Lou Reed Calls New Metallica Collaboration ‘Awe-Inspiring’

Lou Reed has released more details about his collaboration with Metallica, not-so-modestly calling it “maybe the best thing done by anyone, ever.”

Speaking with Vulture, Reed said the music is “awe-inspiring” and that “it could create another planetary system,” a statement that he backs further by saying that “I’m not joking and I’m not being egotistical.”

The new effort spawned from a production of Frank Wedekind’s ‘Lulu,’ helmed by Robert Wilson, for which Reed wrote the music and songs. Reed took the original plot and “followed it essentially from the point of view of Lulu and the various people who love her, until she gets involved with Jack the Ripper. The basics.”

According to Reed, the Metallica version of the Berlin stage production currently in progress will incorporate “absolutely all of that and more. It’ll probably come out by November.

He also says that the production is unlikely to ever come to America, something that he calls a “shame.” When asked about mounting his own U.S. version of the production with Metallica, he said  “I don’t think Metallica wants to be a band on Broadway! [Chuckles.] They’re metalheads. They’re not going to do that.”

We recently took a look at five things that might go right or wrong with the new Reed/Metallica pairing.

Watch Lou Reed Perform 'Sweet Jane'