The successor to Metallica 's Hardwired… To Self-Destruct appears to be on its way. According to James Hetfield , the group managed to work on new music during the period of social isolation and the halt in touring.
Four years since the release of their last album, the band should be on the road in a normal scenario. “In life, we’re either touring or writing songs. Then Covid decided for us,” they told The Fierce Life podcast (via Blabbermouth). “Since we couldn’t go on the road, we started writing.”
There isn't a proper project on the horizon yet, but Hetfield hopes the new compositions will form an album. “Well, hopefully it’ll be a new album, whatever they call it these days – I guess it’s an album, a CD, a group of songs, a collection, whatever, a stream or however you get your music now,” he continued. “But yeah, a bunch of songs. We’ve written some songs. So, we’ll see which ones we like first and then we’ll release them.”
Initially, the band met for weekly Zoom video calls just to chat, but soon the casual get-togethers turned into songwriting sessions, usually in pairs, with the band's producer and assistants joining remotely. “ Lars [Ulrich] and I would get together, or Kirk [Hammett] and Lars, and we’d have a few moments here and there writing,” Hetfield explained. “It was difficult because of the sound delay, so we couldn’t play together, but we watched each other.”
Despite being described as “very bizarre” by the vocalist and guitarist, the process has yielded good results so far. “We started writing. We have about – I don’t know – more than 10 songs done that way,” he revealed. “And then we finally played together [in person]. There’s a limit to what you can do on Zoom.”.
READ ALSO: Lars Ulrich on the Metallica song he likes least: "Too forced "
