Volbeat heap praise on Metallica

Volbeat frontman Michael Poulsen has praised Metallica for the way they treat other artists.

Poulsen’s band have supported the thrash giants across Europe and the US and he says it’s always an honour to hit the road with them.

He tells ArtistDirect: “We first met them in 2007. Metallica hadn’t been in Denmark for a long time and they were about to play a show in front of 40,000 people. They were looking for support bands and drummer Lars Ulrich was calling friends and media asking them, ‘What’s the big buzz right now?’ Everybody was talking about Volbeat.

“We had our second album out and he liked what he heard. We got the support slot that day and Metallica frontman James Hetfield became a Volbeat fan.”

Poulsen continues: “We’ve been on the road lots of times with them in America and Europe. It’s been amazing – they’re such nice guys. There are a lot of big bands who could learn a trick or two from Metallica about how to treat people.

“It was an honour and a great experience to go out with them. It shows that nothing is impossible – dreams are there to come true.”

Recently, Volbeat’s Rob Caggiano said the band were “floating around some ideas” about the follow-up album to 2013’s Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies, while Poulsen revealed he had written snippets for three songs. They hope to release fresh material before the end of 2015.

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.