When Metallica and Lady Gaga risked disaster at the Grammys
In 2017the 59th annual Grammy Awards gave one of the most unlikely live collaborations in the history of the awards. For a few, long seconds, however, everything seemed about to derail. Yet that performance, which he saw on stage together Metallica with Lady Gagawas born in the most informal and friendly way possible. As the 68th Grammys ceremony approaches, scheduled for February 1st at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, we look back the story of the duet between the Four Horsemen and the pop star of “Bad romance” on “Moth into flame“, single from the heavy metal band’s 2016 tenth studio album, “Hardwired… to self-destruct”. Given the problems of the live performance, with permission from the Grammys and CBS, both artists were able to upload online both the rehearsal version, free of technical difficulties, and a “corrected” version of the original performance, in which the audio from the recording deck was mixed with that of the television broadcast.
As told in an interview with “Access Hollywood” by the Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich before the performance with Lady Gaga, the idea was born from an informal and casual meeting between him and the singer. “We were asked if we wanted to come back to the Grammys, and as always, they encourage you to ask yourself, ‘Is there any collaboration you think would be interesting?’”
Continuing his story, Ulrich added: “We in the band decided to think about it. And one evening, I found myself at a dinner with Gaga. We were sitting next to each other and just chatting, when I thought of something and said to myself, ‘This could be really cool.’ So I told her: ‘We’re doing the Grammys in a couple of months, would you like to join us?’. And she was like: ‘Yes, that would be fantastic!'”. The meeting between the Metallica drummer and Lady Gaga took place at the home of Bradley Cooper, who at that time was in pre-production with the pop star for the film “A star is born” in which they were both protagonists. That dinner was also reported by the “Poker face” artist herself to Zane Lowe of Apple Music without sparing praise for Metallica.
Ahead of the 2017 Grammys event, Lady Gaga and Metallica are found ourselves to rehearse together in a studio in Los Angeleswhere they tried to reimagine “Moth into flame” without losing its heavy metal roots while making the most of the pop star’s voice.
In 2020, the band’s frontman James Hetfield reportedly reminded Howard Stern: “She was there for two hours before we even got there, working on her moves and thinking of ideas. She is extremely creative and is a fearless artist“. Lars Ulrich added: “He was telling me that ‘Metal Militia’, which is a lesser-known track from our first album ‘Kill ’em all’, was his favorite song at the time. He loves metal, she has always been very vocal about her love of metal and showed up at Iron Maiden and Anthrax concerts.”
Before the performance on the evening of February 12, 2017 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the 59th Grammys, Lady Gaga and Metallica did a final dress rehearsal directly on stagesuccessful. But when the awards ceremony got underway, things started to go wrong. After Megadeth’s victory with the song “Dystopia” in the “Best Metal Performance” category, inexplicably called on stage to collect the award to the tune of “Master of puppets” by Metallica played by the house band, Hetfield and company also seemed destined for some trouble.
To introduce the performance of Metallica and Lady Gaga, the “Orange is the new black” actress took to the stage Laverne Coxthan at the announcement of the artists she completely forgot to mention the band. “My apologies to Metallica and all their fans. They told me I didn’t mention them in the intro. I love you Metallica. You’re amazing,” Cox later said on Twitter. The embarrassing moments, however, were apparently not over. When the band hit the first notes of “Moth into flame”, and Gaga in her metal-head attire with dancers in tow took the stage, it was immediately clear that something was about to go wrong. In particular, James Hetfield’s microphone didn’t work and on the first verse of the song the frontman’s voice could not be heard. Hetfield continued to sing at the top of his lungs for over a minute, but to no avail, and by the chorus it was clear that the problem wasn’t going away. Luckily Gaga discreetly pulled Hetfield towards her, and the two sang the chorus together into her microphone, sharing it for the rest of the performance. The Metallica frontman didn’t take that technical incident well at all so much so that, as soon as the performance ended, he furiously threw his guitar off the stage and returned to the dressing room in a rage. Lars Ulrich narrated to James Corden on “The Late Late Show”: “We get off stage, we go backstage and I hadn’t seen him like that in twenty years: he was livid with anger. He’s aged very well and he’s a pretty calm person. But the first five or ten minutes in that dressing room were not fun at all.”
Hetfield later explained to the New York Post: “I felt embarrassed. I haven’t been this angry in a long time. When something out of my control goes wrong, I still get nervous. I’m sure this touches on other things from my past, but I felt helpless.” The mistake, TMZ reported at the time, was caused by a stage technician who accidentally disconnected a cable under the stage moments before the performance.
