Metallica drummer and co-founder Lars Ulrich recently took part in a virtual live chat with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff today, April 28th, and mentioned that he believes there is a “very good chance” that a new Metallica album could be on the way, according to The PRP. This comment was made contingent on the quarantine lasting a rough period of six months or more.

Ulrich discussed how times of self isolation are causing artists to immerse themselves in creative thought, and that the band has often been bouncing ideas off of each other during their Zoom video chat sessions. Ulrich noted that a potential positive takeaway from the coronavirus pandemic is that artists are “being challenged to try to come up with new ways to be creative,” spurring a wave of original and covered content from artists across all genres.

Metallica has felt the blunt of the virus along with countless others around the world, as they were forced to cancel their festival appearances at Sonic Temple and Louder Than Life set to take place later this year. A seemingly countless number of concerts, tours, and festivals have been postponed or canceled because of the pandemic.

Although fans are eagerly awaiting the chance of Metallica releasing new music, the band did recently release a series of rare cuts, demos, rough mixes and live rarities for the first time on vinyl through a subscription to Vinyl Club. While a longer quarantine may upset most, the possibility of a new Metallica album resulting from the added time will certainly please some.

Check out Lars Ulrich’s full statement below:

“Like I said, the guys in Metallica, as we sit here and go, well, maybe in a month or two from now, is there a chance that the four of us can be together maybe at our studio here in Northern California, if the quarantine and stay-at-home orders subside — so on and so forth.

So, right now, as everybody who has creative juices flowing through their veins, they’re being challenged to try to come up with new ways to be creative, and I think that those are wonderful takeaways from the devastation that’s happening all over the world at the moment.”

“Everywhere in the world of not just music, but in the world of anything entertainment — obviously, film, theater, art; anything that has to do with creativity — I can guarantee there are thousands of conversations right now [about] how do we make records? How do we make filmed entertainment? How do we make art? How do we share it with this new paradigm that’s happening? What can it look like on the other side of the new normal?

Even if you bring it into our world, the people that make all the software and all the stuff that all use to record are sitting right now trying to figure out how Lars and James [Hetfield] and Kirk [Hammett] and Rob [Trujillo] can make a Metallica record from four different locations in four different states. And that’s something that we’re obviously circling and very excited about…

A lot of that will, obviously, have to do with how long stay-at-home orders stay in place. A lot of that will have to do with if there’s a second wave of the virus. Who knows what our world will look like six months from now?

But, obviously, the one thing that you can depend on with creative people, for better or worse, is that they can’t sit still for very long. And I can tell you that on these weekly Metallica Zoom sessions, we are talking about how we can just be a band again. And there are many different phases to being in a band, but the most basic one, and certainly where it started 37 years ago, is to just have four guys playing music together.

The fact that it ends up being shared all over the world and connecting with millions of people, that’s much later and a whole different thing. But at its core essence is just four guys in room, or connected via Zoom, making music together. And I can tell you that all four of us are really excited about what that could look like.

So, will there be a Metallica quarantine record? I can’t tell you, because, again, I don’t know how long the quarantine will last. But if you and I and the rest of the world are sitting here six months from now or a year from now, I’d say there’s a very good chance.”

Photo Credit: Mauricio Alvarado