The worlds of metal and silicon valley are colliding, folks. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has confirmed that the band are currently chipping away at new music via Zoom amid the coronavirus lockdown.
In an interview with Swedish talk show host Fredrik Skavla, Ulrich shared that the band have been throwing around ideas for their eleventh studio album.
“We have a weekly Zoom connect,”Ulrich revealed “We’ve been doing that basically since [the coronavirus pandemic] started 10 [or] 11 weeks [ago] — since it started in America.”
“So we get together once a week on Zoom for a couple of hours and catch up,” Lars added. “The good thing about that catching up is we really just talk about how we’re doing and we don’t sit and talk about Metallica for hours and hours.
“But now that we’ve started exchanging some ideas, it’s great. It’s nice to be in touch, it’s nice to be part again of that group, and I look forward to the creative opportunities that lie ahead of us.”
Ulrich explained that the self-isolation conditions have seen the group connecting musically and creatively again, “we’re sort of in discovery mode, I think is a good way to say it.”
The drummer went on to explain that the “sonic side” to the follow-up of 2016 effort Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, is in “surprisingly good shape, actually.”
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Now the band are faced with the challenge of recording the new record without being in the same place physically.
“So now we’ve just gotta figure out how much we can create without being in the same space,” he elaborated.
“The difference, obviously, between bands like ourselves and people that are still bands, like the U2s of the world or the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Coldplay or Iron Maiden or whatever is that you really are bands, and you rely on the group format to really move everything forward.
“So unlike if you’re a solo artist and it’s just you and your guitar or whatever. So it’s a different thing.”
Check out Lars Ulrich of Metallica on creating a quarantine album:
