METALLICA Will Be Touring 'Hard' In Support Of 'Hardwired...To Self-Destruct', Says ROBERT TRUJILLO

METALLICA bassist Robert Trujillo was interviewed last week by the Orlando, Florida radio station WJRR. You can now listen to the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the long gap between METALLICA's last album, 2008's "Death Magnetic" and the upcoming "Hardwired...To Self-Destruct":

Trujillo: "You kind of go with the flow of that and you deal with it. This is really officially my second record with the band, and I don't know how [long] it's been… like, eight years since the last, or something.

"The creative process is interesting, because we jam a lot. When we play shows on tour, we have what we call the 'jam room,' and we have, obviously, mobile recording gear so that any ideas that we come up with, they're recorded and documented. 'Cause James Hetfield [METALLICA frontman] will literally plug in his guitar cable and he'll turn the knob and he'll come up with a wicked riff in a split second. And if there isn't anything to record that idea, it goes away, and it's gone forever. I mean, I'll be sitting there with him, and there's not even any recording equipment around, and I'll hear him play something and I'll [be, like], 'Hang on a second!'

"I remember when I first joined the band, that would happen, and back then it was cassettes. I'd get my cassette recorder and I'd say, 'Play that again,' or whatever.

"So it's like that. It's a process of elimination, where the riffs and the ideas, they happen spontaneously. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes people will work on stuff and bring it to the rehearsal or whatever, and then you start writing. And our problem is we've got so many riffs, and some of 'em are really, really great, and they don't survive. And they could be another band's best riffs. It's a good problem to have."'

On METALLICA's touring plans in support of "Hardwired...To Self-Destruct":

Trujillo: "We will be definitely getting out there and touring this one hard. The thing is it's a new baby. With the release of the album and figuring out the setlist, and also being very excited about that, it takes time. And nurturing the show as well — everything from visual production to sound design and that whole thing. It's really exciting for all of us, including management. Usually, with the States, we really wanna come in and there's no experimenting; we want it to be right and solid. So we will be touring the States next year; it's just we're still developing the production to bring it out there. We've done a few things here and there — we played in Minneapolis very recently and we played in San Francisco also fairly recently. So we're juicing up the machine here. We're getting there. People are just gonna have to be a little bit more patient with us. I know it took a while to get the album finished and mixed and mastered, and release is right there, coming up very soon. But at the same time, now we've gotta get the show right. And it's all gonna be happening."

"Hardwired...To Self-Destruct" will be released on November 18 via Blackened Recordings. The effort consists of two discs, containing a dozen songs and nearly 80 minutes of music.

"Hardwired...To Self-Destruct" was produced by Greg Fidelman with frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. The band recorded the disc at its own studio.