Quoting lyrics from Metric’s “Gimme Sympathy,” he asked her who she would rather be, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. “The Velvet Underground,” Haines replied, and a friendship was born.

As Metric was finishing up its fifth album, “Synthetica,” last year, both happened to appear at a celebration of poet-writer Shel Silverstein in New York’s Central Park. Metric, including guitarist Jimmy Shaw, bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key, was struggling to finish a new tune, “Wanderlust.”

“I couldn’t get that song to click for me. I needed sort of a contrast to that naive vocal in the chorus [of] ‘I never want to go home’ and ‘I want to see the world,’” says Haines, who appears with Metric at Live 105’s “Not So Silent Night” on Friday.

She adds, “It just sounded like ‘The Sound of Music’ or ‘Annie.’ We really needed someone who could convey the consequences of such yearning. Who better than Lou Reed?”

Metric’s collaboration with Reed became a signature moment on “Synthetica,” a notable accomplishment for the Canadian band that has been on a steady rise in the past 10 years.

Its previous album, 2009’s “Fantasies,” was released independently (outside Mexico and Canada). Two singles climbed into the top 20 on U.S. radio charts, making Metric the first band to accomplish the feat without the assistance of a traditional music label.

“Synthetica,” released on the band’s own label, debuted at No. 12 in the U.S., Metric’s highest American debut. Emily Haines describes the album as being about finding something real in a sea of imitation. It comes packaged with an imperfect mirror that distorts the reflection.

“The way [the Reed collaboration] unfolded is very much like a lot of my life and my career — wonderful things that I never could have dreamed up have kind of come my way,” she says. “There are things that are out there that we are trying to aggressively grab.”

Metric has been headlining arenas in Canada, so Friday’s performance at “Not So Silent Night” at Oracle Arena in Oakland won’t be a stretch. But the band works to maintain its intimate relationship with fans.

“[We] have to respect the scale of what we’re doing, and we work with people who are as creative visually and electronically as we are with music,” Haines says.

Q&A:

Any thoughts on working with Lou again in the future?

Emily Haines: We have a good chemistry going. We’ll see. If something comes to me that I want to include Lou in, I will call him up in a minute. I think he would do the same. I’m not going to push anything.

You haven’t had a proper Bay Area stop on your current tour; just an album release gig. What gives?

Emily Haines: It was just a logistics thing. We really want to play there next year. We’re just going to have to make it happen next year, no matter what.

You have a conflicted view on social media. It’s helped your career and you use it, but you rarely have nice things to say about the platforms. Why the hesitation?

Emily Haines: I just have my own way of doing things, you know? I feel a bit protective of the connection that I have with people (who were) there before any of this new social media existed. I always felt a close bond with our fans even when there were only 50 of them at a given city. I just don’t think (social media) is a substitute for all and every possible way that people can connect. I think it’s an amazing tool for a lot of things, and we use it a lot, and I’m happy with it. But am I going try to convey the ideas that are closest to my heart over Twitter? Probably not. I write a letter to the fans when I feel inspired to do so. But I can’t drag my feet through the feeling that I’m constantly supposed to create this content. What for, if you don’t have anything to say? And I really do get inspired to do something I love with Instagram. But if I’m not inspired, I’m not going to do it.

How do you select songs for setlists. Are there any songs you feel you’re through with?

Emily Haines: It’s such a process putting together the repertoire that will compose the set when you go through another round of touring the world on a new record. It’s amazing how certain songs flow into each other, like “Help I’m Alive” and “Breathing Underwater” really right near each other and other songs like “Sick Muse” and “Dead Disco.” And we still play “Dead Disco,” and that’s from our very first album. It’s kind of, like, at every show we do a retrospective of the body of work. It’s like, wow, this really does span 10 years. We don’t really kick out the old songs for the new ones – we just try to make room.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.