During an appearance on yesterday’s (Wednesday, July 29) episode of SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich was asked to name a song that, in his opinion, best represents what METALLICA does, both musically and lyrically. He responded: “‘[Master Of] Puppets’ is definitely a very, very, very close to the top choice, because, I guess, it checks a lot of boxes. Obviously, it’s a longer song, it’s kind of a journey, and it’s got the light and the dark, the heavy and the more melodic. So it’s got the many different moods. Obviously, it’s also got an incredible set of lyrics. The lyrics can be whatever you want. And I’ve had conversations with tons of people about different meanings and so on, but when [James] Hetfield [METALLICA frontman] writes lyrics that can be interpreted in any way that the listener wants, that’s when I think they are at the best. And so it’s got those lyrics. And it checks a lot of those boxes. Another song that checks a lot of those boxes is ‘One’. But then there’s some deeper cuts. I think a song like ‘Bleeding Me’ has a lot of those boxes checked also. And some of the stuff from the last couple of records. To me, it’s a testament to the strength of the last two records, ‘Death Magnetic’ and ‘Hardwired[… To Self-Destruct’].
“A lot of the earlier records, we’d make them, and then we’d kind of sit there six months later or a year later and go, ‘I don’t know about that mix,’ or, ‘I don’t know what we were thinking on that outro,’ or, ‘I don’t know what was going on in that guitar part,’ or that crazy drum fill or whatever,” he continued. “But both ‘Death Magnetic’ and ‘Hardwired’, to me, the shelf life of both of those records in terms of me sitting there and questioning the decisions that were made, they both come in still very, very well on my critique list, or however you phrase it.
“I think that a song like ‘Moth Into Flame’ or ‘Halo On Fire’ [from ‘Hardwired’], and even going back to ‘Death Magnetic’… When I was jamming along downstairs a couple two, three days ago, I was playing ‘Cyanide’ on drums, I was playing ‘Broken, Beat & Scarred’ and I was playing ‘All Nightmare Long’, and a couple of those tracks still sound as fresh and relevant as they did 12 years ago.
“But forced [laughs] to make a choice, I guess I would probably nominate ‘Master Of Puppets’ or ‘One’ as the ones that cover most of the bases and most of what we in METALLICA are proudest of in terms of what we do.”
METALLICA has been largely out of the public eye since last fall when the band canceled an Australian tour and announced that Hetfield was returning to rehab for the first time since 2002 to battle his addictions.
Hetfield made his first major public appearance since entering rehab on January 30, when an exhibit featuring 10 of his classic custom cars opened at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
In March, METALLICA announced that its South American tour, which was originally planned for April, has been postponed until December. In addition, the band’s appearances at five Danny Wimmer Presents-produced festivals in May, September and October have been canceled: Epicenter in Charlotte, Welcome To Rockville in Daytona, Sonic Temple in Columbus, Louder Than Life in Louisville and Aftershock in Sacramento.
