ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: METALLICA'S LARS ULRICH ANSWERS OUR STUPID QUESTIONS

BY DAN SNIERSON • @DANSNIERSON

Metallica has returned with their first studio album in eight years, Hardwired… to Self-Destruct. And when the metal gods go heavy, we go light: EW asked drummer Lars Ulrich to trade his sticks for shtick and play along with a few Stupid Questions.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Tell me some things about the new album that could be applied to every other album you’ve released.
LARS ULRICH: The new album is the best album we’ve ever done. It’s destined to make lots of people happy — and a few people upset.

Rank these Metallica songs in order of their hopefulness: “Creeping Death,” “Harvester of Sorrow,” “To Live Is to Die,” “Broken, Beat & Scarred”
They’re all tied for last… “Creeping Death” is actually partially inspired by the OG Ten Commandments movie, the one with Charlton Heston in it, which somehow, in some perverse way, has some sort of message of hope buried in there somewhere. That’s second-to-last.

In 1981, James Hetfield responded to your ad in the Recycler that was seeking people to jam with. What were the other ads you placed in that issue? Were you selling an Atari?
I did not have anything of that status at the time. I can tell you what I wasn’t selling, which was soap, because Hetfield’s standard story when he describes our first meeting in the wake of the ad was that he thought I smelled very European and hadn’t washed in years.

THE EDGE: REVIEW: METALLICA – HARDWIRED…TO SELF-DESTRUCT

How does one go about trying to condense all of Metallica’s achievements, accolades and back story into just a few short sentences? Quite simply, you can’t. There’s never been a band quite like the simply monolithic Metallica – perhaps the most enduring musical force on the planet, they are never short on heavy riffs, fist pounding drums, and bad-ass metal music. With tenth LP Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, the band aims high with its first ever double album, clocking in at nearly 80 minutes in total. After a resurgence with 2008’s critically acclaimed Death Magnetic, Metallica’s return is yet another epic and rousing (if a little over-stuffed) piece of heavy goodness.

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GIG SOUP: METALLICA ‘HARDWIRED…TO SELF-DESTRUCT’

It’s been eight years since ‘Death Magnetic’, the longest gap there’s been between non-collaborative Metallica studio albums. For a lot of fans and critics, a return to form is a necessity, after being underwhelmed by most of what the metal heavyweights have released over the past fifteen-or-so years. Is double album ‘Hardwired…to Self-Destruct’ that return to form?

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GIGWISE: LIVE REVIEW: METALLICA LIVE AT THE HOUSE OF VANS, LONDON, 18/11/16

Tonight marks the release of Metallica’s 10th studio album since Kill ‘Em All way back in 1983. The band have chosen to play a exclusive launch show in the sort of venue they might well have started out in - cramped, packed, sweaty and crumbling in places. But this is no Los Angeles dive bar. This is The House Of Vans, the skate shoe brand’s custom built skatepark/music venue in the Old Vic Railway Tunnels near Waterloo.

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ROLLING STONE: SEE METALLICA THUNDER THROUGH 'HARDWIRED' CUTS IN FIRST EVER BBC SESSION

Metallica visited London's Maida Vale Studios to lay down their first ever BBC session. The heavy metal legends delivered a five-song in-studio performance for BBC Radio 1's Rock Show With Daniel P. Carter.
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THE GUARDIAN: METALLICA: HARDWIRED… TO SELF-DESTRUCT REVIEW – THRILLINGLY DIRECT

It’s testament to the enduring appeal of Metallica’s early work that in recent years their live setlists have included almost nothing recorded after 1991’s Black Album. To that end, their 10th album is an attempt (and a more successful one than 2008’s patchy Death Magnetic) to replicate the glories of their first three.

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