During a recent chat on The Metallica Report podcast, James Hetfield said being in the studio with Elton John helped him in Metallica.
Hetfield and the band still love making music and have no plans to retire. After releasing their latest album ’72 Seasons,’ James stays creative by spending free time in his home studio:
“Not so much practicing; it’s just writing. There’s always ideas, I get inspired from all kinds of different music [I’m] listening to.”
Then, the singer shared how working with John impacted him:
“I mean, even the Elton John thing, you know, hanging out with Elton and Bernie Taupin challenged me. Watching ‘Rocket Man’ and seeing how they wrote… Elton is such a visionary, that Bernie sets a set of lyrics, a poem, in front of him, and he sees the music just appearing, which is bizarre to me, a more of the old, kind of Tony Iommi way, where here is the riff, and we build around the riff, instead of building around a lyric.”
Elton John Likes Metallica
Metallica and John have a deep bond. John featured on Metallica’s 2021 album ‘The Blacklist’ and praised their song ‘Nothing Else Matters’ as one of the best ever. Here is what Elton said on the Howard Stern Show:
“I have to say. It was a no-brainer playing on this song. Metallica are probably the crème de la crème of those kind of bands. You can’t really define them. They’re not a heavy metal band. They’re a musical band. Their songs aren’t just heavy metal. They’re beautiful songs. This is such a melodic song. It’s f*cking great, actually.”
These words of John moved Hetfield to tears. More recently, Metallica honored John by covering his ‘Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding.’ They performed the song at a ceremony in March honoring John and Bernie Taupin for the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
