In a brand new interview with The Irish Times, SLAYER guitarist Kerry King was asked for his opinion on the fact that METALLICA hasn't released a new studio album in seven years. He responded: "Funny thing is, I brought that up last night. We were sitting around having some shots, and I said, 'When's METALLICA doing a new record?'"

He continued: "When you think about it, it's kind of like us. You don't have to put out a new record. People will come up to a certain point, because you've got such a catalog. You can just keeping changing songs."

King added: "They [METALLICA] are really living on the first five records, I think. I'm not sure a new record makes sense for them. 'Death Magnetic' [2008] was a nice version compared to 'St. Anger' [2003]. Hopefully, they keep going along that line and get some of the riffs back."

According to Kerry, part of the reason for the longer gap between albums is the fact that "people keep offering you money to come out and play. Other than the tragedies we had in SLAYER, we got offers to play a lot. You really got to sit down and say, 'I'm not going to do that right now.' That being said, usually when we were doing this recording cycle, we don't go out and play when we are recording, but this time we did, because people made offers and we say, 'That sounds like a good idea.' It doesn't sound like it on [SLAYER's new album] 'Repentless', but it takes your momentum away because you've got to go out, learn your catalog and play it and then come back and work on new stuff."

METALLICA's Lars Ulrich acknowledged in an interview with U.K.'s Kerrang! magazine that the band's next studio album is unlikely to arrive anytime soon. The drummer explained: "Obviously, there are a lot of people asking where the next record is. We're going to make another record, but like I said before, we don't really feel this kind of… what's the word? I guess 'responsibility' is probably the right word. We don't feel this inherent responsibility to just churn out records whenever people want them. [Adopts a sarcastic voice] 'I'm sorry! Let me slap myself on the wrists and go make a record for you!' We'll get 'round to it again."