In a new interview with Newsweek, Metallica frontman/guitarist James Hetfield speaks about the making of the band’s latest album, Hardwired… To Self-Destruct, his all-time favourite Metallica album and how he secretly wants to play drums. An excerpt follows:

Newsweek: Hardwired pays tribute to some of the giants of metal. The deluxe edition features “Ronnie Rising Medley”, which was previously available on 2014’s Ronnie James Dio - This Is Your Life tribute album. The record also features “Murder One”, a song about Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister.

James Hetfield: “We all have our mentors, and we need them, or at least I do. I need someone who I’m lookin’ up to, to either try and chase or learn from. We were asked by Dio’s wife, Wendy, to contribute to [This Is Your Life]. And that was kind of a no-brainer. We’re no strangers to doing covers. So the “Ronnie Rising Medley” was kind of a combination of all the good stuff we loved from Dio. It’s great to challenge myself with singing stuff like that. It helps me grow. And it also helps me push limits that I think I’m stuck in.

“Lemmy in particular was an icon, sort of a godfather for people who love heavy metal. He was the captain of the ship. And we all felt he was immortal [laughs], doing the hard, hard, hard livin’ for such a long time on the road, and just really goin’ for it [laughs]. We knew it would come to an end at some point. But we really didn’t expect it. There’s certainly no Metallica without a Motörhead.

“We would get to jam with Lemmy. He was a very friendly guy. We covered quite a few of their songs. You know, Motörhead never made it into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, which is a shame. But he did win a Grammy for a song called “Whiplash” that we had recorded on Kill ’Em All. We were trying to write a Motörhead song. He covered our song [for Motörhead’s 2006 album, Kiss Of Death] that was kind inspired by him, and he wins a Grammy for it. That is very cool.”

Read the complete interview at Newsweek.com.