METALLICA's recently announced web site — MissionMetallica.com — where the band says it will offer fans a chance to "experience the [group's] new album before it's done," is scheduled to go "live" on May 12.

As previously reported, METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich told RollingStone.com that the band intends to explore "everything" in terms of selling its music once its current recording contract expires. But although the group's upcoming ninth studio album is its last with Warner Bros. Music, Ulrich said they would be hesitant to follow in the footsteps of U2 and MADONNA and sign a comprehensive "360 deal" with Live Nation. Ulrich explained, "We've never sold ourselves that way. No disrespect. We want to be as free a player as possible. We've been observing RADIOHEAD and Trent Reznor and in 27 years or however long it takes for the next record, we'll be looking forward to everything in terms of possibilities with the Internet."

Ulrich told The Pulse of Radio something similar when asked what the band will do once its contract is finished. "There's a bunch of possibilities out there," he said. "It's great to be able to have the choices, and it's great when you don't need the record company to sign the checks, you know what I mean? Then it sort of becomes a whole different thing. The landscape continues to change, you know, so we'll see."

Ulrich talked with RollingStone.com on April 19, as the band did an autograph session at an independent record store in northern California to celebrate Record Store Day. Ulrich called the group's participation a "no-brainer," adding, "The record store has been such a huge part of our lives. When I was 12, 14 years old in Denmark, the record store was the Holy Grail and the guy who worked there was my hero."

The new METALLICA album is tentatively due out in September, with U.S. tour dates possibly in the works for around the same time.

The band has scheduled a slew of European festival dates for May, June, July and August in addition to two U.S. shows, on May 16 at a radio festival in Tucson, Arizona and mid-June at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee.