LARS ULRICH Predicts It Won't Take Eight Years For METALLICA To Release Another Studio Album

Apple Music's Beats 1 radio DJ Zane Lowe recently conducted an interview with METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich. You can now listen to the chat at this location.

Speaking about the eight-year gap between METALLICA's 2008 album "Death Magnetic" and the band's latest effort, "Hardwired… To Self-Destruct", Ulrich said: "I'm talking to you from Bogota, Colombia, and we're out here, we're playing some shows and we're doing a lot of interviews. We were up in Mexico City the other day for a full day of interviews, abd everybody's, like, 'Eight years. What have you been doing?' it's, like, 'Excuse me?' We've been busier in the last eight years than we ever have in our lives. Sometimes I kind of go, 'Wait a minute.' We spent three years touring 'Death Magnetic', we put two incredibly hard years into making of the 'Through The Never' movie project, we did the whole dance with Lou Reed, and we've played every single festival on this planet multiple times in the last eight years, we've been to continents that are primarily inhabited by penguins. So it's been a pretty busy eight years. And we've managed to record a record. [Laughs]"

He continued: "You can probably throw this back in my face eight years from now, but I will go out on a limb here and say that it's been such a good experience to do this record and the whole vibe of getting these songs [together], I hereby officially predict — or 'hope,' maybe would be a better word — that it's not gonna [take us] another eight years [to release] another record. So there you go. I said it. Okay, throw it back at me eight years from now."

As previously reported, three songs from "Hardwired… To Self-Destruct" have landed on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Songs airplay chart dated November 19: "Atlas, Rise!" (No. 22),"Moth Into Flame" (No. 6) and "Hardwired" (No. 23). According to Billboard, this feat marks the first time that an artist has charted at least three songs on Mainstream Rock Songs simultaneously since September 2008 when METALLICA's "The Day That Never Comes", "Cyanide" and "My Apocalypse" made the list. It also marks the first time that an act has tripled up in the top 25 since GREEN DAY in August 2005.

"Atlas" debuted at No. 35 on the Rock Airplay chart with 1.8 million audience impressions, according to Nielsen Music. "Moth" ranks at No. 18 (3.6 million) and "Hardwired" at No. 46 (1.4 million).

"Hardwired… To Self-Destruct" is due out November 18. It consists of two discs, containing a dozen songs and nearly 80 minutes of music.