Metallica's Ulrich & Pearl Jam's McCready Lay Out Bonnaroo 2008 Plans

Bonnaroo is less than a month away, so we checked in with Metallica's Lars Ulrich and Pearl Jam's Mike McCready to see what's in store for their performances. Although they're working on a new record with producer Brendan O'Brien, Pearl Jam probably won't be unveiling any new tunes. "[The record] is in the infant stages," McCready said during a phone-in press conference. "It has to grow up a bit. We'll [play] some obscure B-sides. We might get into some sort of jam. That's the vibe of Bonnaroo so far." Metallica, on the other hand, are in the "nips and tucks" stages of finishing their new record, which will hit stores in September (for more on the band's LP, click here). Lars Ulrich thinks that unlike the benefit they played last night in L.A., they'll definitely unleash some new metal epics, many of which extend to seven- or eight-minutes long. "We're going to Europe next week and then we come to Bonnaroo," he said. "Hopefully there'll be some new stuff thrown in there. I'd say that's pretty likely." So what do the new songs sound like? Says Ulrich, "There's alot of hardcore, nutty, super-fast speed stuff. It's a little more like the earlier records."

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

More Song Stories entries »

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