Rumor: Metallica Drop Off Sonic Temple, Will Be Replaced by Tool and the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Update, 1:24pm EST: Sonic Temple has released a statement making this news official, and James Hetfield revealed in a personal post via Metallica’s channels that the cancelation is due to his ongoing rehab efforts. Read more here.

Original Post:

Metallica were scheduled to headline two of the three nights of this year’s Sonic Temple Festival (f.k.a. Rock on the Range), with Slipknot headlining the evening sandwiched in between — but it now appears as though that is no longer happening. Instead, those two nights will be headlined by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tool, respectively.

The Chili Peppers posted, then quickly deleted, a Facebook post making the announcement and sharing the updated flyer/poster for the event… but not before a Reddit user was able to grab a screen shot:

Sonic Temple was just one of five major American festivals Metallica were scheduled to headline this year, alongside Louder Than Life, Aftershock, Epicenter and Welcome to Rockville. Since all five festivals are produced by Danny Wimmer Presents, one has to wonder whether or not Metallica will still headline any of these events.

Metallica were forced to cancel a planned tour of Australia and New Zealand with Slipknot last year after frontman James Hetfield re-entered rehab. Although Hetfield has recently begun to make relatively small public appearances again, it’s not unimaginable that he doesn’t yet feel ready to participate in full-blown Metallica events. Epicenter and Welcome to Rockville will both take place before Sonic Temple, while Louder Than Life and Aftershock don’t go down until the fall… so there’s also a possibility that if Hetfield just needs more time to focus on his recovery, the band could still play the latter two events.

Of course, that’s just speculation — there could be some other reason why Metallica are no longer playing Sonic Temple that has nothing to do with Hetfield.

We’ll update this story as soon as we know more.

Sonic Temple will take place May 15-17 in Columbus, OH. Tickets are available here.

Thanks: Irina K.