In a new interview with EMP, Eicca Toppinen of Finnish cello rockers APOCALYPTICA spoke about the band’s decision to record and release “Apocalyptica Plays Metallica, Vol. 2”, the hotly anticipated sequel to their legendary debut record, “Plays Metallica By Four Cellos”. Released in June 2024, the LP, produced by longtime collaborator and studio supremo Joe Barresi (QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, SOUNDGARDEN, TOOL, NINE INCH NAILS),continues the journey that began in 1996 when cellists from Helsinki’s world-renowned Sibelius Academy played symphonic tribute to the biggest of the big four–heavy metal titans METALLICA.
“Since the very first album, we were thinking one day we want to make another one,” Eicca said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “There were so many cool METALLICA songs we couldn’t play at that time, when we did the first album. But it took all this time, almost 30 years, and it started to feel like an exciting challenge. Now suddenly, after ‘Cell-0’ album, it felt like making a new METALLICA album is a step forward and not backwards. It’s kind of a big challenge, how to reinvent what it means when APOCALYPTICA plays METALLICA in 2024, ’25. It started to excite us because we still love the music and there were so many songs we wanted to play. And it was interesting that some of the songs we really wanted to play, they didn’t end up in the album because we found that our version is nothing special. It’s good, because it’s a good METALLICA song, but an APOCALYPTICA version is not really exciting enough. So it became really like reinventing the wheel.”
The first single from “Apocalyptica Plays Metallica, Vol. 2”, “The Four Horsemen”, a song that originally appeared on METALLICA‘s 1983 debut “Kill ‘Em All”, featured a guest appearance by current METALLICA bassist Robert Trujillo. Meanwhile, the “One” single saw METALLICA frontman James Hetfield joining proceedings for a soul-stirring, spoken word of those inimitable, now-immortal lyrics. Elsewhere, “The Call Of Ktulu” featured the original bassline laid down by METALLICA bassist Cliff Burton, who tragically lost his life in a tour bus accident in 1986.
“In general, when we started to work on this album, we had no plans to involve METALLICA in any way, except just we told them that, ‘Okay, we are working on the album,'” Eicca explained to EMP. “Then when working on the music, some cool ideas started to pop up, and, for example, the Cliff Burton thing. For me personally, ‘The Call Of Ktulu’ has been one of my favorite tracks from METALLICA. And just a couple of years ago, I realized that all these cool sounds, well, they’re magical, and I realized that those sounds are actually from Cliff Burton. And [I thought], like, ‘Wow, it would be so cool if we could get the original track and make [our version] around it.’
“When we had all these ideas, having a narrator in ‘One’ and a bass feature in ‘The Four Horsemen’, I messaged [METALLICA drummer] Lars [Ulrich] and I said, ‘Can we have a chat? I want to tell you what’s going on.’ And I was just presenting these ideas to him that, ‘Okay, we’ve been thinking this and that and that,’ just to check if they like the I ideas. And Lars, especially for Cliff Burton, he was, like, ‘I always love that you guys think out of the box. But it might be impossible, because we need to figure out the permission from Cliff Burton‘s family, we need to figure out the label rights.’ There are so many contractual things that are around his recording from ’84. Stars were aligned and things happened, and we got it. It’s never heard. Even Trujillo — Rob told me when he was in the studio recording bass for ‘The Four Horsemen’, he was, like, ‘These guys, they really must love you, Eicca, because this is never heard, that this kind of thing would happen.’ But I think we have built with METALLICA, over these decades, a very respectful relationship, a good friendship with them. And we’ve always been very grateful since the very first album. METALLICA gave a lot of great comments, positive comments. They praised the first album and stuff. So we’ve been always very grateful for everything we have gotten from METALLICA. And we never felt that we want anything from them. And even this time, we didn’t go, ‘Hey, guys, do you want to participate?’ It was more, like, ‘Hey, we think this would be fucking cool. What do you guys think?’ And they were, like, ‘Oh, yeah. Let’s make these things happen.'”
At this past June Download festival at Leicestershire, United Kingdom’s Donington Park, Toppinen spoke to Alex Alicia about APOCALYPTICA‘s plans for the coming months. He said: “We’ve been really focused on touring [in support of 2024’s ‘Apocalyptica Plays Metallica, Vol. 2’]. In five months, we played 80 shows, in Europe and North America. So there was not so much energy to think about what happens next. And then I was busy in the spring. I scored one movie, a long feature. It’s a really cool movie. So now when we started festival season, now we’ve started to talk, ‘Okay, what could be the next thing?’ Still we will tour with this METALLICA set till the end of next year at least. So I think we will do what we’ve been doing for a while already, that we will do singles, just individual collaborations with some people. And at the same time, we’ll work towards something that’s more wholesome, like an album kind of thing. But I think also we started to think about the album also from the perspective of what would be ultimately the greatest APOCALYPTICA show like, what all aspects it would include.”
He continued: “Now it’s great fun to play METALLICA, but this is so straightforward, like straight in your face all the time from the beginning to end. But APOCALYPTICA has so many more dimensions and I think, in a way, I don’t know any other band that can go from so sensitive, so classical, so minimalistic into such a really powerful chaos and everything in between. So, we haven’t done that kind of project. For example, a couple of years ago we did a tour in churches in Finland in the COVID times. And we made a special program for the church thing. I was, like, ‘Okay, this is really cool to do as well,’ and totally different thing than what we’re doing now. And I think kind of a hybrid of those where there would be space for all kind of qualities that APOCALYPTICA has. So that’s something what we are thinking… APOCALYPTICA can be this and that and that and that and then so many things. So it’s exciting.”
Also at this year’s Download, APOCALYPTICA lead cellist Perttu Kivilaakso was asked by Daniel Steer of Mike James Rock Show if there are any musicians left on his “wish list” for possible collaborators on the band’s future recordings. He responded: “We have worked with an incredible amount of amazing artists. And [METALLICA‘s] James Hetfield [who guested on APOCALYPTICA‘s cover of METALLICA‘s ‘One’ from ‘Apocalyptica Plays Metallica Vol. 2’], of course, has probably been the top of the list, kind of the dream that it would be unbelievable if he someday does something for us. But, of course, there are still so many fascinating artists. For example, I think that the charisma and incredible person of Nick Cave, for example, could be something really cool to make a dark, gloomy thing with the cello and his expression. Or whomever, like Pink or somebody with a really, really great attitude.
“The lovely thing about APOCALYPTICA is that we are very versatile with our music, that it could go from very beautiful classical elements to brutal thrash metal,” he explained. “And even still I would love to work more with the greatest growers — Alissa White-Gluz [ARCH ENEMY] or whomever — great artists there are. So the good thing is that the ideas never kind of end. You only end up having the problem with too many ideas and somebody in a business saying that, ‘Not all is possible, guys. Come on.'”
Kivilaakso went on to say that he and his APOCALYPTICA bandmates are grateful to still have a global audience with their unique fusion of classical cello music with hard metal elements. “So far, that has been really working,” he said. “And I just somehow started to appreciate more and more the fact that we still can do this for a living and entertain people around the world. And it makes us feel, I guess, blessed in that sense. And that gives you the sparkle to still continue and try to figure out more cool things.”
As previously reported, Hetfield attended APOCALYPTICA‘s March 3 concert at the Paramount Theatre in Denver, Colorado.
Photo credit: Riki Murto
