Metallica talk Rihanna, Trump and their love for the UK as the metal band release first album in eight years

IT’S been eight years since the world’s biggest metal band extended their discography with a new album.

That’s the same length of time it took them to put out their 1983 debut album Kill ’Em All, follow- up Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets, . . . And Justice For All AND their self-titled masterpiece, aka The Black Album.

“Well, I was almost tempted to apologise,” smirks Lars Ulrich, shuffling in his seat in a posh Mayfair hotel suite. “But I’ve decided not to because there is really nothing to apologise for.”

Metallica’s founding member, drummer and resident motormouth is in a bullish mood, despite having a stinking cold.

He adds: “You know, writing songs and making new records is a cool thing to do but nowadays it’s not the only thing we do.”

Indeed, during that time the original San Francisco Bay Area thrashers have played hundreds of festival and area shows, created their own record label, made a movie, collaborated with Lou Reed and launched their own touring festival.

Metallica have been far from lazy.

Lars says: “It’s not that we’re scared of writing new songs and it’s not the pressure either. It’s just that there is other stuff we enjoy doing also so the records just became more infrequent.

“We’re psyched to have new songs to play but we have learned that maybe we should move writing songs and making new records further up the pecking order.

“So it’s not going to be another eight years until the next record.”

On the day their new album was released, Metallica played an intimate gig at The House Of Vans on London’s Southbank — part of their enduring love affair with Britain.

Lars says: “The UK has always been a very significant part of my life. The UK is the reason I’m in a band. When I formed Metallica, at 17, all of the stuff I was listening to was British — Motorhead, the Sex Pistols, the whole NWOBHM thing.

Everything that made me want to be in a band and to play music came out of England.”

In the early Eighties Metallica even ditched California for London, briefly.

“Yeah, we stayed in England for most of the first year — somewhere in Notting Hill.

“We must have played every arena, every city hall, stayed in every s****y Holiday Inn and gone up and down the goddamn M1 f***ing 9,000 times,” he reminisces, affectionately.

In those early days they had a different bassist, whose memory remains with Lars, James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett 30 years since his death. He was Cliff Burton.

Lars says: “We carry his spirit, his attitude with us wherever we go.

“In those early days we were always outsiders, always autonomous, unique in our own little world but fiercely independent. Cliff was a big part of that. He was an incredibly unique individual.”

While happy to talk for hours about his musical inspirations, Lars is more reticent about fresher musical influences.

He says: “I don’t spend a lot of time following what’s going on and what’s the super latest thing. I just don’t think there’s been that much happening in the rock world. No one’s really pushing through.

“My kids play me stuff like Kendrick Lamar or Kamasi Washington, but I didn’t know who any of these people were before — I’m just not exposed to much pop music in my life.

“I didn’t know much about Rihanna either, but we did a show with her in New York and it was like, ‘Holy s**t, she’s really good! She’s the next level!’.”

Metallica’s new album Hardwired . . . To Self-Destruct is a mighty piece of metal, so big it warrants a double album. Did it always start out that way?

“It is a lot of music. It’s almost 80 minutes of music!” says Lars, 52.

He continues with a chuckle: “But we figured it was really more to put in an intermission, or a p**s break.

“So it goes on a bit long, but when you put out records every eight f***ing years it’s OK if there’s too much of it!

“And if that’s the biggest problem then that’s a good f***ing problem to have!”

Hardwired . . . To Self-Destruct indulges itself with pummelling metal with not one ballad in the mix, even though the tune Nothing Else Matters helped catapult them to super-stardom on 1991’s Black Album.

Explaining the underlying themes and ideas that form the hugely anticipated album, Lars says: “It’s about confusion, contradiction, dichotomy and vulnerability — different energies pulling you in different ways.

“The title touches on the fact that most people are good people who try to do the right thing. But what if it’s hardwired in your DNA to make the wrong choices, to f*** up?

“So it plays with those ideas and whether the choices we end up making — are they really choices or just perceived to be? Are we hardwired to self-destruct?

“Is it all going to hell in a handbasket no matter how good we try to be?

“I mean, look outside. It’s not exactly raining daisies on a daily basis is it?”

We actually do look outside and he’s right, it’s not nice or raining daisies, while over the Pond Donald Trump is now president-elect.

Lars says: “Look . . . it’s a global thing. Someone said to me the other day that the state of the world is worse than it’s ever been. But I’m not sure about that.

“Twenty, 30, 40 years ago there were civil wars, famine, disaster and crap everywhere. But with the globalisation of communication and the media today, the world’s issues are instantly in your face, albeit on a 12-hour cycle.”

Hardwired . . . To Self-Destruct also features a thumping tribute to a British hard rock legend. That man is the late Motorhead frontman Lemmy and the song is Murder One — named after his amp.

Lars says: “We wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for him.

“I met him in California and when I came to Europe in the summer of ’81 I followed him around England ending up outside Nomis Studios in London.”