DANKO JONES Claims He Was 'Joking' When He Said He Was Selling His METALLICA Collection

Canadian rocker Danko Jones has posted his latest podcast in which he addresses the feedback he received from METALLICA fans for his series of tweets late last month in which he slammed METALLICA's collaboration with Lou Reed, claiming to have put his entire METALLICA collection up for sale after hearing the controversial "Lulu" project.

To download the entire podcast, go to this location.

"A couple of days ago, I was listening to the new METALLICA record 'Lulu' that they did," Danko says during the podcast. "It's not officially a new METALLICA record. It's a METALLICA and Lou Reed collaboration project. And as I was listening to it, I was tweeting about it. This is something people do on Twitter. So my first tweet was, 'Listening to the METALLICA/Lou Reed album 'Lulu' right now.' And I waited and I listened and I listened. And I don't know how many minutes later, but eventually I started tweeting stuff like, 'The METALLICA/Lou Reed album is the 'Waterworld' of rock and roll' just the worst movies I could think of, because I really thought it was When you watch [the METALLICA documentary] 'Some Kind Of Monster', there is a scene with [METALLICA drummer] Lars Ulrich's father and he's listening to something they're working on, and it's a pretty funny scene, because he basically puts Lars in his place. . . And when you get to the level of METALLICA, you run the danger of surrounding yourself with 'yes' men. So there really isn't anybody that can buffer your decisions. And thank God there was Lars' father who said this to him. So my critique would be, they should have deleted this Lou Reed collaboration and just kept it on their iPods and listened to it and just between themselves go, 'Wow, we jammed with Lou Reed one day.' But they put it out and I was able to listen to it. And I was joking around it was a fucking joke. I just thought of the worst movies that I had seen in a long time. And 'Ishtar' I didn't even get to see; I just knew it was a bomb in the box office when it was released, and it's never been released on DVD, so I've never been able to see it. Since I was a kid, I always wanted to see that 'cause it was justsuch a flop. So first I said, 'The METALLICA/Lou Reed album is the 'Ishtar' of rock and roll,' then 'the 'Waterworld' of rock and roll,' 'cause I think that movie is horrible, then 'Battlefield Earth', because I think that movie's horrible. . . So what ended up happening was, I was listening to ['Lulu'] on my headphones, and there was a couple of other people in the room, but they weren't listening to it. And I was just laughing out loud and they were watching a movie. So, after I finished listening to it, I was like, 'You guys gotta hear this. This is really, really something.' And as a joke, more to crack them up, because they were in the room, I took all my METALLICA records, spread them out on the floor and took a photo. And I said what I was gonna tweet, and I waited [until] the next day. And my tweet was, 'Good morning. Heard the METALLICA/Lou Reed album last night. METALLICA collection now for sale. Tweet your price.' And I swear to God, I just did that to crack them up, to crack the people who people follow us up for the morning, just give them a laugh in the morning, and that's it. And in the afternoon, maybe eight hours later, unbeknownst to myself, Blabbermouth, someone attached to Blabbermouth, had picked up the tweet, posted the tweet on their site, and it went bonkers for about a day where it was a mix of, 'I agree with you. METALLICA sucks' to 'Fuck you. Who the hell are you? I've never heard you. METALLICA sold more records than you ever will and Lou Reed is a legend,' etc. etc. So I just wanna use this podcast to say, it was a fucking joke I was just joking. I'm not selling my METALLICA collection, and I do have a collection. I'm a huge METALLICA fan. I've got around 130 bootlegs of strictly METALLICA in either DVD, CD or vinyl. I'm a huge fan of everything METALLICA has done since I was, like, 13 or 14 years old I followed them through everything and this is a joke; I was joking. I really do think that the Lou Reed/METALLICA collaboration is weak, but as a fan, my fandom isn't unconditional; I have criticisms. As every extreme fan of a band, we all love to cuddle together and discuss our favorite bands. No matter by how disappointed or how elated we are by their output, the best part about being a fan of anything is the discussion of it. That's why there's 'Star Trek' conventions, that's why there's KISS conventions, that's why people get together and we talk on forums or we do podcasts or we tweet about our favorite bands. I'm not gonna tweet about a band or an artist or a musician that I'm not a fan of, because they're off my radar, and I don't give a shit about them. This morning I got a tweet fro ma guy in France, and it just said, 'Fuck you.' It was quite funny. I thought, 'Wow. What a way to wake up in the morning.' But I didn't re-tweet it, because I thought people would think I was telling them to fuck off. [Laughs] I found it quite amusing, all the hate tweets. But I also was aghast at just how many people don't get a joke and how many people will eat up anything blindly like they'll accept it blindly, because they're supposed to, because they're officially a 'fan.' And I thought the best part of being a fan is to just be so hyper-critical. That's why you're a super-fan and that's what I consider myself when it comes to that band."

Danko Jones talking about "Lulu" and the feedback he has received for his comments (audio stream):

"Lulu" was released on November 1 in North America via Warner Bros. Records and one day earlier (October 31) in the rest of the world through Universal Music. The CD was co-produced by Reed, METALLICA, Hal Willner who has produced albums for Reed, Marianne Faithfull, and Laurie Anderson, among others and Greg Fidelman. Fidelman also mixed the record.

"Lulu" finds METALLICA playing behind lyrics written and sung by Reed that are based on a pair of early 20th century German Expressionist plays.