Rolling Stones saved Metallica from splitting up

Heavy metal band Metallica were saved from splitting up by the Rolling Stones, when they were in limbo after releasing their 2003 album St Anger.

Heavy metal band Metallica were saved from splitting up by the Rolling Stones, when they were in limbo after releasing their 2003 album St Anger.

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Drummer Lars Ulrich, a founding member of the band, has admitted that their future seemed "pretty bleak" when frontman James Hetfield took months off to fight his addiction to alcohol.

He even revealed that he was preparing himself for “something different”.

However, he added, an invitation from the Rolling Stones to perform with them saved their band from meltdown.

"The big turn around was when the Rolling Stones called us in the summer of 2005 and asked if we would play with them in San Francisco. We hadn''''t done anything since the St Anger tour ended seven or eight months earlier. We showed up at HQ four or five days before the gig. None of us had seen each other for quite a while,” the Daily Express quoted Ulrich as saying.

"There was no film crew, no producer, no psychiatrist, no minders, no babysitters, none of that s**t. It was just us four guys and we started playing music and rehearsing. And it was so effortless and low key without all the c**p.