Metallica Reveal Next Album Likely To Be “Collaborative”

Metallica have opened up on recording their next album, revealing that it’s set to be more of a “collaborative” effort than 2016’s Hardwired…To Self-Destruct.

Speaking to Metal Hammer, bassist Robert Trujillo revealed that the next record will feature more contributions from the whole band, after their last was largely composed by singer James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich.

“I’m not gonna speak on behalf of the other guys, but to me, it feels like this could be a very collaborative [writing process],” Trujillo said. “And for me personally, I love that. I love that we are in that head space to be more collaborative, and I think that’s very exciting for where we’re at now, the journey we’re about to take, the fact that those doors are opening like that.”

Hailing the contributions of guitarist Kirk Hammett, Trujillo went on: “Kirk has so many ideas.

“It’s funny because sometimes it’s literally him in the kitchen and he’s cooking, and at the same time he’s playing you a riff, or you’re sitting on the toilet and he’s playing you some ideas.

“But when we started to understand that [the lockdown] was gonna happen, it was like, ‘Hey, let’s be creative’, you know? Let’s just get on it. A lot of times, when there’s a band that’s been around as long as Metallica has, you find that one of the biggest problems is, ‘Man I can’t come up with a riff, I can’t come up with any good lyrics, it’s just harder to write songs’, but that just doesn’t seem to be the problem with us.

“Not taking anything away from any other bands, but sometimes our worst riff might be another band’s A-list riff.”

Hammett added: “It’s taking a couple of months, literally, for me to go through all [my ideas]. I’ve got a wealth of material, and so, at any given point when we all decide, ‘Okay, let’s start formulating a schedule to start writing songs and recording it.’ I’m ready. I’m there, from day one.”

Their comments come after drummer Lars Ulrich told NME about the challenges of writing new material together in lockdown.

“I’m not sure – it’s not easy, but we’ve been doing what we can. We’ve been exchanging ideas back and forth,” said Ulrich.

“The hardest thing about being in four different spaces is that there’s no software that can have us all play in real time to reach other. So I can play something and send it to the next guy and then he can play on it and he can send it to the next guy, or vice-versa, but we can’t play at the same time so it takes the impulsivity and the momentary energy out of the occasion.”

Listen to the best of Metallica on Apple Music and Spotify.