Hey, did you hear? Metallica played the Grammys on Sunday with Lady Gaga. Just kidding – of course you knew that. People that don’t like metal or pop knew about it because for the first time in a while, something heavy was in the national spotlight. We’re not going to rehash it except to say that it didn’t go down as smoothly as it should have. Rolling Stone caught up with drummer Lars Ulrich to chat about the performance, and Ulrich glossed over the band not being announced and James Hetfield’s mic being out for half the song by calling it a “slight technical snafu.” And despite that, most, even Gaga haters, can call the performance a success and one of the most interesting collaborations of the evening. Also, according to Ulrich, we might not have heard the last of them doing stuff together. He calls Gaga the “quintessential perfect fifth member of this band,” saying “she just has the spirit of hard rock and metal flowing through her veins.”
“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.”
Considering Metallica has collaborated with a symphony orchestra and Lou Reed for two double albums, while Gaga did a standards album with Tony Bennett, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of impossibility to imagine the next Metallica album being a Lady Gaga one.
