While Metallica and Lady Gaga's performance at the GRAMMYs didn't exactly go as planned, it was clear everybody was having fun.
One person who clearly enjoyed himself was Lars Ulrich. Ulrich spoke to Rolling Stone and had glowing reviews for their pop star collaborator. Ulrich, who met Gaga at a party at actor Bradley Cooper's house, which is where the idea for the collaboration was birthed, called the pop singer the "quintessential perfect fifth member of this band." High praise from Ulrich! He continued:
"Her voice, her attitude, her outlook on everything is so awesome," he says. "[The performance] was so effortless and organic and she just has the spirit of hard rock and metal flowing through her veins. It comes really easy for her. There's nothing contrived; she just has this super warm, easy energy."
According to reports, a stage hand accidentally unplugged Hetfield's mic moments before the performance started. Ulrich played it off calling it a "slight technical snafu." The Metallica drummer didn't seem to bummed by it. "You just learn to live with that side of it. It happened to Adele last year; I guess this year it was our turn." One fan took matters into their own hands, and created an edit with Hetfield's vocals adjusted.
Ulrich said after the GRAMMY performance, the two sides already began discussing possibly working together again:
"We already started fast-forwarding to the next chapter when we can do more of this," he says. "It's not one of those '20 lawyers, strategists and managers trying to force two people from two different worlds to figure out how to spend four minutes together on a national telecast.' Of any of these undertakings, this is about as organic and authentic as there's ever been one. We're just getting started."
I can't imagine it will be any time soon, as Metallica have just announced a massive North American tour.
Could a Lulu-like collaboration be on the cards in the future? I certainly hope it's at least better than Lulu. Of course, this is just one member of Metallica's opinion. I'm curious what Hetfield thought.
