No matter how successful and talented they are, all artists inevitably encounter failures at some point in their careers when the final output doesn’t receive the desired reaction. As Dave Mustaine disclosed during a recent conversation with Songfacts, James Hetfield also once admitted that Metallica had failed in three of their previous projects.
“The last time we talked, it didn’t end very well,” Mustaine admitted when asked whether the rumors about him collaborating with James Hetfield were true. “We have some memory of a couple of things that took place when I was in the band. I remember it one way, and he is saying that it happened another. But it’s about somebody else – it’s not even him. He’s talking to me on behalf of ‘you know who’ [Lars Ulrich].”
The musician continued, “They wanted to release ‘No Life ‘Til Leather’- 27 songs, posters, flyers, pictures, everything. I said I would love to do this thing, and James said, ‘Look, we f*cked up. The last three things we’ve done failed abysmally.’”
Speaking of those three failed Metallica projects, Mustaine shared, “He said it was ‘Lulu’ [Metallica’s collaboration with Lou Reed, released in 2011], something called Orion [a festival called Orion Music + More in 2012 and 2013], and there was one other thing… I think it was a film about a fan or something [the 2013 film ‘Metallica: Through the Never’]. I don’t know. I don’t see them as a failure.”
Thus, the Megadeth frontman recalled that according to James Hetfield, Metallica had failed in attaining success in ‘Lulu,’ which received poor reviews from critics, the band’s Orion Music + More touring music festival, and the concert film ‘Metallica: Through the Never,’ which were financial disasters.
