The A.V. Club spoke with Metallica’s Lars Ulrich about the Grammys and tentative future collaborations with Lady Gaga. He admitted that Metallica doesn’t just pick anyone to share the stage with, as he said, “we try to cherry-pick them a little more.” Metallica was basically curious what they would sound like with James Hetfield sharing the microphone with a female vocalist and Lars happened to be at the right place and right time. A few weeks before they made this happen, Lars had dinner with Lady Gaga and the rest was history.
The A.V. Club asked Lars how natural it felt rehearsing “Moth Into Flame” with Lady Gaga. Lars said that while there were two or three rehearsals, everything “jelled so well together,” after the first run-through. Lars was asked about his comment yesterday on Lady Gaga being “the quintessential fifth member of this band” wondering how it would take shape.
Lars replied:
“As you spend 72 hours with somebody, and there’s this connection and this intimacy, part of it is that maybe you don’t want it to end. When these moments work, you always leave them open to reconnection. So obviously, we’re not sitting in a recording studio today writing songs for a record or anything. I think that our weekend together was so seamless and so authentic and such a natural fit that the idea of revisiting this at some point down the road… As we were walking off one of the soundchecks, she said to me, “We gotta do something again together. This is just too good to leave.” And I said, “I agree with you. It’s just too real.”
Obviously, we haven’t sat around and talked about this yet. It’s been 48 hours. [Laughs.] I’ve been busy hearing myself talk about tours and all kinds of other stuff. But if there was ever an opportunity to revisit something like this, this is about as pure as it could get. So we’ll see.”
While nothing is set in stone, and Metallica seems busy already with their North American Tour, we most likely won’t hear about a MetalliGa project anytime soon.
The A.V Club had Lars open up about his theory on the Grammy Awards. He compared them to the Oscars with their commercial and independent diversity stating:
“If you look at the Oscars, this year, you’ve got a movie like Moonlight, a movie like Manchester By The Sea, you’ve got lots of independent, progressive, creative endeavors that are at the very, very center of the spotlight. I thought that was a really interesting take on it. Because generally, when you think about the Academy Awards, you don’t necessarily think of them as a super progressive institution. But I think it’s kind of interesting how film has, in the last few years, broadened its reach so there are all these different voices in that world. There’s the commercial element, and then there’s the independent elements that sometimes are — dare I say it—a little more creative in their undertakings. So I thought that was an interesting comment on the whole thing.
The Grammys, obviously, back in the day were notoriously conservative. When we started forming a relationship with them in the late ’80s, that was sort of the year they let hard rock and metal in. Now they’ve started widening the categories, getting rap in there. When we were there playing, a good part of the room looked—I don’t know if they were frightened—but they certainly looked puzzled as we were playing. And then they gave the award to Jethro Tull, which was more comical than anything. I think it’s easy for all of us to sit here on our individual pedestals and point the finger of judgment and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, it’s a television show. For a television show to reach as many people as possible, there’s some give and take there. And there are some people that need to be involved in that for it to reach a lot of people.”
Lars seemed upfront and honest throughout the whole interview which you can read fully here.
