Metallica’s new album, Hardwired…To Self Destruct has gotten rave reviews, but it seems like it wasn’t an easy process to get the thing done.
The album was primarily written by frontman James Hetfield, and drummer Lars Ulrich, who have been the primary songwriters for most of the band’s most classic tracks (sometimes to the dismay of guitarist Kirk Hammett). But it turns out these best friends can sometimes get into arguments about the content of the music.
Speaking to Metal Hammer, James Hetfield revealed that at one point, he and Lars didn’t speak for a week during the recording sessions because Lars tried to play “riff police,” for criticizing a riff Hetfield wrote, causing the two not to speak for a week, and Hetfield not to return to the studio for those seven days.
“We were in the studio and it was like, ‘Hey, I’m the guitar player, I like this guitar part, I wanna play it.’ He’d be like, ‘This part is better,’ and I was like, ‘Since when are you the Riff Police?’ So at that point it was, ‘Okay, I’m done for now, I have to leave.’ But a week later we were talking again.” Hetfield said.
The story harkens back to their Some Kind of Monster days, but clearly, like family does, they fight and then forget about it and move on. And the results were great.
Speaking of Some Kind of Monster, if you haven’t listened to our running commentary of the controversial documentary, this weekend is the perfect time to do so.
Also, we recently named Metallica’s debut album, Kill ‘Em All the best debut in heavy metal history. Here’s why:
