James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett of Metallica have revealed that Lou Reed reduced them both to tears, during recording sessions for the two legendary acts upcoming, collaborative album, ‘Lulu.’
A particularly powerful song titled ‘Junior Dad,’ exposed a recently opened wound in Hammett’s heart. “I had just lost my father literally three or four weeks previous. I had to run out of the control room, and I found myself standing in the kitchen, sobbing away.”
‘Junior Dad’ hit a raw nerve for Hetfield as well.
His dad left his family when he was 13 and it wasn’t long before he too, needed to walk away to join Hammett in the kitchen. “James came into the kitchen in the same condition – he was sobbing, too. It was insane… Lou managed to take out both guitar players in Metallica in one fell swoop, with his amazing poetic lyrics,” Hammett said.
The lyrics to the song include the lines: “Say hello to junior dad/The greatest disappointment/Age withered and changed him.”
‘Lulu’ is set for release in the U.S. on November 1, and October 31 for the rest of the world.
The following statement, describing the project, has been released on the new Lou Reed and Metallica website:
“The musical collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica, ‘Lulu,’ is coming your way this Fall and this space will be your spot for all things Loutallica(!). We want to start sharing with you just how the ‘Lulu’ project, recorded at HQ just a few short months ago, is coming together. As you can see this site is a work in progress and the plan is to build it before your very eyes. Please bear with us while we piece it all together!
“‘Lulu’ was inspired by German expressionist writer Frank Wededkind’s plays ‘Earth Spirit’ and ‘Pandora’s Box,’ which tell a story of a young abused dancer’s life and relationships and are now collectively known as the ‘Lulu Plays.’ Since their publication in the early 1900′s, the plays have been the inspiration for a silent film (‘Pandora’s Box,’ 1929), an opera, and countless other creative endeavors.
Originally the lyrics and musical landscape were sketched out by Lou for a theatrical production in Berlin, but after coming together with the ‘Tallica boys for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts in New York in 2009 all guilty parties knew they wanted to make more music together.
Lou was inspired enough by that performance to recently ask the band to join him in taking his theatrical “Lulu” piece to the next level and so starting in early May of this year we were all camped out recording at HQ studios in Northern California, bringing us to today and ten complete songs.”
http://youtu.be/MuYcbEYbN_A