It was pretty much confirmed back in April that Metallica would be working with Rick Rubin again. However, ever since Metallica’s “special project” (aka a collaboration with Lou Reed) was announced, it’s been somewhat unclear as to what Metallica’s future recording plans entailed. Would Metallica’s focus be solely on the Lou Reed project, or was Metallica working on material Reed-less at the same time?
Well, thanks to an update Rubin gave on his upcoming projects to Billboard, we have a better idea about Metallica’s plans. For one, while we know Rubin is working with Metallica again, he was not involved with the unusual collaboration. Second, we now know how far along Metallica is at with a new album. Rubin had the following to say about the Metallica project he IS working on:
“about to start writing, and I had a meeting with Lars (Ulrich) in San Francisco…to explore what the focus was going to be this time around. I’m still sort of thinking about what that is going to be. I’ll ask a lot of questions and we’ll probably listen to some of the riffs that they’ve been writing. Usually I’ll hear something that will sort of indicate the direction and then we’ll talk about it from there.”
Knowing how long it tends to take Metallica to record a new album (there was a five year gap between St. Anger and Death Magnetic) and taking Rubin’s update into consideration, it’s a safe bet that it might be a little longer of a wait for a new Metallica album. In other words, there will indeed be a larger gap in between the Metallica/Lou Reed project and Death Magnetic’s follow up.
Metallica wasn’t the only band Rubin gave an update on, though. Among many groups, Rubin also revealed that he’s working on new material from Linkin Park and Kid Rock. Though Rubin’s worked with both of them before, it’s more so surprising to hear that both one-time kings of rap-metal are already working on follow-ups to their less than a year old albums. You can check out what Rubin had to say about Kid Rock and Linkin Park’s new albums over at Billboard.biz.
