“We’ve played all seven continents – might as well play the 8th one”: James Hetfield on Metallica’s foray into Fortnite

James Hetfield has described Metallica’s collaboration with Fortnite as a “really cool idea”.

Last weekend, Fortnite offered the Metallica: Fuel. Fire. Fury. experience, taking fans through five classic tracks as well as the standard live intro of Ennio Morricone’s The Ecstasy of Gold.

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And frontman Hetfield has discussed the collaboration in The Metallica Podcast. He says, “What I kind of equate it to is we have a huge family out there. The Metallica family is international and obviously every corner of the earth, there’s a Metallica family member.

“And Fortnite is kind of the same. They’ve reached many people all over the planet, so getting the two together makes sense. And they’ve got a lot to gain from our family and vice versa. So it is a really cool idea. And like it was explained to me, it’s like it’s a whole other continent. And we’ve played all seven, [so we] might as well play the eighth one. So let’s get in on that and, yeah, explore and be adventurous and see what comes out of this. Why would we not?”

Discussing the similarities between the Metallica and Fortnite communities, he continues, “You’re able to be welcomed in no matter who you are or what you are or how you wanna dress or however you wanna accessorize or whatever.”

However, it doesn’t sound as though Hetfield is much of a Fortnite player himself. He explains, “I haven’t tried it. I mean, I’ve tried Guitar Hero, and it’s not much to do with guitar playing, really. It’s a game. You’re jumping around on stuff and you’re hitting things at a certain time. It’s more about timing. It’s more about being a drummer than it is a guitar player, really, in a way. It’s about the timing. But, yeah, it is fun.

“But, yeah, here you’re doing more than one note at a time. But I’d probably not be great. I’d be competitive and try to get better. Yes, of course… Especially if you’re living in this world and you’re doing it every day, you’re gonna get good at it – as simple as that. And gosh, there’s so much that I don’t know about it that it’s kind of interesting to be able to learn about it. It’s like it’s its own continent, it’s its own language, it’s probably got its own set of, I don’t even wanna call them rules, but etiquette and shit like that, that is probably very different from the outside world, that I don’t even know about. And so people are kind of creating their own whole own universe, which is pretty unbelievable and fantastic.”

Check out Metallica: Fuel. Fire. Fury. below: