Metallica’s co-manager Peter Mensch recently spoke to Music Week to reflect on their incredible success they had this year. He discussed the group’s overall achievement they had from 2016’s Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, which placed them at #1 on Billboard’s year-end Hard Rock Albums list. Mensch theorized it was their extended absence that helped their triumphant year.
He stated:
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” said Mensch. “They put out a great record. They hadn’t put out a record in eight years, it was quality music and then they went and played a bunch of quality shows. It got bigger because I believe they maintained the quality of their product, so music is No. 1. No. 2, there’s no question about the quality of their performance. No. 3, they were out of the [US] marketplace with a new record for years. They played Europe and stuff like that, but in America where they just completed an absolutely sold-out stadium tour, they hadn’t played in eight years. And No. 4, guess what? There’s nobody even close to them. Look, you can make the point that Stone Roses begat Oasis and Pulp and Blur who begat Radiohead, Coldplay, Muse even. We’re still waiting for the next Metallica. I get plenty of emails saying, ‘We’re the next Metallica,’ and then they send me shitty music. But there’s nobody else.”
While Mensch claims there’s not going to be another Metallica, he mentioned that the group have 20 more years to become the next Rolling Stones:
“If you’re Metallica and you tour around and killed it at The O2, and broke the house record, and you got more shows to play and more plans and more music to make and James Hetfield writes a riff every time he picks up a guitar, you’ve got to feel pretty good about yourself. And you survived it, you’re looking around and you’re on the top of your mountain. There’s nobody else up there, you’re up there with the U2s of the world or whatever. You may not be The Rolling Stones yet, but you’ve got 20 more years to get there.”
Read the full interview here.
