Metallica, Linkin Park Working On New Albums

Metallica and Linkin Park are both working on new albums, producer Rick Rubin has revealed.

Rubin told Billboard Linkin Park, who recently headlined Donington's Download festival, had been “in the studio writing” the follow-up to 2010's 'A Thousand Suns'.

He said he was having once a week meeting with the band and that they were currently making good progress.

“On ('A Thousand Suns') there were still a lot of irons in the fire,” he added. “We knew, 'OK, we can't do this forever. Let's leave this batch and we'll come back and address it when we start up again.' "

Speaking about Metallica, Rubin said he had recently had a meeting with the group's drummer Lars Ulrich in San Franciso.

“I'm still sort of thinking about what that is going to be,” he said.

“I'll ask a lot of questions and we'll probably listen to some of the riffs that they've been writing. Usually I'll hear something that will sort of indicate the direction and then we'll talk about it from there."

Metallica recently announced details of a new album with Lou Reed, which Rubin was not involved in.