Lou Reed and Metallica to Release New Album Together
Aside from their shared love of the color black, Lou Reed and Metallica don’t have much in common – Metallica are heavy metal heroes, and Reed is the unofficial poet laureate of New York. Despite the differences, the band and Reed have announced yesterday they’ve recorded an album together.
Reed told Ultimate Classic Rock all it took was one concert to bring them together.
A 25th anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance in 2009 found Metallica backing up Reed for a couple of songs. “We knew from then,” Reed told David Fricke of Rolling Stone, who broke the news, “that we were made for each other.”
That camaraderie quickly blossomed into a full-blown album – and while plans were initially for Metallica to back Reed for re-recordings of some of his older tracks, they ended up settling on songs Reed had written for the German stage show “Lulu.”
“It was scary at first,” Metallica singer and guitarist James Hetfield told Rolling Stone, “because the music was so open. But then I thought, ‘This could go anywhere.’”
As of now, the album doesn’t have a title, and neither Reed nor Metallica are beholden to a record contract at the moment – but with track titles like “Pumping Blood” and “Mistress Dread” on the list, this match-up promises to be intriguing, to say the least.
If you’re wondering what the record’s going to sound like, take a listen to Reed and Metallica’s performance of “Sweet Jane” from the 2009 Hall of Fame show.
Metallica and Lou Reed, “Sweet Jane”