METALLICA Drummer On LOU REED Collaboration: 'I Don't Think We've Ever Felt This Free'

June 16, 2011

David Fricke of RollingStone.com spoke to METALLICA and legendary rocker Lou Reed about their new collaborative studio album. The as-yet-untitled CD features 10 songs composed by Reed with significant arrangement contributions by METALLICA and is described by Fricke as "a raging union of [Reed's] 1973 noir classic, 'Berlin', and METALLICA's '86 crusher, 'Master Of Puppets'."

On their unlikely collaboration:

Reed: "A marriage made in heaven. I knew it from the first day we played together: 'Oh, man, this is perfection, right in front of me.' "?

Lars Ulrich (METALLICA drummer): "I don't think we've ever felt this free. There's nothing that's totally outside of the boundary for us, nothing that feels like 'Oh, what happens if we go there?' The strength of us" he gestures at Reed "is it feels like we cannot land on a wrong place."?

Reed: "They're bringing METALLICA, with all that power. And because they're pretty sophisticated, wherever I go, they're still with me."?

James Hetfield (METALLICA guitarist/vocalist): "Lars and I listened to [Reed's demos] and it was like, 'Wow, this is very different.' It was scary at first, because the music was so open. But then I thought, 'This could go anywhere.'"

Kirk Hammett (METALLICA guitarist): "It doesn't feel like we're his backup band. It feels like we're a different band, in a situation we've never been in before."

Robert Trujillo (METALLICA bassist): "It's making us a better band."?

On their first performance in October 2009 at the 25th-anniversary Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame concerts in New York:

Reed: "We knew from then that we were made for each other."

On how and when the album will be released (Reed does not have a record deal, and METALLICA is no longer on Warner Bros.):

Lars Ulrich: "We are free to go wherever. I'm obviously psyched for people to hear this, in whatever way we feel is right."?

James Hetfield: "I told Lou I want to be there when people hear it. I want to see their faces."

Songtitles set to appear on the CD include the seven-minute "Pumping Blood", which according to Fricke "opens with a drone that breaks into a crunching march, goes into speed-metal gear and breaks into free-fall sections," and "Mistress Dread", which "features Reed singing across a relentless staccato riff played at manic velocity."

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