METALLICA Frontman Says Collaboration With LOU REED Was 'A Great Gift'

October 27, 2011

Artisan News recently spoke to members of METALLICA and legendary former VELVET UNDERGROUND frontman Lou Reed about their musical collaboration, "Lulu". Check out the clip below.

"Lulu" will be 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.

"[It was] something we could sink our teeth into," said METALLICA guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield. "I could take off my lyricist and singer hat and concentrate on the music part. So we sat together Lars and I and listened to the stuff that [Lou] had sent that was very potent lyrics with some soundscapes behind it for atmosphere. And [we thought] what would we do? What can we add to this to make it as potent and make it better, take it to another level, make it rock, and make it heavy? So we just sat there with an acoustic and kind of just let it take us wherever it needed to go. It was a blank canvas. It was a great gift, 'cause we hadn't really had something like that. We're always starting from scratch, from little tapes here and there. There was a body of work already there, and we got to stamp 'TALLICA on it."

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