Earlier this month, Metallica played a livestreamed acoustic show (which turned out to be partly electric in the end) alongside an auction, with all proceeds going to the band’s charity organization, the All Within My Hands Foundation. Now, it’s been revealed that Metallica raised quite a bit of money for their charity with that show — specifically a little more than $1.3 million.
According to Blabbermouth, Metallica’s first ever pay-per-view livestream event has raised over $1.3 million thus far. That money will go to All Within My Hands’ partners at Feeding America and the American Association Of Community Colleges, not to mention supporting COVID-19 and disaster relief efforts in the upcoming months.
Not only that, but the band will extend the event, continuing to offer tickets to fans who want to watch the whole set themselves. Tickets and ticket packages will be available until 11:59pm PST on December 1st via the band’s online portal.
This isn’t the only good news for Metallica fans this week. In a recent interview, drummer Lars Ulrich revealed that the band are about a month into the writing process for their new album.,
“We’re three, four weeks into some pretty serious writing,” said Lars. “And of all the shit – pandemics, fires, politics, race problems, and just fucking looking at the state of the world – it’s so easy just to so fall into a depressive state.
“But writing always makes me feel enthusiastic about what’s next. It’s like, ‘Fuck, there’s an opportunity here to still make the best record, to still make a difference. To still do something that not even turns other people on, but turns me on.’”
Lars also commented on the constant circulation of information about Metallica that has come with the digital age. In his eyes, it’s the most stark difference between now and when the band started — a sense that suddenly everyone’s knowledge and judgment of your music is on blast at all times/
“The difference now, compared to back in the day, is that everybody’s got an opinion,” said the drummer. “In the mid-to-late Nineties, it was like, “We played a show four days ago in Bumfuck, Somewhere, and the set list is posted online. The whole Napster thing 20 years ago, when we woke up in the middle of that shitstorm, was the first time where we were not universally the good guy. That’s when I conditioned myself to stop paying attention [to online commentary].”
***
Words by Chris Krovatin
