"I want it done yesterday," frontman James Hetfield tells Billboard, "and (Orion) and this movie [the 3D film Through The Never] is keeping us pretty busy at this point and it's taking a lot of our time and effort. We've been touring some obscure places; I guess basically what we're trying to do is pay for this movie, so the touring is keeping us from getting in there and finishing the record. Right now the focus is on the movie."

Hetfield says the band has at least made a start on a new album. "Yeah, we got out into the room and jammed and we've come up with enough material for a record, for sure," he says. "We've gone through maybe one-tenth of the material that's on our riffs CDs. We've got enough for an album, we just haven't had enough time to really focus on it and dial in and start whittling it into these masterpieces, hopefully."