Metallica’s Lars Ulrich has admitted that he sometimes reads comments about the band online.
In a new interview with Metal Hammer, Ulrich said he occasionally reads social media comments about his band’s music online. In the interview, he said that he was reading what fans were saying online about the band’s surprise comeback single ‘Lux Æterna“ last year.
He said: “If you decide to go down into the comment sections, at least for me, you have to prepare yourself for not taking any of it overly personally. You have to kind of remove yourself from it. But I’d like to challenge anybody in a band to say they don’t look at comments.
“I mean, I’m not sitting up until four o’clock in the morning scrolling through every one,” he continued. “But when you haven’t put any music out in five or six years and you dump something like ‘Lux Æterna’ on an unsuspecting world, you’re going to want to see what the feedback is.”
Last year, Metallica announced details of a new album, ‘72 Seasons’, and a huge world tour for 2023 and 2024.
The follow-up to 2016’s ‘Hardwired… To Self-Destruct‘ will arrive next week on April 14, with the European leg of the metal icons’ world tour – which includes the previously announced Download Festival headline slots – kicking off this month.
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Speaking about the inspiration behind the forthcoming new record’s name in a press release, frontman James Hetfield said: “72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are.
“I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”
The European leg of Metallica’s world tour will kick off in Amsterdam on April 27, 2023, making stops in Paris, Hamburg and Gothenburg throughout May and June, before continuing on North America.
The band will then return to Europe for the second leg through May, June and July 2024, followed by further dates in North America. You can purchase any remaining tickets for the UK and Europe here and the US here.
Metallica also recently announced plans for a residency on Jimmy Kimmel Live! next week.
The band will be performing live every night from Monday (April 10) to Thursday (13), ahead of the official release of their new album ’72 Seasons’.
“In a first for the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show, it’s ‘Metallica Week,’ as we will be the musical guest each night, beginning on Monday, April 10, through Thursday, April 13,” the group wrote on social media.
“We’ll be playing live for all four shows, and you’ll also catch us on the couch, chatting with Jimmy one night. Keep your eyes peeled for other sightings during the broadcast, as we really don’t know what else Jimmy will get us involved in!”