Last week, Metallica announced they will release their 12th studio album, “72 Seasons,” on April 14, 2023. The band also announced a massive world tour and released the debut single/video for “Lux Æterna.”
Metallica frontman James Hetfield talked about the new single in a behind-the-scenes look at the making of “72 Seasons.”
“‘Lux Æterna’ is an upbeat, kind of fast and joyous song, I would say — really indicative of New Wave Of British [Heavy] Metal stuff, so kind of a harkening-back-to-’80s kind of riff,” Hetfield said.
“It’s just fun and makes me move. It was fun making the video, fun recording a song that comes out really easy, that was a real easy song to write and to perform, like I said, very much like the early ’80s for us.”
Hetfield explained that the album’s title was inspired by some of the difficulties he’s faced.
“’72 Seasons’ came out of a book I was reading about childhood, basically, and sorting out childhood as an adult,” he said. “And 72 seasons is basically the first 18 years of your life. How do you evolve and grow and mature and develop your own ideas and identity of self after those first 72 seasons? Some things are more difficult than others — you know, some things you can’t unsee and they’re with you for the rest of your life, and other things you’re able to rewind the tape and make a new tape in your life. So that’s the real interesting part for me, is how you’re able to address those situations as an adult and mature.”
Hetfield said that darkness in his life has been trying, but that it also has inspired him to focus on the positives.
“There’s been a lot of darkness in my life and in our career and things that have happened with us, but always having a sense of hope, always having the light that is in that darkness… Without darkness, there is no light, and being able to focus a little more on the light in life instead of all of the… how it used to be and how horrible it is… There’s a lot of good things going on in life — focusing on that instead, and it helps to balance out my life. And there’s no one meaning to it — everyone has some sense of hope or light in their life, and, obviously, music is mine. And the song specifically talks about gathering of people at a concert and [being] able to see the joy and the life and the love that comes out of music and the family and the kinship in that, and just a sense of uplifting.”
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