METALLICA frontman James Hetfield has revealed in a new interview that the band is currently in the studio recording what is presumably the band's long-awaited follow-up to 2008's "Death Magnetic" album.

Speaking to EMGtv about his inspiration for the EMG Het Set and his three signature ESP guitars — Truckster, Snakebite, and Iron Cross — Hetfield said (see video below): "I tell ya, we're recording right now, and there's the number one guitar, there's the number two guitar, there's the number three. And here's the third-track guitars that just sound different. They all sound different."

METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich recently told RollingStone.com that the band has written close to 20 new songs for its long-awaited tenth studio album, although he declined to offer a possible release date for the new CD. Ulrich said: "In our world, there's been a distinct difference between the creative phase and the recording phase. With this project, we're trying to bridge the two a little more organically and not have there be such a great divide between the processes. We want to see if we can bring some of the creative curiosity, the impulsive stuff that happens when you're first playing a song into the studio."

Ulrich added that the band doesn't want to record in a way that feels "labored over and overthought."

Bassist Robert Trujillo told The Pulse Of Radio that there's always a surplus of new song ideas coming out of James Hetfield. "James usually comes up with a lot of stuff," he said. "He's the kind of guy where he plugs in his guitar, turns a volume knob or a, you know, a tone knob, and he comes up with, you know, the greatest riff that you can imagine. So in that case, there's no shortage of riffs and ideas."

Aside from touring, METALLICA has spent much of the seven years since the release of "Death Magnetic" on several other projects, including launching a music festival, collaborating on an album with the late Lou Reed and making a feature film.

Ulrich told The Pulse Of Radio not long ago that spending all its time making an album is no longer a priority for METALLICA. "If we had to sit there and, 'Okay, boys, now you write for the rest of the year and then you spend the next year after that recording' — I would pull what seven hairs I have left, I'd pull those out and rather just stab myself in the eye with nails or whatever," he said. "I just, I couldn't do it. I mean, we love the position that we're in to be able to come and go between all these different projects. That's what keeps us alive."