Metallica kicked off their weeklong takeover of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday night (April 10th), chatting with the talk-show host and performing the single “Lux Æterna.”
The metal legends will release their new album, 72 Seasons, on Friday (April 14th), and leading up to its release, they’ll appear on Kimmel every night through Thursday. The Kimmel residency also precedes their 2023-2024 world tour, which kicks off later this month (tickets available here).
Kimmel started the jokes early, greeting James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and Robert Trujillo as “the most adorable boy band of all time.”
When Kimmel commented that he saw a line of their fans in the morning, and noticed that “half of them looked like they were in high school,” Ulrich responded, ‘That’s the boy band in us! I don’t think they know how old we are. Let’s keep this a secret between all of us.”
The conversation then turned toward “Master of Puppets” and Stranger Things, with Kimmel mentioning that Trujillo’s son Tye played the guitar heard in the epic battle scene from this past season. Trujillo gave credit to Hammett for teaching Tye how to play the parts, and Kimmel quipped, “You gotta be careful. You see what happened with Van Halen. The kids move in and there’s trouble.”
The band went on to talk about their recently announced marching band contest, the upcoming world tour, their vinyl pressing plant, and more. They also each named the first albums they bought, with Hammett sheepishly admitting it was the Partridge Family Christmas album.
After their conversation with Kimmel, Metallica closed out the show with a crushing rendition of “Lux Æterna.” Watch the interview and the performance below, and check out our recent Metallica cover story here.