Lars Ulrich of Metallica has announced a new special on the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) for Mandatory Metallica, a new limited-engagement SiriusXM radio channel with music and content curated by the band. This new artist-branded channel, a return of their previous 24/7 programming, coincides with the 30th anniversary of the release of The Black Album, which saw a deluxe rerelease September 10th, 2021. Read our review here. Watch a video message from Lars about the show.
Ulrich announced his New Wave Of British Heavy Metal special in an Instagram video on Wednesday (September 15). He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I was asked if I would do a New Wave Of British Heavy Metal special for the channel, and, of course, that took all of one second to say yes to. So I put a little thing together with some of my favorite New Wave Of British Heavy Metal songs.
“As some of you know, the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal is kind of the reason, or the main reason, that there is a METALLICA. I was completely immersed and obsessed with this wave ’79, ’80, ’81, and when I met James [Hetfield, METALLICA frontman], we connected on that, shared some of these songs, played ’em to James, he loved ’em and then we started METALLICA and now I’m talking to you. That’s the short version of that story.
“Anyway, so you know about IRON MAIDEN, you know about SAXON, you know about DEF LEPPARD. I’m going a little deeper and playing some of my favorite deeper tracks from the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal.”
The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal special will premiere on Mandatory Metallica today (Thursday, September 16) at 5:00 p.m. EDT will re-air several times over the course of the next few days.