As we’ve reported previously, Metallica’s currently working on its next album, as well as their own music festival, along with a 3D movie, which they’ll be funding themselves.
Apparently it won’t just be a concert film, but like Led Zeppelin’s Song Remains the Same it will have fictional segments, and documentary footage along with live concert footage they’ll be shooting this summer.
Rolling Stone mentioned to Lars Ulrich that a 3D movie “is a weird leap, even for you,” the drummer responded, “This has been circling for two years. And if it’s done right, it can be sensational. You’re not watching Metallica onstage. You’re onstage with Metallica. In IMAX, James Hetfield is 38 feet tall, snotting on you, spitting on you.”
Ulrich continues, “This idea goes back to the Nineties, when IMAX movies started coming out. We were in talks with them. That’s when an IMAX camera was the size of a house, and they only had twelve minutes of film. You had to stop to reload. But seeing Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol in IMAX, and then when we broadcast the ‘Big Four’ show from Sofia, Bulgaria, to movie theaters in 2010, that’s what sealed the deal.”
Then came the news that Slash’s solo album, Apocaylptic Love, actually hit the album charts at #4. As we all know, it’s a much different music business today, so the fact that anybody’s buying music at all is a miracle.
Apocalyptic Love, which Slash released through his own label, sold 38,000 its first week, and while that wouldn’t be much way back in the day for an album. Then again, by today’s standards it’s a miracle anyone’s paying anything for music. To make a comparison, Van Halen’s new album, A Different Kind of Truth, has (thus far) sold 377,000 copies, which puts it under gold status, which is 500,000 copies.
Unlike Axl, who never had any use for the press, Slash has no problem promoting his work, and you’ve probably been seeing him everywhere from Howard Stern to Piers Morgan pushing his new album.
So yes, Slash had to be asked repeatedly if he’s ever coming back to GNR, and the answer was always an emphatic no, but doing all that promo work apparently paid off very well.
