“The snare drums will have to wait”

Metallica have poked fun at their 2003 LP ‘St. Anger’ after announcing that songs from the album are now on FenderPlay.

Four of the songs featured in ‘St. Anger’ – including ‘Frantic’, ‘St. Anger’, ‘Some Kind Of Monster’ and ‘The Unnamed Feeling’ – have been released and available on FenderPlay, an instructional guitar platform that allows aspiring guitarists to play along to licensed recordings.

Released as their eighth album on June 5, 2003, ‘St. Anger’ came at a time following years of intra-band tension due to bassist Jason Newsted’s exit and James Hetfield entering rehab. It earned the Number One spot on the US Billboard charts despite it’s mixed reviews from critics and backlash from fans.

The band took to their official Instagram account to announce the songs being available on FenderPlay and took the moment to mock themselves. “Everyone’s favorite album is now on @fenderplay! Dust off your guitar (sorry, the snare drums will have to wait for another day) and get started on ‘Frantic,’ ‘St. Anger,’ ‘Some Kind of Monster,’ and ‘The Unnamed Feeling’.”

The comment about the snare drum was in reference to drummer Lars Ulrich’s legendarily bad snare-drum tone within that album. Back in 2020, Ulrich defended the much-maligned sound of his snare, saying “I stand behind it 100% because, at that moment, that was the truth. Just my personality, I’m always just looking ahead, always thinking about the next thing,” while appearing on SiriusXM.

He continued: “That’s just how I’m wired. Whether it’s Metallica always thinking ahead, or in my personal life, or in relationships, whatever I’m doing — I’m just always thinking ahead. Sometimes, arguably, I spent too much time in the future, but I rarely spend any time in the past. And so the only time this stuff really comes up is in interviews.”

In other news, Metallica recently announced the official winners of their first ever ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ marching band competition.

The band launched the contest last April, with more than 450 US colleges and high schools applying to enter. Bands were challenges to create “their most exciting, unique and impressive performances of some of the band’s most beloved songs”, with the band supplying them with musical charts of songs including ‘Enter Sandman’, ‘Master of Puppets’, ‘Fade to Black’ and others.

Earlier this month, the band’s frontman James Hetfield said that he would love somebody to create a microphone with a built-in straw.

Speaking on the band’s in-house podcast The Metallica Report, he said: “Being able to maybe sip some water while I’m playing, you know, some kind of straw on the microphone…that could be cool.”

Metallica will hit the road again in May 2024 for another leg of their M72 World Tour, for which they’ll play two nights in each city with two unique “no repeats” setlist and different support acts. The tour will wrap in Mexico in September 2024.

The band’s bassist Robert Trujillo, meanwhile, recently revealed why they tweaked their ‘M72’ tour setlist.

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