Metal Anarchy

Earlier today (April 28), Metallica’s Lars Ulrich joined Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff for a livestreamed “fireside chat.” At one point in the discussion, the drummer was asked about the possibility of the band working on a new album during their coronavirus downtime and he responded by saying “if you and I and the rest of the world are sitting here six months from now or a year from now, I’d say there’s a very good chance.”

Ulrich said the following:

“Like I said, the guys in Metallica, as we sit here and go, well, maybe in a month or two from now, is there a chance that the four of us can be together maybe at our studio here in Northern California, if the quarantine and stay-at-home orders subside — so on and so forth.

So, right now, as everybody who has creative juices flowing through their veins, they’re being challenged to try to come up with new ways to be creative, and I think that those are wonderful takeaways from the devastation that’s happening all over the world at the moment.”

“Everywhere in the world of not just music, but in the world of anything entertainment — obviously, film, theater, art; anything that has to do with creativity — I can guarantee there are thousands of conversations right now [about] how do we make records? How do we make filmed entertainment? How do we make art? How do we share it with this new paradigm that’s happening? What can it look like on the other side of the new normal?

Even if you bring it into our world, the people that make all the software and all the stuff that all use to record are sitting right now trying to figure out how Lars and James [Hetfield] and Kirk [Hammett] and Rob [Trujillo] can make a Metallica record from four different locations in four different states. And that’s something that we’re obviously circling and very excited about…

A lot of that will, obviously, have to do with how long stay-at-home orders stay in place. A lot of that will have to do with if there’s a second wave of the virus. Who knows what our world will look like six months from now?

But, obviously, the one thing that you can depend on with creative people, for better or worse, is that they can’t sit still for very long. And I can tell you that on these weekly Metallica Zoom sessions, we are talking about how we can just be a band again. And there are many different phases to being in a band, but the most basic one, and certainly where it started 37 years ago, is to just have four guys playing music together.

The fact that it ends up being shared all over the world and connecting with millions of people, that’s much later and a whole different thing. But at its core essence is just four guys in room, or connected via Zoom, making music together. And I can tell you that all four of us are really excited about what that could look like.

So, will there be a Metallica quarantine record? I can’t tell you, because, again, I don’t know how long the quarantine will last. But if you and I and the rest of the world are sitting here six months from now or a year from now, I’d say there’s a very good chance.”

[via Blabbermouth]