Lars Ulrich has been left 'half crushed' by Lou Reed's death.
The Metallica made the comments to The Guardian after Reed's death at the weekend.
Ulrich said: "We had communicated about a month ago when we were going to come by New York. Lou was going to come to the show and hang out. He didn't make it because his health took a turn for the worse, so I knew things were not good, but I didn't know it was that serious. So I was half shocked and half crushed - shocked that he went so quickly and crushed over the loss."
The drummer also said he believes Lulu, the negatively-received album Metallica recorded with Reed, will become more understood in time.
He added: "Twenty-five years from now, you're going to have millions of people claiming they owned the record or loved it when it came out, of course neither will be true. I think it's going to age well - when I played it yesterday it sounded fucking awesome."
