Lars Ulrich recently spoke with BBC’s Mary Anne Hobbs about how Metallica used to be ‘cynical’ about TV projects and how they never expected ‘Master of Puppets’ to become viral on ‘Stranger Things.’ The host first asked Ulrich if he was delighted by younger audiences finding Metallica through ‘Stranger Things,’ and the drummer dug into how they hadn’t seen the breakthrough coming: “It’s exciting and unexpected.” Many people inquired, ‘Did you know?’ We didn’t, no. We had no idea, because you never know with these things.”
He then revealed how Metallica’s ‘cynical’ attitude regarding film and television productions has shifted in recent years: “I don’t know when we did a 180° on our band, maybe a couple of three, five years ago. We would simply refuse everything before the question was even posed. As a result, many synchronization requests simply assumed we weren’t interested in sharing these tunes. We were sceptical about the entire world.” Ulrich went on to clarify the band’s goal to be more’supportive’ of television and filmmakers:
“And it was like, ‘Why are we like that?’ a few years ago.” Why don’t we share the music and encourage other creative diversified channels, such as younger filmmakers, indie films, and television shows?’ And today we say yes to almost everything.” The drummer then recounted how he found out about ‘Stranger Things,’ expressing his surprise at becoming a ‘phenomenon’ among younger audiences: “And, obviously, I know ‘Stranger Things’ from my kids, and [I] was aware of the phenomenon, but we didn’t realize it was going to be this big.” Who would have guessed? Nobody would suspect that.'” Lars then stated that, while Metallica was aware of Kate Bush’s popularity with ‘Running Up That Hill’ on ‘Stranger Things,’ the band did not expect ‘Master of Puppets’ to be that successful. He stated:
“We had certainly heard, and [I] was aware of the Kate Bush component.” The fact that a 37-year-old heavy metal song [almost] 9 minutes long could connect with the younger generation at the degree it did last summer… It’s simply beyond explanation.” Still, it appears that Lars isn’t the only one who is startled by ‘Master of Puppets’ success and reemergence through ‘Stranger Things,’ as James Hetfield recently stated, calling the now-obvious connection between the Netflix program and their single ‘bizarre.’ Metallica also drew reaction from certain ‘Stranger Things’ fans, as you can see right here to see what irritated fans about the band’s song.
