James Hetfield defends Metallica's role in 'Lulu'

Anytime an artist starts coming up with excuses for an album they were a part of … well, it doesn’t hold promise for the reputation of that album.

In a recent interview with The Pulse Of Radio, Metallica’s frontman James Hetfield defended his role in the “Lulu’ project with Lou Reed. In fact, Hetfield claimed that he had no interest in learning the storyline of “Lulu” and simply followed Reed’s lead.

“We saw his vision through him. I didn’t want to look at the play, I didn’t want to read anything, look at the movies, ‘Pandora’s Box’, or read any of the books. I wanted to just feel it through Lou because he basically digested all of that information and it seemed pretty convoluted. There was about three or four different versions of it, and he put together his modern poet version of it.”

That doesn’t exactly sound like a ringing endorsement.

Lou Reed and Metallica

According to Blabbermouth, the two plays that “Lulu” is based on are called “Earth Spirit” and “Pandora’s Box”. The latter was made into a silent movie in 1929.

The collaboration between METALLICA and Reed was sparked by their performance together of Reed’s “Sweet Jane” and “White Light/White Heat” at the 25th anniversary of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at Madison Square Garden in October of 2009.

The songs were all written by Reed with extensive arrangement contributions by METALLICA.

Only two songs on the album are under five minutes in length, while two are more than 11 minutes long and the closing cut, “Junior Dad”, clocks in at 19 minutes.

Reed and METALLICA will perform selections from the album on several European TV programs but has yet to announce any live dates or U.S. appearances.

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