Metallica’s media juggernaut continued last night with an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
The group performed their latest track, “Moth into Flame,” which was released earlier this week, on September 26. The song is from their upcoming album, Hardwired…to Self-Destruct, which comes out November 18.
On Tuesday, September 27, Metallica gave an exclusive interview to BBC 6 Music where they discussed Hardwired…to Self-Destruct. James Hetfield provided some insight into the album’s title and theme,
“It’s dealing with fame,” he said, “and for everyone, that’s their goal: ‘I want to be famous!’
“And there’s also the topic of, ‘Man, are we really doing this right?’ In the timeline of history, man has been around for a nanosecond and [I’m asking]: ‘Are we done now? Have we had our time?’ There’s a lot of polarization going on in the States, and I see it other places as well. But it just seems like you have to get more extreme to balance out the other extreme. We’ve got to find some balance in the middle here somewhere.
“We stay away from politics from religion. That just seems to polarize people even more. We all have our own beliefs but, at the end of the day, we’re trying to connect with people and it seems like political views don’t do that as much as music does.”
Metallica recently revealed the new album’s track listing and song lengths, shown below. The overall album length is 77:26.
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Disc One: 37:10 Hardwired (3:09) Atlas, Rise! (6:28) Now That We’re Dead (6:59) Moth Into Flame (5:50) Dream No More (6:29) Halo on Fire (8:15)
Disc Two: 40:16 Confusion (6:41) ManUNkind (6:55) Here Comes Revenge (7:17) Am I Savage? (6:29) Murder One (5:45) Spit Out the Bone (7:09) Deluxe Edition Bonus: Lords of Summer (7:10)
Christopher Scapelliti is editor-in-chief of Guitar Player magazine, the world’s longest-running guitar magazine, founded in 1967. In his extensive career, he has authored in-depth interviews with such guitarists as Pete Townshend, Slash, Billy Corgan, Jack White, Elvis Costello and Todd Rundgren, and audio professionals including Beatles engineers Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott. He is the co-author of Guitar Aficionado: The Collections: The Most Famous, Rare, and Valuable Guitars in the World, a founding editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine, and a former editor with Guitar World, Guitar for the Practicing Musician and Maximum Guitar. Apart from guitars, he maintains a collection of more than 30 vintage analog synthesizers.
