Ulrich used Noel Gallagher as an inspiration to give up cocaine.

The drummer set he decided to quit the drug a few years ago, and took the Oasis guitarist as an inspiration.

“A couple of years ago I was like, ‘You know? Enough of this. I don’t need it’. It was literally something that happened one morning, like ‘Y’know? Fuck that’,” he told The Quietus.com.

He added: “I was very impressed with Noel Gallagher. As you know, I’m an Oasis fanatic, and Noel was like [adopts Mancunian accent] ‘You know what? No more cocaine!’ (Gallagher quit in 1998) and I thought, ‘If he can do it, everybody else can do it’.

“I had my fun with it, it was always more of a social thing. We were never like rolling around and spending days in bathroom stalls, and peeking out the keyholes of doors for days.”

Eicca Toppinen of Apocalyptica interviews Lars Ulrich at Ozzfest.  Listen here.

Highlights from Metallica’s June 7 performance at the Rock Am Ring festival in Nürburgring, Germany will be broadcast on Sunday, June 8 from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. via MTV Two (formerly known as MTV2 Europe and M2), a 24-hour alternative music channel broadcast from London throughout Europe.

Reporters from a number of UK-based heavy rock magazines were given a preview of six tracks from the upcoming Metallica album on Wednesday (June 4) in London.

Drummer Lars Ulrich recently stated that the yet-to-be-titled disc was a modern variation on the band’s older style.

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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:

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Lars: “We’re psyched to play some new songs,” he laughs. “In fact, if we don’t, then I give people permission to come and find me and slap me across the face!”

Metallica is yet to play any new songs from the new album. Will we hear something before Aug 22th. In the following interview in Kerrang magazine from March ‘08, it is unclear if Lars is refering to this specific concert in Leeds to reveal any of the new songs live for the first time. Should we have heard something by now? 

Kerrang: Joining Metallica are Rage Against The Machine - who make their first UK appearance in the UK for eight years - Slipknot, Queens Of The Stone Age, Serj Tankian, Feeder and Pendulum. In addition to their Download 2008 appearances, Bullet For My Valentine and Biffy Clyro have confirmed they’ll appear at the three-day festival. More acts will be announced over the coming months.

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You have to believe Lars is enjoying this moment. By now you all know about the platinum experience and album pre-sale on MissionMetallica.com with packages priced upto $124.95. Metallica decided they were not going to get beat by piracy, and it looks like they won’t be.

Normally albums are released on a Tuesday at 12 a.m. By 12:30 a.m. they are all over the torrent sights and internet for downloading. Well this time around it should be available by 12:02 a.m. and in high digital quality thanks to the digital download they are providing. How will they thwart piracy, well that’s the genius.

By selling the missionmetallica platinum packages, they win the battle. The most likely package people will buy is the $24.99 (platinum experience and digital download) or $32.99 (platinum experience, digital download, and physical CD) with packages upto $124.99. Usual first day CD prices are $9.99-$12.99. So on average, people will be paying at least two and a half to three and a half times the regular price depending on which package they buy. The usually free material found on ‘making of the album’ DVDs that bands release is what will be found in the Platinum MissionMetallica experience which in essence they are selling. So if they get at least two and a half times the money for each package purchased, they can afford to have at least half the normal sales downloaded for free and still clear the same money as if everyone bought it.  

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