In what is sure to be one of the most talked-about alliances of the year, LOU REED & METALLICA's Lulu album will be released by Warner Bros. Records on November 1st in North America (October 31st elsewhere).

In a new interview with GQ, Reed and Metallica's Lars Ulrich discusses the collaboration. An excerpt follows:

GQ: What were each of your preconceptions of the other before you started working on this project?

Lou Reed: "I've loved Metallica since I was a kid."

Lars Ulrich: "The reason we formed was to fulfill Lou's vision of one day working with us. I think we go back not only many years; we go back many lives, many planets, many solar systems."

GQ: I didn't realize! I'm curious, though, because Metallica has always been very vocal about its influences: MISFITS and DIAMOND HEAD and things like that. But we've never really heard you talk about the VELVET UNDERGROUND.

Lars Ulrich: "Lou, the Velvet Underground, his solo material, the New York scene, all of that was inspirational to me in a bigger picture, get-out-of-bed type of way. Find a way to get on board and change the world in your own little way. Diamond Head and the Misfits and some of that stuff, they were more of a direct musical influence. This is more inspirational—on the level of wanting to be alive and wanting to do things to the best of your ability. When I was growing up in Denmark in the '60s, my father [tennis player Torben Ulrich] had a steady stream of people through the house—jazz musicians, writers, and poets filtered through the door, to a soundtrack of everything from THE DOORS, to JIMI HENDRIX, to the Velvet Underground, to ORNETTE COLEMAN, JOHN COLTRANE, and SONNY ROLLINS."

Lou Reed: "DEXTER GORDON."

Lars Ulrich: "Dexter Gordon, right. [Gordon was Ulrich's godfather.] It was a pretty rich cultural household and upbringing. What I got from my father in those years before I rebelled was to try to be open to all these things that were going on in the house."

Lou Reed: "Lars has got one of the greatest fathers you've ever met. He's amazing."

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The entire Lulu album is streaming online here.

The complete Lulu tracklisting is as follows:

'Brandenburg Gate' (4:19)

'The View' (5:17)

'Pumping Blood' (7:24)

'Mistress Dread' (6:52)

'Iced Honey' (4:36)

'Cheat On Me' (11:26)

'Frustration' (8:33)

'Little Dog' (8:01)

'Dragon' (11:08)

'Junior Dad' (19:28)

A deluxe version of Lulu will be released in a tube-shaped container (13cm x 1.24m), and will include a two-CD digipack package, a large 1.2m x 1.6m poster (with song lyrics), and three photographs by Anton Corbijn (50cm x 50.8cm).

A new trailer is available below:

Lulu was co-produced by Reed, Metallica, Hal Willner who has produced albums for Reed, MARIANNE FAITHFUL, and LAURIE ANDERSON, among others and Greg Fidelman. Fidelman also mixed the record.

The idea for these two giants of modern music to work together was born after the 25th anniversary Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame concerts in New York City in October 2009. Metallica -singer/guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Rob Trujillo - played with Reed on VELVET UNDERGROUND classics, 'Sweet Jane' and 'White Light/White Heat'.

"We knew from then that we were made for each other," Reed says.

After that triumphant performance, Reed suggested they all make a record together. At first they planned to record an album of Reed's older material, what Ulrich describes as "some of Lou's lost jewels - songs that he felt he'd like to give a second spin, and we could do whatever it is we do to some of those songs." That idea "hung in the air for a couple of months." Then, a week or two before that session was to begin, "Lou called up and said, 'Listen, I have this other idea.'"

That idea was to record a series of songs Reed had written for American avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson and German theater group the Berliner Ensemble's production of the Lulu Plays, which premiered in Aprilat theTheatre am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, founded by Bertolt Brecht. The songs are inspired by German expressionist Frank Wedekind's early 20th century plays Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, and were a rewrite of Edgar Allan Poe's, The Raven, which emerged as a graphic novel on Fantagraphics Press.