Metallica have opened up about their previous collaboration with Lady Gaga at the 2017 Grammy Awards Ceremony.
On Wednesday, August 12th, the band appeared on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show to talk about their upcoming live drive-in show, collaborating with Gaga, and how they’ve fared during the coronavirus lockdown.
When asked about the band’s 2017 collab with Lady Gaga, James Hetfield had nothing but praise for the pop monolith.
“I just respect her as an artist,” Hetfield shared.”She was there for two hours before we even got there, working on her moves and thinking stuff up. She is extremely creative and a fearless artist.”
Lars Ulrich echoed Hetfield’s sentiment, “Lady Gaga, in particular, she loves metal. She was telling me that ‘Metal Militia’, which is this deep cut on our first album Kill ‘Em All, was her favourite song back in the day.”
The Metallica and Gaga performance at the 59th Grammy Wards was a dramatic affair. The performance saw a member of the sound crew forget to turn Hetfield’s mic on, and he subsequently had to share the mic with Gaga during their performance of ‘Moth Into Flame’.
At the close of the performance, Hetfield hurled his guitar at a road crew member and kicked over his mic stand.
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In an interview with New York Post, Hetfield was asked about the incident, “I felt embarrassed. I haven’t been that angry in a long time,” he admitted.
“When something out of my control goes wrong, I still get wound up. I’m sure it taps into other stuff from my past, but I felt helpless. It ended up being a blessing because I ended up singing in a microphone with Lady Gaga — maybe even more than she wanted. It felt more like a real collaboration because of that.”
Metallica also admitted to Stern that the old Metallica would have never considered collaborating with a pop artist like Gaga. “After a while you kind of get mature about it all and realize we’re all in this together.”
Check out Metallica & Lady Gaga: Pre-Grammy Rehearsal:
