Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed out on October 31st on Vertigo Records

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Rogue Mag Music LOU REED & METALLICA LULU DUE FROM VERTIGO RECORDS ON OCTOBER 31ST, 2011

Surely one of the greatest and hotly anticipated collaborations in rock, Lou Reed and Metallica have joined forced to bring us their new album titled ‘Lulu’.

The idea for these two giants of modern music to work together was born after the 25th anniversary Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame concerts in New York City in October 2009. Metallica –singer/guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Rob Trujillo — played with Reed on Velvet Underground classics “Sweet Jane” and “White Light/White Heat.” “We knew from then that we were made for each other,” said Reed.

This led to a collaboration, with Reed bringing some of his older tracks back out for some reworking, “Some of Lou’s lost jewels” according to Ulrich.

That idea was to record a series of songs Reed had written for American avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson and German theater group the Berliner Ensemble’s production of the Lulu Plays, which premiered in April at the Theatre am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, founded by Bertolt Brecht. The songs are inspired by German expressionist Frank Wedekind’s early 20th century plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box, and were a rewrite of Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Raven, which emerged as a graphic novel on Fantagraphics Press.


Rogue Mag Music LOU REED & METALLICA LULU DUE FROM VERTIGO RECORDS ON OCTOBER 31ST, 2011
Lou Reed & Metallica

“We were very interested in working with Lou,” says Hetfield. “I had these giant question marks: What’s it going to be like? What’s going to happen? So it was great when he sent us the lyrics for the Lulu body of work. It was something we could sink our teeth into. I could take off my singer and lyricist hat and concentrate on the music part. These were very potent lyrics, with a soundscape behind them for atmosphere. Lars and I sat there with an acoustic and let this blank canvas take us where it needed to go. It was a great gift, to be asked to stamp ‘TALLICA on it. And that’s what we did.”

“We had to bring Lulu to life in a sophisticated way, using rock,” Reed says. “And the hardest power rock you could come up with would have to be Metallica. They live on that planet. We played together, and I knew it: dream come true. This is the best thing I ever did. And I did it with the best group I could possibly find. By definition, everybody involved was honest. This has come into the world pure. We pushed as far as we possibly could within the realms of reality.”

“It’s definitely not a Metallica album, or a Lou Reed album,” adds Hammett. “It’s something else. It’s a new animal, a hybrid.”

www.loureedmetallica.com

You can pre-order the album now: http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/v-v/110908100045

3 COMMENTS

  1. I cant wait for this!!! Im 31 yrs old and have loved Metallica for almost twenty yrs. I am thrilled to listen to what Im sure will be a masterpiece from the Masters of metal known as Metallica

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