Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich said back in April the band was considering making a new album in quarantine. Now in conversation with Swedish talk show host Fredrik Skavlan, Ulrich confirms they're doing exactly that. Ulrich said the band is trading ideas back and forth via email and Zoom over the past four weeks.
"We're just starting, in the last four weeks maybe, we connected again. We've been obviously connecting, but we connected creatively, and now we're sort of in discovery mode, I think is a good way to say it. We are sending ideas to each other via e-mail and via Zoom and [trying to] make music in these unusual situations.
"We have a weekly Zoom connect. 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. 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 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 later said he hopes the digital-only way Metallica is working can take them far into the process.
"So far, at least the sonic side of it and the practical elements are in surprisingly good shape, actually. So now we've just gotta figure out how much we can create without being in the same space. 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."
This isn't the first we've heard of new Metallica music either. Both guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo were talking about writing new music in 2019 as well.
