At a Metallica show last month in New York's Nassau Coliseum, the band got a nice surprise when executives from their label Blackened Recordings showed up to present them with their platinum awards commemorating sales of one million units in the United States of their November album release Hardwired…To Self-Destruct.

And if the "executives" in the photo (above) look a bit familiar, that's because singer James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo are the executives of Blackened Recordings, Metallica's very own independent label which they created in 2012 as a way to maintain control over their catalog when their major label deal expired.

It was in mid-April when Hardwired...To Self-Destruct was first confirmed by the RIAA to have gone platinum, having sold 290,000 copies of the record in its debut week last year. Each ticket purchased for their current Worldwired Tour comes with a copy of the album where fans were able to choose from digital or physical options. Hardwired…To Self-Destruct is the first hard rock or metal studio album released in the current decade to receive a platinum certification or better in the U.S.

In other Metallica news, the band have released a live video for their current single "Now That We're Dead," which was shot during the Worldwired Tour (watch below). The footage is culled from a variety of the stadiums the band has been playing since heading out on the trek. The group are in the midst of the North American leg of the tour right now, which will continue on through the summer before heading over to Europe with dates scheduled through next spring.

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