Between lockdown sessions and epic orchestral live albums, Metallica haven’t been idle during the past few months. Now Lars Ulrich has revealed that the band are working on a new orchestral version of their classic 1991 track Nothing Else Matters.
The drummer told Collider that the band had teamed up with composer James Newton Howard to rework the track for upcoming Disney movie Jungle Cruise.
"James Newton Howard, the man, the myth, the absolute legend," Ulrich said. "Considering what's he's done, it's an absolute honor to have done this with him, and we're excited for the world to hear it.
“It's kind of an interesting morph, because it's kind of – and I don't want to give too much of it away – but it's a very unusual morph in that it's kind of his arrangement of 'Nothing Else Matters' that we're playing.
“We wrote the song, but he took the song and rearranged it to fit something specific in the film – and obviously, I'm not going to give any of that away – but we then kind of took on his version of it. I think that's all that should be said."
Howard created an orchestral version of Nothing Else Matters for Jungle Cruise, which stars Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Emily Blunt, before Disney soundtrack boss Michael Lieb reportedly brought the new version back to Metallica to add extra parts.
"I came up with the idea of, let's have some fun, and why don't we take your tracks up to Metallica's studio in San Francisco, and why don't we have Lars do the drum tracks, and James Hetfield do some of the guitars,” Lieb told The Entertainment Outlet.
Metallica’s S&M2 album is currently neck-and-neck with Katy Perry’s Smile in the race to have the highest new entry in the US Billboard charts.
For an exclusive interview with Metallica about S&M2, pick up the new issue of Metal Hammer, out now.
