As you may recall, Canadian rocker Danko Jones made headlines with a few simple tweets. Not only did he critique Metallica and Lou Reed’s Lulu, but he also claimed that he was putting his entire collection of Metallica up for sale. Well, almost two weeks later, Jones cleared the air via a new podcast and admitted that he was simply joking.
You can download the entire podcast via his website, where he also explains his comparisons to Lulu and certain movie bombs, but Jones said the following about how his joke got blown out of proportion [as transcribed by Blabbermouth]:
“So what ended up happening was, I was listening to it [‘Lulu’] on my headphones, and there was a couple of other people in the room, but they weren’t listening to it. And I was just laughing out loud and they were watching a movie. So, after I finished listening to it, I was like, ‘You guys gotta hear this. This is really, really something.’ And as a joke, more to crack them up, because they were in the room, I took all my Metallica records, spread them out on the floor and took a photo. And I said what I was gonna tweet, and I waited [until] the next day. And my tweet was, ‘Good morning. Heard the Metallica/Lou Reed album last night. Metallica collection now for sale. Tweet your price.’ And I swear to God, I just did that to crack them up, to crack the people who people follow us up for the morning, just give them a laugh in the morning, and that’s it. And in the afternoon, maybe eight hours later, unbeknownst to myself, Blabbermouth, someone attached to Blabbermouth, had picked up the tweet, posted the tweet on their site, and it went bonkers for about a day where it was a mix of, ‘I agree with you. Metallica sucks’ to ‘Fuck you. Who the hell are you? I’ve never heard you. Metallica sold more records than you ever will and Lou Reed is a legend,’ etc. etc. So I just wanna use this podcast to say, it was a fucking joke — I was just joking. I’m not selling my METALLICA collection, and I do have a collection.
I’m a huge Metallica fan. I’ve got around 130 bootlegs of strictly Metallica in either DVD, CD or vinyl. I’m a huge fan of everything Metallica has done since I was, like, 13 or 14 years old — I followed them through everything — and this is a joke; I was joking. I really do think that the Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration is weak, but as a fan, my fandom isn’t unconditional; I have criticisms. As every extreme fan of a band, we all love to cuddle together and discuss our favorite bands. No matter by how disappointed or how elated we are by their output, the best part about being a fan of anything is the discussion of it. That’s why there’s ‘Star Trek’ conventions, that’s why there’s KISS conventions, that’s why people get together and we talk on forums or we do podcasts or we tweet about our favorite bands. I’m not gonna tweet about a band or an artist or a musician that I’m not a fan of, because they’re off my radar, and I don’t give a shit about them.
This morning I got a tweet fro ma guy in France, and it just said, ‘Fuck you.’ It was quite funny. I thought, ‘Wow. What a way to wake up in the morning.’ But I didn’t re-tweet it, because I thought people would think I was telling them to fuck off. I found it quite amusing, all the hate tweets. But I also was aghast at just how many people don’t get a joke and how many people will eat up anything blindly — like they’ll accept it blindly, because they’re supposed to, because they’re officially a ‘fan.’ And I thought the best part of being a fan is to just be so hyper-critical. That’s why you’re a super-fan and that’s what I consider myself when it comes to that band.”
While it isn’t too surprising to hear that he was just pulling everyone’s leg, we are a tad disappointed. Mainly because we did have our eye on the “Jump In The Fire” single vinyl that was seen in his picture of collectables. Sure you don’t want to reconsider the sale, Danko?
