METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich says that he knew right from the start that the band's collaboration with pop giant Lady Gaga at the Grammy Awards would be a huge success. He told The A.V. Club: "Listen, I knew this was going to work. I mean, Gaga is a metal chick at heart. There was no way this was not going to work. It was totally in her DNA. It was totally in her wheelhouse. This was not not going to work. The only question was at what level it was going to work." He continued: "We did one run-through. The way her and James's [Hetfield, METALLICA frontman] voices worked, it jelled so well together we all kind of stood there like, 'Huh?' It was really fucking next-level. I think we rehearsed it twice, maybe three times on Friday night. And it was just dialed. There was no sort of, 'Oh, my god, what are we doing here?' This was as natural and organic as you could imagine this type of stuff being. This was a home run from the get-go." Ulrich also elaborated on his previous prediction that METALLICA's collaboration with Gaga at the Grammy Awards would end up being just the beginning for the unlikely combo. "As you spend 72 hours with somebody, and there's this connection and this intimacy, part of it is that maybe you don't want it to end," Ulrich explained. "When these moments work, you always leave them open to reconnection. So obviously, we're not sitting in a recording studio today writing songs for a record or anything. I think that our weekend together was so seamless and so authentic and such a natural fit that the idea of revisiting this at some point down the road… As we were walking off one of the soundchecks, she said to me, 'We gotta do something again together. This is just too good to leave.' And I said, 'I agree with you. It's just too real.'" The drummer added: "Obviously, we haven't sat around and talked about this yet. But if there was ever an opportunity to revisit something like this, this is about as pure as it could get. So we'll see." Ulrich previously told Rolling Stone about the technical problems that left Hetfield without a mic for the bulk of the song: "There was a slight technical snafu, but that's not really something you can do much about. You just learn to live with that side of it. It happened to Adele last year; I guess this year it was our turn." The performance on this year's Grammy Awards show was marred by the incident, which was reportedly caused by a stagehand accidentally unplugging Hetfield's mic. That forced the frontman to share Gaga's mic for almost the rest of the song. A visibly Hetfield knocked down his mic stand at the end of the performance and threw his guitar offstage. METALLICA and Gaga may not be able to get together for an encore anytime soon, as both are heading out on world tours. METALLICA announced on Monday (February 13) the details of the North American leg of its "WorldWired" 2017 tour in support of the band's new album, "Hardwired... To Self-Destruct". The trek kicks off on May 10 in Baltimore, Maryland and will hit stadiums in 25 cities before winding down in mid-August. Support will come mainly from AVENGED SEVENFOLD and VOLBEAT, with GOJIRA taking over for the latter group for the last six shows.
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