Metallica worked overtime at this past weekend’s Orion festival in Detroit, performing a secret show under the name Dehaan, tearing through a massive Sunday night headlining set, promoting the release of their upcoming concert film “Through The Never” and showing off their collections of muscle cars and horror movie memorabilia.
In short, they basically did everything besides take tickets, though maybe they’ll do that next year … after all, Metallica are already thinking about the third installment of Orion, though they’ve got a couple of other projects to deal with first. Like, for starters, finishing the ambitious “Through The Never” in time for its IMAX debut this September.
“‘Through The Never’ is not exactly your typical concert film; it has a narrative weaving in and out of the concert footage. You won’t see, like, interviews with the band members backstage, or anything like that,” Metallica’s Kirk Hammett told MTV News at Orion. “All you’ll see is raw footage of us on stage, and then narrative, with the story that weaves in and out. It’s taken us on a pretty unique trip, because we’re not in the movies industry, we’re in the music industry. We’ve learned a lot about movies in general, and the business in general … we just have to nail down a few things here and there, but we’re excited about it.”
And then, there’s the matter of a new Metallica album, their first since 2008’s Death Magnetic (unless you count 2011’s collaboration with Lou Reed, Lulu). The band have been collecting riffs for a few years now, though that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re any closer to actually finishing a record; in fact, to hear Hammett explain things, that probably won’t happen until 2015 … just in time for the fourth Orion fest.
“We do have a lot of musical ideas, we have something called ‘the Riff Bank,’ and the Riff Bank keeps getting bigger and bigger, still, to this day,” he laughed. “I’m writing stuff, Rob’s writing stuff, James is writing stuff, Lars is writing stuff, continually expanding the Riff Bank. So, it doesn’t look like we’re going to be putting out an album any time soon this year, it would be an amazing stroke of luck and grace if our album came out next year.
“I think it’s a more sober statement to make to say that the album will probably come out in 2015. That’s a sober, realistic thing … but we’re psyched about it,” Hammett continued. “It’s too early in the game to tell you it will sound like Death Magnetic, I mean, we have a lot of ideas but no actual finished songs, so it’s hard for me to give you an accurate description. But we’re looking forward to making it as heavy and as high-energy as possible, because that’s what we want.”
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