Just from looking at Garage Days Re-Revisited and Garage Inc., you can tell Metallica enjoy covering their influences. Soon they’ll be covering two more: Dio and Deep Purple. In an interview with Metal Hammer, Metallica’s James Hetfield revealed that they’ll be on the Ronnie James Dio tribute album that’s due out sometime before the end of the year. “We reached out to Wendy Dio about wanting to be part of the Dio tribute that’s getting put together,” he told the magazine. “We’ve very honoured to be a part of that, and to be a part of a celebration of Ronnie’s life and his great contribution.”
“We’re definitely looking to do the record Wendy’s putting together for Ronnie,” Lars Ulrich reiterated. “We were asked if we’d contribute to the anniversary of Machine Head, too – we can’t turn that down. We’re circling the Dio and Purple catalogues and hopefully we’ll come up with something that is worthy of these wonderful men.”
While not much is known about the Deep Purple tribute album,it would be presumed that the album will be released sometime this year to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Machine Head, which came out in March of 1972. Anthrax, Rob Halford, Lemmy, Sebastian Bach, Dave Grohl, and Alice Cooper are among those that will be appearing on the Dio tribute. Grohl will be covering Black Sabbath’s “The Mob Rules,” while Halford will take on Rainbow’s “Long Live Rock ‘n Roll.”
