“Do they even understand this?”, the frontman recalls wondering.

During an appearance on Liquid Metal, Metallica members talked about the “S&M 2” live album they are currently promoting, while also touching on the ongoing lockdown and more.Recorded last year, the latest symphony performance was released as a live album on August 28.

When asked, “In regards to ‘S&M 2,’ what song did you find most difficult to pull off and also what song did you not do because you thought it would be too hard to pull off with the symphony?’,” guitarist Kirk Hammett replied (transcribed by UG):

“There’s two classical pieces that were included in the show; one of them was called ‘Iron Foundry’ and it was a substantial classical piece written by a Russian composer at the end of the 20th century.

“And when I heard that – when we heard that – it was kind of difficult to figure out where we fit in, but then when we worked with Michael Thomas, and we kind of like had a discussion about it, it became clear as to what our role was.

“But that was a little bit of a challenge, I think, absolutely.”

Any Metallica songs that were maybe on a preliminary list, like, ‘Yeah, this is not gonna work…’?

James Hetfield: “I don’t think so. It was more the opposite, like, ‘How many songs ‘can’ we do?’ Because – there was such enthusiasm about the collaboration.

“And the fact that we had done it before, got all the cobwebs and scariness out of us – so when we were thinking of putting songs in there, obviously a few albums later we had a lot more material, and it was more difficult to choose what songs not to do.

“And we know we wanted to be as adventurous as possible, so there’s songs that we love playing that sometimes I don’t even think people like.

“But something like ‘Master of Puppets,’ you got this symphony trying to play the riff of ‘Master of Puppets,’ and I’m thinking, ‘How’s this gonna work? Do they even like this? Do they even understand this?’

“But a song like that translated pretty well, and then there was more obvious stuff that just had to happen, like ‘Unforgiven III.’ ‘Unforgiven,’ it made sense, and I wanted it to be as different as possible.

“I was super-nervous getting up there singing that song with just the orchestra, and I’m grateful that the other three guys were able to go out there and support me, and lay down their instrument and just enjoy the moment.

“That was huge. It was huge for me, so thank you, guys. And also ‘All Within My Hands,’ acoustically, it just… I don’t know, it was one of those songs that’s not represented on an album, it’s different.

“It’s a new way of doing a song; I think those were probably the most fun for me, but there were so many great moments.”

Lars, recently you posted a video of your two oldest sons, and they were jamming on The Beatles song?

Lars Ulrich: “It was The Beatles song ‘Eleanor Rigby.’ It was crazy. Thanks for bringing that up – it was a crazy moment because I was doing a Zoom thing with a friend, and they said like, ‘You want to do a song or play drums?’

“‘You know what? Thanks a lot, but I’ll leave the drum solos out of this.’ And I was like, ‘Hey boys, you guys want to throw something in there?’ And Layne came up with this incredible version of ‘Blackbird’ – it was only like 90 seconds long or whatever.

“It was like, ‘You guys want to do something together? We got a five-minute slot…’ And they were like, ‘Nah…’ And then an hour later it was like, ‘Come down to the studio space.’

“And I came down and in like half an hour or whatever they’d put together this insane version, like, jazz-fusion thrash – I don’t even know what to call it – of ‘Eleanor Rigby.’

“And it went viral or whatever, people were kind of losing their shit over this, and the feedback was so unexpected. They were super happy, it was just a great moment. I was very proud.”

Rob, give us an update on [your son] Tye’s band.

Rob Trujillo: “Very quick update: just before the pandemic shut everything down, they were recording an album, actually, and they had just finished drum tracks.

“And then literally the next day – boom – everything shut down. So I think next week he’s gonna finish recording bass on like seven songs and they’re gonna kind of continue towards finishing their first full-length record.

“And he’s got a couple of things going on; he’s got a collaborative project, actually a possible band, but I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about it yet because it’s pretty high-profile.

“He’s doing great; he’s busy, he’s always writing, even hip-hop stuff, you know? I’m always sort of downstairs in my zone and I always hear him coming up with something, and occasionally, I have to go up and try to play bass on it – I have to.”