Metallica's eventual follow-up to 2016's Hardwired… to Self-Destruct might involve more creative input from all four band members in the writing process.

At least that's what some of the veteran metal group indicated in a recent interview.

That would be a change from the group's process last time around, as frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich composed all of the songs on Hardwired. The sole exception of that collection is "ManUNkind," with which bassist Robert Trujillo assisted the two principal writers in crafting the music.

But, in an eye-opening chat with Metal Hammer that emerged last month, the bass player suggested that Metallica's next album could be a much more collaborative effort between all the musicians.

"I'm not gonna speak on behalf of the other guys," Trujillo said, "But to me, it feels like this could be a very collaborative [writing process]. And for me personally, I love that. I love that we are in that head space to be more collaborative, and I think that's very exciting for where we're at now, the journey we're about to take, the fact that those doors are opening like that."

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett seemed to concur with that prediction. In fact, the shredder said he has so much material prepared to contribute to the band's next album that it's taken him a significant amount of time to even go through it all before the group reconvenes in the studio.

"It's taking a couple of months, literally, for me to go through all [my ideas]," Hammett explained. "I've got a wealth of material, and so, at any given point when we all decide, 'OK, let's start formulating a schedule to start writing songs and recording it.' I'm ready. I'm there, from day one."

As longtime Metallica fans are likely aware, Hammett previously amassed about 400 riff ideas for Hardwired — none of which ended up making the cut. Of course, that could be down to the fact that around 250 of them were lost forever when the guitarist misplaced the cell phone on which they were stored.

Perhaps Metallica album No. 11 will make a good place for Hammett to put some of those ideas to use. Still, the guitarist has admitted in the past that Metallica frequently shoot down his song ideas.

That said, the music on Metallica albums hasn't always been solely composed by Hetfield and Ulrich, and mostly alone. On 2008's Death Magnetic, Trujillo had a much larger hand in the writing process. On 2003's St. Anger, all selections were attributed collectively to Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett and producer Bob Rock.

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