While announcing their new single, album and tour on The Howard Stern Show, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich shared how the band ended up becoming a pivotal part of an iconic scene in the Netflix hit, “Stranger Things.” Turns out that Metallica used to frequently turn down offers to use their music via pop culture avenues, but that’s no longer the case.
“That was such a mindf*ck of an experience this summer,” Ulrich told Howard Stern. “It used to be, with Metallica, we were always the ‘no’ guys. Hey, can we have this song for this? Can we have that song for that? … And it was just — no, no, no, no, no. And a few years ago, we reversed it; we did a one-eighty. We just said, ‘You know what, this is stupid. Why are we hanging on to these songs like they’re so important?'”
He continues, “A couple of years ago, we started saying ‘yes’ to everything. Obviously, we’re all somewhat familiar with the Stranger Things phenomenon. But we got that in six, nine months ago, and said yes. They wanted to build this whole scene about ‘Master of Puppets.’ And we said of course. Then it came out over the summer. And it was just such a mindfuck to see how that became a phenomenon. We were so proud.”
“Who would’ve thought, 40 years later, that these songs could still have that impact?”
According to Metallica’s director of creative sync licensing, “Stranger Things” creators, the Duffer Brothers, had “Master of Puppets” pegged for the show from early on.
“The song was scripted in by the Duffer Brothers,” Hannah Davis said. “It was in their mind from the very beginning. Nora [Felder, Stranger Things music supervisor] reached out to me in November 2020. … Nora ran me through the scene and explained the character of Eddie Munson to me.”
She recalled, “Because he was a new character, there wasn’t a real reference for how much of a ‘fan’ he was, so Nora explained he was a metalhead and that the fans would love him. She detailed how it started with him playing the riff on guitar, a visual instrumental, and then Metallica’s recording would come in.”
On Monday, Metallica announced every show they have booked through 2024 on Monday, and the band also released a new song/video for “Lux Æterna” from their forthcoming album, “72 Seasons.”
The 12-track, 77-minute album is produced by Greg Feldman, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, and is set to arrive on April 14, 2023. It’s the band’s first album since 2016’s “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct.”
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