March 20, 2025 • 38 mins
Originally founded by current members Singer and Rhythm Guitarist James Hetfiled and Drummer Lars Ulrich, alongside Bassist Ron McGovney and Lead Guitarist Dave Mustaine, Metallica actually parted ways with both McGovney and Mustaine due to various personal and professional conflicts before recording and releasing their 1983 debut album, controversially titled ‘Kill ‘Em All’.
McGovney was quickly replaced by revered Bassist, the now-late Cliff Burton, while Mustaine was replaced by legendary member-to-this-day, solo-master Kirk Hammett.
Still an incredibly rough-around-the-edges Thrash Metal band, Cliff Burton would have a massive influence on the maturing of Metallica for their second album, Ride The Lightning.
Metallica would follow Ride The Lightning up with 1986’s Master of Puppets
No longer just making music for the underground metalheads of the world, ‘Puppets’ marked Metallica’s Major Label debut with Elektra Records.
The album was roundly received as one of - if not the greatest metal album of the time, with critics noting how much Burton’s influence in particular had progressed the band’s sound.
Tragedy would strike Metallica in September of 1986 - mere months after MOP’s release, as Cliff Burton would die in a bus accident in Sweden, while on tour promoting the record.
By 1987, Metallica would find their necessary replacement for Burton - Bassist Jason Newsted.
With Newsted in the band - Metallica geared up to release their final album of the 80s, called …And Justice For All.
Tragedy would strike Metallica in September of 1986 - mere months after MOP’s release, as Cliff Burton would die in a bus accident in Sweden, while on tour promoting the record.
Burton was only 24 years old when he was ejected from the window of Metallica’s tour bus as it skidded off the road suddenly, while the band members slept. The bus would land on top of him, killing him instantly.
While the fault of the crash was hotly (and legally) debated at the time, ultimately Metallica’s tour bus driver was found not to be at fault for the freak accident.
By 1987, Metallica would find their necessary replacement for Burton - Bassist Jason Newsted.
Years later, Newsted would tell VH1’s That Metal Show that he secured the gig by stealthily finding a Metallica setlist, learning all the songs on it to note perfection, and demo-ing them out for Ulrich, who hired him two days later.
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With Newsted in the band - Metallica geared up to release their final album of the 80s, called …And Justice For All.
By this point, Metallica had very much made a name for themselves as the premiere Metal band, and Justice would prove it; peaking at number 6 on the Billboard album charts, going double platinum across its album cycle.
Mainstream critical success would also soon follow for the band; although they would lose out on winning the first (and only) ever Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental GRAMMY Award to very-much-not-a-metal-band Jethro Tull’s very-much-not-a-metal album Crest of a Knave in 1989, Metallica’s song One would snag them the inaugural Best Metal Performance award in retribution at the following year’s ceremony.
Eventually - …And Justice For All would follow in the footsteps of its pivotal predecessor, going more than 8x platinum to date.
Now, you may be thinking by this point that this is truly unprecedented success for a metal band.
Of course, there’s always a place in music for aggressive, heavy tunes, but as the 80s turned to the 90s - you would be forgiven for assuming that the roughly 4 to 5 million records
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Encore the stories behind the songs. Here's I
Heart Radio's Miles Galloway.
All these words I don't just say, I'm Miles Galloway,
and this is the story of Metallica's. Nothing else matters.
(00:21):
Although our story ostensibly begins in the 90s, let's take
a moment or two to look back at Metallica's wild
and wonderful career throughout the 1980s. Originally founded by current members,
singer and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich,
alongside bassist.
McGoverney and lead guitarist Dave Mustaine, Metallica actually parted ways
(00:44):
with both McGoverney and Mustaine due to various personal and
professional conflicts before recording and releasing their 1983 debut album,
controversially titled Kill Em All. McGoverney was quickly replaced by
revered bassist, the now late Cliff Burton, while Mustaine was
replaced by legendary member to this day, solo master Kirk Hammett.
(01:07):
Despite being fired from the band and having most of
his solos reworked on Kill Em All during the recording
sessions by the more than capable Hammett, Mustaine was still
given multiple writing credits on the album, giving him a
bit of mythical status amongst Metallica fans in his own right.
As most metal fans know, the Mercurial Mustaine would go
on to form his own metal powerhouse band.
(01:30):
Megadeath soon after his departure. Still an incredibly rough around
the edges thrash metal band, Cliff Burton would have a
massive influence on the maturing of Metallica for their second album,
Ride the Lightning. Burton would co-write every track on the album,
including their first ever power ballad, Fade to Black, which
introduced fans to a slightly softer sounding side of Metallica
(01:51):
for the very first time.
Complete with acoustic guitars, longing vocals, and lyrics inclusive of
the phrase nothing matters, the song was a bleak piece
of work that grew in its heaviness as the song
progressed with Hetfield telling Guitar World. That song was a
big step forward for us. It was pretty much our
first ballad, so we knew it would freak people out.
Recording that song, I learned how frustrating acoustic guitar can be.
(02:15):
You can hear every squeak, so I had to be careful.
I was pretty depressed at the time because our gear
had just been stolen, and we'd been thrown out of
our manager's house for breaking shit and drinking his liquor
cabinet dry. It's a suicide song and we got a
lot of flak for it. But we also got hundreds
of letters from kids telling us how they related to
the song and that it made them feel better. Metallica
would release their follow-up to Ride the Lightning in 1986
(02:38):
with Master.
of puppets. No longer just making music for the underground
metalheads of the world, Puppets marked Metallica's major label debut
with Elektra Records. The album was roundly received as one of,
if not the greatest metal album of the time, with
critics noting how much Burton's influence, in particular, had progressed
the band's sound. The album would spend an impressive 72
(03:02):
weeks on the bill.
album charts and would become Metallica's first ever gold record
upon release. Puppets would eventually go nearly 8 times platinum
with new peaks and valleys of sales and streams over
the decades, as new generations of metalheads discovered the genre
and its crown jewel. The title track and only official
single from Master of Puppets, is an 8.5 minute ride
(03:25):
that showcases the band.
Tempo bending, thrash roots, prog rock breakdowns, and pump up
guitar shredding that at times makes you feel like you're
in a video game about to defeat the final boss.
Speaking of that, you may recall that the song was
most recently immortalized in season 4 of Stranger Things with
fan favorite character Eddie Munson heroically playing the title track
(03:46):
in the upside down dimension to lure away the universe's
vicious monsters. Hellfire Club forever, am I right?
Tragedy would strike Metallica in September of 1986, mere months
after MOP's release, as Cliff Burton would die in a
bus accident in Sweden while on tour promoting the record.
(04:06):
Burton was only 24 years old when he was ejected
from the window of Metallica's tour bus as it skidded
off the road suddenly while the band members slept. The
bus would land on top of him, killing him instantly.
While the fault of the crash was hotly and legally
debated at the time, ultimately, Metallica's tour bus driver was
found not to be at fault for the freak accident.
(04:26):
By 1987, Metallica would find their necessary replacement for Burton,
bassist Jason Newstead. Years later, Newstead would tell VH1's that
medal showed that he secured the gig by stealthily finding
a Metallica setlist, learning all the songs on it to
know perfection, and demoing them out for Ulrich, who hired
him two days later. With Newstead in the band, Metallica
(04:48):
geared up to release their final album of the 80s.
Called And Justice for All. By this point, Metallica had
very much made a name for themselves as the premier
metal band, and Justice would prove it, peaking at number
6 on the Billboard album charts, going double platinum across
its album cycle. Mainstream critical success would also soon follow
for the band, although they would lose out on winning
(05:09):
the first and only ever best hard rock metal performance
vocal or instrumental.
Grammy Award, so they're very much not a metal band,
Jethro Tull's very much not a metal album, Crest of
a Nave in 1989. Bob Metallica's song one would snag
them the inaugural Best Metal Performance Award in retribution at
(05:30):
the following year's ceremony. Eventually, and Justice for All, would
follow in the footsteps of its pivotal predecessor going more
than 8 times platinum to date.
Now, you may be thinking by this point that this
is truly unprecedented success for a metal band. Of course,
there's always a place in music for aggressive heavy tunes,
(05:51):
but as the 80s turned to the 90s, you would
be forgiven for assuming that the roughly 4 to 5
million records sold in America across four monster albums was
about as good as it could get for any metal band,
and perhaps they'd finally hit their glass ceiling.
But Metallica, simply put, we're not just any metal band,
and we're ready to change the way the world perceived
(06:12):
heavy metal forever. In constructing their magnum opus, Metallica had
one initial goal from the get-go, write shorter songs. Now
perhaps that doesn't sound like some sort of profound artistic epiphany.
After all, shorter is a relative term, and a quick
glimpse at Metallica's 80s back catalog shows that the group
had no problem releasing 78, even.
(06:33):
9 minute face melters. So like almost anything less would
be shorter, right? But as Kirk Hammett would tell much,
Metallica wanted to challenge themselves in a whole new way.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Can we
expect something totally different to Metallica? Um, I don't know
if totally different is the right way of phrasing it,
but I mean, we've really, I think we've taken a
pretty sharp, you know, turn, you know, the
The Ride the Lightning album to master puppets, to Injustice
for All, all different albums from each other, but kind
of in the same direction. And I think this album
(07:05):
just kind of took a sharp turn and it's just
like I said, we wanted to for a couple of
years to do something a bit different, but it just
seemed like last time we kind of just got stuck
in the same rut again and this time it really
did make the songs a bit shorter and a bit
more compact and a bit sort of just more to
the point. It just
I don't know, I think, at least for me, sometime
(07:26):
in the middle of the last tour, it just got
really boring live playing some of these like 10 minute
songs that were so progressive that you always had to
sit there and think about, you know, OK, this great
big drum rolls coming up, or, you know, this tempo
change or whatever. It just, I found that, you know,
the stuff that I was more into playing live with
some of the simpler stuff that was more kind of groove,
(07:47):
you know, some of the stuff like Seek and Destroy
or from the Bell Tolls, or that kind of stuff
from our earlier albums. And
It just seemed like to get back to that kind
of thing now would be pretty cool, so we did,
and most of the new songs are all pretty.
Almost sometimes I don't like using the word symbol because
I think some people might take that negative, but it's
just it's like, here's a big guitar riff and the
(08:09):
drums just kind of hang in the background and you
know it's just here's a chorus and here's a guitar solo,
and here's the next song, instead of just kind of
farting around with going into all these different bits and
stuff like that. I mean we go into different bits,
but it's all separate songs instead of doing it all
within one song. And that way it just kind of
Gets the songs a little more kind of bouncier and
(08:30):
a little more groovy and stuff like that. I think
this is a lot more of a guitar oriented album.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
As simple of a concept as this may have sounded,
it can't be understated that even with their growing popularity,
Metallica were the type of band who were known for
their epic song journeys, and they were lauded for it.
Shortening and grooving up the sound Metallica was a massive risk.
For the veterans of thrash metal, because if they messed
(08:55):
it up, it would almost certainly alienate their hardcore fans,
but as Hammer would explain, it was a risk that
the band was willing to take.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
You know, obviously, we've had a lot of very positive,
you know, critical acclaim, you know, and stuff like that,
and a lot of people obviously always watching us, but
I think we have this ability to shut that out
when we sit down and write and stuff like that.
And we're never really,
I don't know, for some reason we just we're able
to not worry about the fact that everybody's looking at
us because, you know, and, and just sort of, now
(09:25):
we want to do this and we don't really worry
about what's so and so going to think and you know,
this group of people, you know, and that group, I mean,
I think once you start worrying about all that stuff,
then you're just going to start, you know, running around
in circles and it's like a never ending thing where
you just, if you're always trying to please somebody, I mean,
we just please ourselves and it's worked so far for
the last 10 years.
What are the, are the, are the kids gonna like
(09:46):
this right?
Ask the kids when it comes out. I mean, you know.
It seems when we do something that is a sort
of honest, um, I guess, interpretation or whatever of where
our instincts and vibe is at that particular time, you know, it,
it always
Somehow ends, you know, comes across, you know, just like
(10:09):
honest and stuff. And I think a lot of people
pick up on that. That's why I'm saying if we
sat there and tried to sort of, you know, think about,
you know, what we should do for people, then I
think it would end up sounding, you know, contrived, and
I think people would be able to see through that
like in, you know, no time at all. And I
don't know. I think people will at least know, there's
always gonna be somebody who's gonna, you know, yell, sell
(10:30):
out or whatever. And, and I mean, we've been
Prepared for that for, you know, many years. With
Speaker 1 (10:36):
a
Speaker 2 (10:36):
clear
Speaker 1 (10:36):
vision and a strong will, Metallica would write the majority
of their new sound demos for album number 5 in
approximately 2 months in 1990. Writing for what it's worth,
has never been a weak spot for the group, who
famously to this very day have albums' worth of material
just waiting to be released in a top secret Metallica vault.
(10:56):
But writing was only half the battle. Metallica knew that
with this all new direction and all new sound,
There could be absolutely no half measures. Their previous albums,
while critically acclaimed, would almost always garner criticism of just
how dry the songs could sound, full of treble, high notes,
and machine gun percussion from a production standpoint, at least,
(11:19):
their music.
Wasn't exactly being listened to for their rich oral textures
or tone setting basslines. For the first time ever, the
band understood that they didn't know everything there was about
not only composing music, but producing it. And they were
gonna need someone to help guide them through the process
if they were gonna do it right. So what did
they do, you ask? Call in a Canadian, naturally.
(11:42):
Originally feeling like they could do the production work themselves,
Metallica believed that they were really just looking for someone
to mix their next project to ensure that their instrumentation
sounded tighter than ever. The guys were a fan of
how fellow label mate Motley Crue's most recent effort, Doctor Feelgood, sounded,
so it seemed a no-brainer to call in the producer
of that album, the aptly named Bob Rock.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
He's
he's not, he's not your basic producer, I'd say. He's,
he's here, I think a lot more than than most. He's,
he's really into the project and we just.
You know, getting a producer was kind of new to
us too, so.
Why you zero in on Bob like what why Bob?
Uh, I think well, management suggested him and we were
(12:23):
really stuck. We had no idea what we wanted to do,
you know, we heard, I guess a couple of other
projects he'd done before, and what we really wanted to
focus on this time was getting bass guitar, you know,
on this album. So he's really good at that. He's
got some pretty hot and low end on some of
his other stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Rock, a Canadian producer with a bit of a Canon
lore in his own right, had a massive hit in
the early 80s with his band, The Paolas. Their song
Eyes of a Stranger would win a Juno Award for
Best Single of the Year, and Rock himself would win
a Juno for Recording Engineer of the Year for the
accompanying album.
Well, perhaps not a global superstar, Metallica did witness a
(13:01):
bit of Bobamania here in Canada when they first agreed
to work with him.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Plus, I mean, just he's so famous in Canada. I mean,
when we came up there, it was like the first
night we went out together, um, we went to this
establishment for a couple of beverages and
We're just sitting there and I could kind of like
the corner of my eye, see like a couple of
kids coming over like, you know, pens and pieces of
paper and say, you know, OK, sign a couple of autographs,
and they just come over, completely ignore me and James. Just,
(13:27):
oh Bob Rock. Oh wow, I can't believe I'm meeting you.
Would you sign these autographs, please? And then when Bob
had signed the autographs, they just
Turned around and left. I was like, me and James
didn't even exist. And me and James sat there and
looked at each other. I was like, what? It's like,
this guy's really famous up here. Maybe we should hang
with him.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
One thing they didn't argue on, however, in all honesty,
it would be the first of many things, was where
the album was going to be recorded.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
He tried to convince you to do it in
uh Vancouver? Um.
Well, the day after that, we hung with him up there,
we went down and checked out Little Mountain and um
see how do I say it's the best way.
Um, let's. Uh, well, let's see. How about just saying
(14:10):
that it was not the kind of studio that we
would want to make our next album in. I think
I got out of that one pretty good. Um, no disrespect, but, uh,
so we kind of just said, look, you know, we
really kind of want to record in LA. And, um,
you know, at first he was a little not too
keen on that, because, you know, I mean, he knows
that studio and that's where his whole vibe is and stuff,
but
(14:31):
Then we started, you know, playing him some demos and
we were communicating and stuff like that. And I think
the more you heard the songs and the more, you know,
just the vibe kept getting better and better, the more
he became into maybe taking it elsewhere than Vancouver. With
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Vancouver out of the picture and Los Angeles chosen as
their agreed upon home base, Bob Rock would eventually wear
the band down to the idea that he wasn't just
going to mix their next record, he was going to
produce the whole damn thing.
Here's Rock Ari telling much as Dan Gallagher on location
at One on One Studios in Los Angeles about their
shared vision during the final weeks of recording.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Anyway, um, I think, uh, yeah, they approached me in
the mix and I said that, uh, sure, but I'd
like to work with them.
Through the whole album if they were into it and
I think, I think, uh, I had something like that
and you guys kind of phoned back and said well
maybe yeah like until we were like maybe and then
Peter called up and said he wants to produce you too.
(15:26):
I'm like, yeah, sure, we're Metallica nobody produces us. Nobody
tells us what to do. One thing they said is
they wanted to, uh, to get the melodic part of
their music brought out a little more, and they, they
wanted to work on the feel a bit and, uh.
When they said that I knew that I really wanted
to work with them, and that's what we've been doing.
That's why we actually this band I don't think you've
(15:47):
ever recorded altogether except for maybe the garage or anything.
No. Yes,
Speaker 1 (15:52):
perhaps one of the biggest changes Bob Rock intended to
make with Metallica's overreaching creative process was that he insisted
that all four members record together in a somewhat live.
The floor method, something believe it or not, Metallica, had
never done before.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Funny when we
got into this like, uh, when we started talking about this, uh,
in the earlier stages I, you know, where I was
mentioning that you could actually all play in the same
room at the same time and they were just like
they weren't aware of that before. You're kidding. That's and
then they told me that.
For for justice when they worked with Mike Clink that
Mike Clink after what was it 2 months or something, he,
(16:28):
he didn't even meet Kirk.
So you know I, I feel privileged that I actually
met the guitar player and the joke was always that
he never actually got a chance to meet the guitar,
lead guitar player. So I got to the big time, yeah,
I met all the guys in the band.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
As Ulrich would explain though, there were definite pros and
cons to this style of production, namely the sheer amount
of takes they would need in order to meet all
of their extremely high standards.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And.
The way that we went about doing this was that
instead of like playing the song once or twice and
you sit there and go, gee, you know, now the,
you know, red record buttons on and you start stiffening
up and you get really tense, and it sounds like that.
It's like Bob said, go out and play the song
30 times, basically. So, we'd sit here and play this song,
everybody would be in the room here behind me, and
(17:15):
I'd sit here and play the song 30 times and
by say, maybe take 10.
I would forget that I'm in a recording studio and
I would like be on a stage in an arena
and then you sort of you take your mental and
you just sort of, you know, remove yourself from the
studio and then you get really loose and that comes
across and that's kind of how we've been going for
(17:37):
this time and it's working really well, but
The downside of it is that when you have 30
takes of a song and you have to sit there
and shift through like, you know, 100 minutes of music,
it's like that all of a sudden becomes like a
huge time consuming thing where you have to sit there and, well, gee,
is Take 22 better than Take 19 or is Take 18,
you know, the solo section, does that spark a little
(17:59):
more than Take 25? It's like.
That really kind of took me by surprise at how
long that editing process would take. The
Speaker 1 (18:07):
finished project, eventually called Metallica, but more affectionately known by
fans as the Black Album, thanks to its all Black
album cover, save for a barely visible impression of the
Gadson flag snake, would be remixed in its entirety no
less than 3 times, causing huge delays.
And would end up costing more than $1 million to make.
(18:27):
It would also cost a lot more to Metallica than
just money, as the strains of aiming for musical perfection
contributed to the simultaneous divorces of Ulrich, Newstead and Hammett.
Hammett would tell Playboy, Lars, Jason and I were going
through divorces. I was an emotional wreck. I was trying
to take those feelings of guilt and failure and channel
them into the music to get something positive out of it.
(18:48):
The Black Album's first single, Enter Sandman, would very quickly
prove to the band and Bob Rock, who openly stated
that he would never work with Metallica again, but would
end up working with Metallica many, many more times, that
all of this painstaking work was worth it, as it
would help the record debut at number one on the
Billboard albums chart, with the single itself peaking at a
(19:09):
resounding number 16 on the Hot 100 pop songs. Now
overwhelmingly thought of as one of the best songs of
all time.
We'll save the ins and outs of NS Sandman itself
for a future episode of Encore, as it so rightfully deserves.
Complete with its own music video, only the second video
released in Metallica's history, and coming in at a tight
5.5 minutes, Metallica's fans were shocked but intrigued by the
(19:33):
band's new-ish direction.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
This is like a record that.
It always sounded like we were trying to make, but
just never really were able to like put together and
I think people, I don't know, a few people kind
of like have been telling me that they were like
a little freaked out right before they sat down and
like check it out and stuff, but you know within
about 30 seconds or something they just know that it's
this good old metallic. It's just sounding.
(19:55):
A lot better than we ever have before, you know,
just guitars, drums, everything just come crushing at you, but
it just sounds a lot bigger. It sounds a lot warmer.
It sounds a lot more kind of has a lot
more emotion and stuff in it and just the songs
are just a little more condensed. I mean, I think
people have been just making a little bit too.
big of an issue out of the whole thing with
(20:16):
Bob Rock and the fact that we just changed, you know,
the songwriting around
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
The song's accessible melodies also didn't hurt in the way
of opening the door for all new Metallica fans, as
the band would tell much.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
But it seemed that uh a lot of people have
embraced Metallica that never really gave Metallica, you know, chance and, um,
so it's pretty cool. How do you feel about those
new fans, those people that didn't know and like Metallica.
It's pretty interesting, you know, you work, you look out
to the audience and you see a lot of people
that you wouldn't have seen out in the audience five
(20:46):
years ago, it's
It's uh pretty different. I think it's too easy to
sort of sit and go, yeah, all the latecomers or whatever,
but you gotta remember that there's so many people that
it's because Metallic has always been so extreme that I've
never really maybe had access to Metallic because we've never
been on the radio or much on video channels or
whatever and it's like they're just getting a chance to
hear about us now for the first time and hopefully.
(21:08):
Finding out that it's something
that.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Second single, The Unforgiven would continue the band's upward trajectory,
flipping the concept of a power ballad on its head
with heavy chugging verses and almost medieval sounding classical guitar choruses.
If you weren't drawn in by Sandman, The Unforgiven would
almost certainly spark curiosity in the discerning music fan.
By this point, sales of Metallica's self-titled were through the roof,
(21:32):
going #1 all over the world, and by the beginning
of 1992, the record was already 4 times platinum in
the US alone.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Every day I get
these faxes coming in from the office, the album's number
one in Australia, it's number one in Norway, it's number
one in New Zealand, it's #1 in America, it's number
one in Canada. It's like, and in a way I
almost feel like we're removed from it because we're just
doing our own thing on tour, but obviously when I
turn the lights off and then my bed move by myself. Yeah.
It's a rock and roll drink I'm.
(22:01):
For lack of a better way of saying it, I mean,
I mean, the one thing about Metallica is that we've
never really been that career conscious. I mean, when we
started this band 10 years ago, it was not like,
oh we're striving to be.
but sure I'll take it, and I think what it is,
what's cool about it is that in a way it's
like
When we started off, there were a lot of people
(22:21):
that were laughing at us and pointing fingers metallica, they
can't play, they can't write, they can't do anything. It's
like there's a major, uh, something like that to them,
so it's like, I mean from that point of view,
it's
just a great feeling.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Needless to say, we here in Canada we're also pretty
proud of our country man Bob Rock for wrangling the
sounds of the metal underground and putting them together in
one rocking package.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Well, I tell you the reason I think most Canadians
are excited because Bob Rock is Canadian and I know
we had like.
Canadian flags up in the studio and it's just, you know,
like James is, you know, you know I'm Danish, so
I have like my Danish slack on my drum kit
as usual, and you know James has an American flag
on his ants and you know it didn't take Bob
all but like 5 minutes to get, you know, a
(23:04):
couple of Canadian flags up in the studios and we
were like Battle of the nations, you know, in the
control room.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
So when it was time to release single number 3,
the band felt confident in releasing their secret weapon, the
most vulnerable song on the record, Nothing else matters.
In hindsight, it's hard to believe that nothing else matters,
almost didn't make the cut for the album, and in
another lifetime, may have never seen the light of day.
Written largely by James Hetfield as a personal piece of
(23:32):
music while longing for his girlfriend on the road, it
was only after James showed the deep.
Personal track to Lars Ulrich on a whim that he
was convinced it was right from Metallica at all. Here's
the band explaining the situation to Howard Stern in 2013.
I think Lars
Speaker 2 (23:47):
heard it and said, hey, that's really good. And I said, no,
it's not. How did Lars hear that song if you
were ashamed of it? How did you hear it?
You played it for me. That's how he heard it.
So you weren't that ashamed. And did Lawrence, did he
come to you? Did James come to you and go,
Hey man, I'm gonna play something for you. No, I mean,
it's always been, there's always been a very open door policy.
(24:09):
I mean, we all trade. Usually what would happen back
in the early days is that, uh, when we would,
after a tour go on break, like James would give
me all his, uh, ideas, Kurt would give me all
his ideas, we'd all sort of trade ideas and then
we'd go away and then when we would start writing a,
a few months later, everybody.
Would kind of have an idea of what everybody else
was bringing to the table and Lars, you, uh, knew
(24:30):
that song was gonna be a hit. You had an
argument with the record. It wasn't, it wasn't so much
about hit. It was just more about a side of
Metallica that I was really proud of and I thought
that everybody should see. Were you scared that the fans
would revolt when they heard such a beautiful ballad? No,
I think it's good to challenge the fans once in
a while.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Next, of course, the band would bring the demo to
Bob Rock, who, you guessed it, would make the guys
record the track an ungodly amount of times before being
meticulously combed over by Metallica, Rock and their engineers.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
You sit
down and you got, you know, 2030 takes of, of songs.
Go film him or something, go see, see that what
he's doing, now he's putting pieces together, isn't that exciting?
Basically Randy razor blade, uh, brilliant engineer, he would then
basically sit and like cut the tape together that way
(25:17):
you find the bits that have the most spunk and
the most vibe and the most attitude to it. We
have about 250 fills for this song.
If you know anybody that needs a couple of, yeah,
if you know anybody, yeah, we have junk fills for sale.
We could've used some of these fills about 4 months back.
It got fun actually for a little while in the
studio experimenting with things.
(25:41):
I would try a bunch of different shit, you know,
certain amps like old, uh, old thing at Suro that
Jimmy Page was using and shit, uh, some 12 string stuff, uh.
You know, sitar thing on, uh, wherever I may roam.
That's just the cool thing about guitar you can kind
(26:02):
of get a little wild with them.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
With Rock's commitment to introducing Metallica to new instrumentation and
new sounds and Metallica's commitment to taking them on board,
Hedfield and the band found the necessary confidence to add
nothing else matters to the album.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
With these songs,
there was, it was a lot more breathing space and
there was a lot. The vocals really had to take
over in a lot of the songs, and, uh, a
lot of the songs were based on vocal lines and things, fearing,
you're the almighty.
You're a very fucking gutsy brave man, I gotta tell you.
(26:39):
Then there's that solo
He helped out exploding metal as far as uh giving
me some confidence and things because you know, nothing else
matters
and what the hell you doing, you know, the rest
of the guys.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
An underrated piece of nothing else matters lore is that
literally anyone can play it on guitar, or at least
it's opening riff. June.
In standard E tuning, the opening sounds of the iconic
song is simply open low E, followed by O G,
open B, open high E, and then back up to
B and G before repeating it all again. As long
as you get the tempo right, you don't even have
(27:16):
to put your hand on the neck of the guitar,
which is what makes the next bit of history about
the song even funnier. Unlike almost any Metallica song before it,
since joining in time for Killer More, Kirk Hammett was
actually not involved in the studio recording of Nothing Else Matters.
The heart-wrenching guitar solo, arguably one of the most emotionally
charged solos of all time, was a Hetfield original, written
(27:37):
and recorded by the singer who usually played backup when
it came to guitar parts.
As Hammett would tell Village Voice in 2014, we kept
putting it in the set and taking it out until
we were certain we actually were able to play it.
I had to relearn that whole intro part to play
it by myself on stage, which was a little bit
intimidating for me at that point. It's for this reason
that when it was released as a radio single in
(27:59):
April of 1992, Hammett has admitted he actually only technically knew.
How to play it for a little over a month,
with its first live performance coming on March 2nd of
that year. Once fully exposed to the world at large,
Nothing Else Matters became one of Metallica's calling cards, described
by Bob Rock as a love song without saying the
(28:19):
word love, a song that is huge and dramatic but real.
The concept of authenticity rings in every verse.
Equal parts defiant, resilient, nostalgic and vulnerable, it's truly one
of music's most enduring and relatable songs. With Nothing Else
Matters released, Metallica's Black album would go on to sell
another 2 million records in 1992 alone, and at last count,
(28:41):
the record has shipped more than 60 million copies in
the USA and over 31 million worldwide. With that many
copies sold, it was a bit of backlash from the
nineties metal hipsters of the world, but that wouldn't bother
Lars and the guys.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I
think people have been.
You know, there's always, you know, somebody who's like, well, gee,
they've sold a million records, now I hate them, just
for the fact that, yeah, do you know what I mean,
that whole kind of attitude. And there's always somebody that's like, well, now,
you know, my next door neighbor knows about the band,
so now I don't like them anymore because they're not
my own band. That kind of thing. I mean, there's
always going to be that kind of attitude and it's
(29:15):
something we've been living with for the last 68 years,
but
I think that it's been minimal, and I'm sure there's
gonna be somebody now going, oh gee, they're writing short
songs now I hate them or what. I mean, you know,
the bottom line is that we have to please ourselves
and we're doing right now what we want to do
very often.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Eventually, Nothing else Matters would transcend its original meaning, becoming
a wedding song, a stadium anthem, or as Howard Stern hypothesized,
an ode to the ties of brotherhood. What if you,
I
Speaker 2 (29:44):
said to you.
That this song could possibly.
The James's song to Lars.
What do you think of that? It's a love song
to your brother Lars. You probably didn't know that when
you were writing it. You think you were writing it
for a woman. I'm
serious.
You have to turn to face you. You have to
(30:05):
turn around and face them while you're sing.
But this is a beautiful love song that really came
to really came to be because a large you gave
James the confidence to release this song. I said, I just,
you know, when I heard it, it was in a,
a kind of a, a rough state. Uh, all the
parts on it now weren't there, but when I heard
the verses, I'd never heard James sing like that, and
(30:27):
it just moved me.
And I knew that this was something that we had
to share with the rest of the world. He felt
too vulnerable at that time to sort of let that
out there, but I knew that this was something that
had to be shared with everybody. Nothing
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Else Matters would pop up again in late 1999 as
a crucial part of Metallica's ambitious symphony and Metallica project in.
Collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Michael Kamen.
Released as the first single, the S&M version of the
song is brilliantly reimagined with a full live orchestral backing,
extenuating all the classically influenced instrumentation of the original in
(31:02):
a truly timeless fashion.
And while it would be hard to argue against End
to Sandman as the definitive Metallica song, I might suggest
that you keep an open mind for a different view
when it comes to the digital age. In August of 2021,
Nothing Else Matters became the first Metallica song to hit
a billion views, only the sixth song period to achieve
that feat at the time. Sandman's numbers, a paltry, 706 million.
(31:28):
We get more than that in one episode of Encore, naturally.
In late 2021, Metallica released an outrageous 53 track tribute
record called The Black List, with artists from all genres
of music playing homage to their revolutionary album. While artists
were encouraged to cover any track from the 1991 original,
you guessed it, more artists chose nothing else matters than
(31:49):
any other song. Included on the Mega album are reimaginings
of Nothing Else Matters by Phoebe Bridges, Dermot Kennedy, Chris Stapleton,
amongst others, but the true crown jewel is.
The interpretation by Miley Cyrus featuring Watt, Yo Yo Ma,
Chad Smith of the Chili Peppers, current Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo,
(32:10):
who replaced Jason Newstead after a public falling out, and
a little artist named Elton John. Miley Elton and Company's
version is truly special, by the way. It's always impressive
when Cyrus flexes her rockstar chops, but the sheer reverence
on display for the track truly bleeds through as the
ultimate tribute, touching and invigorating.
(32:30):
And this was no cynical endeavor either. Elton John would
surprise Miley Metallica to proclaim it one of the greatest
songs ever
written.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Miley, now you covered this Metallica song, but, but Elton
John plays piano on it, and with us right now
it's just Elton John to say hello. Look at you.
Oh my. Hi guys. Hi Miley. How you doing? Hey Elton,
talk to me about Metallica for a second for charity.
(32:58):
You are putting out a new album too, and this
song that you did with Miley appears on both albums.
It appears on Metallica's album, appears on your new album.
We're talking about nothing else matters. Working with Miley and
playing piano to a Metallica song, people would naturally think, oh,
Elton John doesn't play a Metallica song, but this is,
this is kind of an Elton John song. It's a
beautiful piano piece you do with this song. Well, it
(33:20):
that idea came from Andrew Walt, who produced the track
and played guitar on it, and he said,
I want you to start the song and finish the
song because I don't want it to start with a
guitar because that's how the original record started. And listen,
this is one of the best songs ever written to me.
I mean, it's just, yes, it's a song that never
gets old and playing on this track, I just couldn't
wait because the chord structure, the melodies, the time changes,
(33:44):
it's got, it's got drama written all over it and
uh I just thought it was a great idea to
start with piano. I have to say it was a
no brainer playing on this song. It's Metallica are probably.
You know, the creme de la creme of those kind
of bands of, uh, you can't really define them, not
heavy metal band, they're a musical band. Their songs aren't
(34:04):
just heavy metal, they're beautiful songs and this is such
a melodic song. It's just, it's fucking great actually. It
really is fucking great and I love the collaboration between
you and Miley and this the way you, you, you,
you interpreted it through piano. Is that a difficult thing
to do? I think because the song is so melodic.
Um, you know, it's a very beautiful song. If you
(34:25):
just take all the guitars and everything and just sing
the song a cappella, it's a bit like Greensleeves, um,
it's a beautiful melody, so you know when you've got
a beautiful melody to play to with all the rest
going on, it's, um, it's a juxtaposition of musical instruments
and so I found it really easy, I mean.
It's a kind of classical song, it's like
Speaker 1 (34:44):
a
Speaker 2 (34:45):
classical piece of
Speaker 1 (34:45):
music. In the clip, a visibly emotional James Hetfield can't
believe what he's hearing. Such high praise from one of
his songwriting heroes was very clearly not something he'd expected
at that moment. 30 years after, almost being too scared
to show it to his own brothers in arms.
Needless to say, the Black Album and its legendary singles
minted Metallica as one of the world's greatest rock bands,
(35:06):
full stop. Never too far away from internal turmoil, the
late 90s into the early 2000s were a particularly tumultuous
time for the group. The band would reunite with Mr.
I'll Never Work with Them Again, Bob Rock for 1996's Load, '97s, Reload, '98s,
Garage Inc. and of course, 2003's infamous album, Saint Anger.
(35:30):
After a highly publicized lawsuit against file sharing service Napster
in 2000 and the acrimonious departure of Jason Newstead in 2001,
Bob Rock himself unofficially became a part of Metallica, serving
as fill in bassist on Saint Anger, an album described
by Playlouder critic William Lough as a monolithic slab of noise,
(35:52):
too dense and daunting to be truly enjoyable. Following the
release of Saint Anger, Metallica would go on to release.
A documentary entitled Metallica, Some Kind of Monster, which would
document the process of creating 03's disasterpiece, losing Newstead, and
hiring Trujillo. Among the topics uncovered in the film were
James Hetfield's struggle with alcoholism and subsequent rehab stint, bringing
(36:16):
in a therapist for band group therapy to try and
avoid what felt like an inevitable breakup and the latest
resentment held against them by former bandmate Dave Mustaine.
After a brief period away, Metallica would once again return
in 2008 with a new lease on life and a
new producer, the legendary Rick Rubin, who convinced the band
to go back to their eighties sound that brought them
(36:38):
so much early success with Death Magnetic. 2016's Hardwired to
Self-destruct would continue the modernized thrash metal trend for the
band before going back to the well in 2020 for
a second S&M symphony effort.
Needless to say, Nothing Else Matters was released once again
as a lead single from the live album, while slightly
(37:00):
less symphonic in nature, this time, the final refrain includes
a more than willing San Francisco crowd jubilantly singing along.
At present, Metallica is still going strong. 2023's 72 Seasons
has brought Metallica back in a big way with their.
M72 tour, promising to be their biggest tour ever, now
(37:20):
on its third leg around the globe. Metallica are including
what they're calling a no repeat weekend where they'll play
a completely different setlist in each town they visit with
back to back shows. One request for the Toronto show though, lads,
please play Nothing Else Matters on both dates, and maybe
bring Miley and Elton.
I'm Myles Galloway, and that was the story of Metallica's
(37:43):
Nothing Else Matters on Encore, with new episodes every Thursday.
Encore is an iHeart Radio Canada podcast. Subscribe to this
podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. Download
the iHeartRadio app for more great podcasts just like these.
This is Encore the stories behind the songs. Here's I
Heart Radio's Miles Galloway.
All these words I don't just say, I'm Miles Galloway,
and this is the story of Metallica's. Nothing else matters.
(00:21):
Although our story ostensibly begins in the 90s, let's take
a moment or two to look back at Metallica's wild
and wonderful career throughout the 1980s. Originally founded by current members,
singer and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich,
alongside bassist.
McGoverney and lead guitarist Dave Mustaine, Metallica actually parted ways
(00:44):
with both McGoverney and Mustaine due to various personal and
professional conflicts before recording and releasing their 1983 debut album,
controversially titled Kill Em All. McGoverney was quickly replaced by
revered bassist, the now late Cliff Burton, while Mustaine was
replaced by legendary member to this day, solo master Kirk Hammett.
(01:07):
Despite being fired from the band and having most of
his solos reworked on Kill Em All during the recording
sessions by the more than capable Hammett, Mustaine was still
given multiple writing credits on the album, giving him a
bit of mythical status amongst Metallica fans in his own right.
As most metal fans know, the Mercurial Mustaine would go
on to form his own metal powerhouse band.
(01:30):
Megadeath soon after his departure. Still an incredibly rough around
the edges thrash metal band, Cliff Burton would have a
massive influence on the maturing of Metallica for their second album,
Ride the Lightning. Burton would co-write every track on the album,
including their first ever power ballad, Fade to Black, which
introduced fans to a slightly softer sounding side of Metallica
(01:51):
for the very first time.
Complete with acoustic guitars, longing vocals, and lyrics inclusive of
the phrase nothing matters, the song was a bleak piece
of work that grew in its heaviness as the song
progressed with Hetfield telling Guitar World. That song was a
big step forward for us. It was pretty much our
first ballad, so we knew it would freak people out.
Recording that song, I learned how frustrating acoustic guitar can be.
(02:15):
You can hear every squeak, so I had to be careful.
I was pretty depressed at the time because our gear
had just been stolen, and we'd been thrown out of
our manager's house for breaking shit and drinking his liquor
cabinet dry. It's a suicide song and we got a
lot of flak for it. But we also got hundreds
of letters from kids telling us how they related to
the song and that it made them feel better. Metallica
would release their follow-up to Ride the Lightning in 1986
(02:38):
with Master.
of puppets. No longer just making music for the underground
metalheads of the world, Puppets marked Metallica's major label debut
with Elektra Records. The album was roundly received as one of,
if not the greatest metal album of the time, with
critics noting how much Burton's influence, in particular, had progressed
the band's sound. The album would spend an impressive 72
(03:02):
weeks on the bill.
album charts and would become Metallica's first ever gold record
upon release. Puppets would eventually go nearly 8 times platinum
with new peaks and valleys of sales and streams over
the decades, as new generations of metalheads discovered the genre
and its crown jewel. The title track and only official
single from Master of Puppets, is an 8.5 minute ride
(03:25):
that showcases the band.
Tempo bending, thrash roots, prog rock breakdowns, and pump up
guitar shredding that at times makes you feel like you're
in a video game about to defeat the final boss.
Speaking of that, you may recall that the song was
most recently immortalized in season 4 of Stranger Things with
fan favorite character Eddie Munson heroically playing the title track
(03:46):
in the upside down dimension to lure away the universe's
vicious monsters. Hellfire Club forever, am I right?
Tragedy would strike Metallica in September of 1986, mere months
after MOP's release, as Cliff Burton would die in a
bus accident in Sweden while on tour promoting the record.
(04:06):
Burton was only 24 years old when he was ejected
from the window of Metallica's tour bus as it skidded
off the road suddenly while the band members slept. The
bus would land on top of him, killing him instantly.
While the fault of the crash was hotly and legally
debated at the time, ultimately, Metallica's tour bus driver was
found not to be at fault for the freak accident.
(04:26):
By 1987, Metallica would find their necessary replacement for Burton,
bassist Jason Newstead. Years later, Newstead would tell VH1's that
medal showed that he secured the gig by stealthily finding
a Metallica setlist, learning all the songs on it to
know perfection, and demoing them out for Ulrich, who hired
him two days later. With Newstead in the band, Metallica
(04:48):
geared up to release their final album of the 80s.
Called And Justice for All. By this point, Metallica had
very much made a name for themselves as the premier
metal band, and Justice would prove it, peaking at number
6 on the Billboard album charts, going double platinum across
its album cycle. Mainstream critical success would also soon follow
for the band, although they would lose out on winning
(05:09):
the first and only ever best hard rock metal performance
vocal or instrumental.
Grammy Award, so they're very much not a metal band,
Jethro Tull's very much not a metal album, Crest of
a Nave in 1989. Bob Metallica's song one would snag
them the inaugural Best Metal Performance Award in retribution at
(05:30):
the following year's ceremony. Eventually, and Justice for All, would
follow in the footsteps of its pivotal predecessor going more
than 8 times platinum to date.
Now, you may be thinking by this point that this
is truly unprecedented success for a metal band. Of course,
there's always a place in music for aggressive heavy tunes,
(05:51):
but as the 80s turned to the 90s, you would
be forgiven for assuming that the roughly 4 to 5
million records sold in America across four monster albums was
about as good as it could get for any metal band,
and perhaps they'd finally hit their glass ceiling.
But Metallica, simply put, we're not just any metal band,
and we're ready to change the way the world perceived
(06:12):
heavy metal forever. In constructing their magnum opus, Metallica had
one initial goal from the get-go, write shorter songs. Now
perhaps that doesn't sound like some sort of profound artistic epiphany.
After all, shorter is a relative term, and a quick
glimpse at Metallica's 80s back catalog shows that the group
had no problem releasing 78, even.
(06:33):
9 minute face melters. So like almost anything less would
be shorter, right? But as Kirk Hammett would tell much,
Metallica wanted to challenge themselves in a whole new way.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Can we
expect something totally different to Metallica? Um, I don't know
if totally different is the right way of phrasing it,
but I mean, we've really, I think we've taken a
pretty sharp, you know, turn, you know, the
The Ride the Lightning album to master puppets, to Injustice
for All, all different albums from each other, but kind
of in the same direction. And I think this album
(07:05):
just kind of took a sharp turn and it's just
like I said, we wanted to for a couple of
years to do something a bit different, but it just
seemed like last time we kind of just got stuck
in the same rut again and this time it really
did make the songs a bit shorter and a bit
more compact and a bit sort of just more to
the point. It just
I don't know, I think, at least for me, sometime
(07:26):
in the middle of the last tour, it just got
really boring live playing some of these like 10 minute
songs that were so progressive that you always had to
sit there and think about, you know, OK, this great
big drum rolls coming up, or, you know, this tempo
change or whatever. It just, I found that, you know,
the stuff that I was more into playing live with
some of the simpler stuff that was more kind of groove,
(07:47):
you know, some of the stuff like Seek and Destroy
or from the Bell Tolls, or that kind of stuff
from our earlier albums. And
It just seemed like to get back to that kind
of thing now would be pretty cool, so we did,
and most of the new songs are all pretty.
Almost sometimes I don't like using the word symbol because
I think some people might take that negative, but it's
just it's like, here's a big guitar riff and the
(08:09):
drums just kind of hang in the background and you
know it's just here's a chorus and here's a guitar solo,
and here's the next song, instead of just kind of
farting around with going into all these different bits and
stuff like that. I mean we go into different bits,
but it's all separate songs instead of doing it all
within one song. And that way it just kind of
Gets the songs a little more kind of bouncier and
(08:30):
a little more groovy and stuff like that. I think
this is a lot more of a guitar oriented album.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
As simple of a concept as this may have sounded,
it can't be understated that even with their growing popularity,
Metallica were the type of band who were known for
their epic song journeys, and they were lauded for it.
Shortening and grooving up the sound Metallica was a massive risk.
For the veterans of thrash metal, because if they messed
(08:55):
it up, it would almost certainly alienate their hardcore fans,
but as Hammer would explain, it was a risk that
the band was willing to take.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
You know, obviously, we've had a lot of very positive,
you know, critical acclaim, you know, and stuff like that,
and a lot of people obviously always watching us, but
I think we have this ability to shut that out
when we sit down and write and stuff like that.
And we're never really,
I don't know, for some reason we just we're able
to not worry about the fact that everybody's looking at
us because, you know, and, and just sort of, now
(09:25):
we want to do this and we don't really worry
about what's so and so going to think and you know,
this group of people, you know, and that group, I mean,
I think once you start worrying about all that stuff,
then you're just going to start, you know, running around
in circles and it's like a never ending thing where
you just, if you're always trying to please somebody, I mean,
we just please ourselves and it's worked so far for
the last 10 years.
What are the, are the, are the kids gonna like
(09:46):
this right?
Ask the kids when it comes out. I mean, you know.
It seems when we do something that is a sort
of honest, um, I guess, interpretation or whatever of where
our instincts and vibe is at that particular time, you know, it,
it always
Somehow ends, you know, comes across, you know, just like
(10:09):
honest and stuff. And I think a lot of people
pick up on that. That's why I'm saying if we
sat there and tried to sort of, you know, think about,
you know, what we should do for people, then I
think it would end up sounding, you know, contrived, and
I think people would be able to see through that
like in, you know, no time at all. And I
don't know. I think people will at least know, there's
always gonna be somebody who's gonna, you know, yell, sell
(10:30):
out or whatever. And, and I mean, we've been
Prepared for that for, you know, many years. With
Speaker 1 (10:36):
a
Speaker 2 (10:36):
clear
Speaker 1 (10:36):
vision and a strong will, Metallica would write the majority
of their new sound demos for album number 5 in
approximately 2 months in 1990. Writing for what it's worth,
has never been a weak spot for the group, who
famously to this very day have albums' worth of material
just waiting to be released in a top secret Metallica vault.
(10:56):
But writing was only half the battle. Metallica knew that
with this all new direction and all new sound,
There could be absolutely no half measures. Their previous albums,
while critically acclaimed, would almost always garner criticism of just
how dry the songs could sound, full of treble, high notes,
and machine gun percussion from a production standpoint, at least,
(11:19):
their music.
Wasn't exactly being listened to for their rich oral textures
or tone setting basslines. For the first time ever, the
band understood that they didn't know everything there was about
not only composing music, but producing it. And they were
gonna need someone to help guide them through the process
if they were gonna do it right. So what did
they do, you ask? Call in a Canadian, naturally.
(11:42):
Originally feeling like they could do the production work themselves,
Metallica believed that they were really just looking for someone
to mix their next project to ensure that their instrumentation
sounded tighter than ever. The guys were a fan of
how fellow label mate Motley Crue's most recent effort, Doctor Feelgood, sounded,
so it seemed a no-brainer to call in the producer
of that album, the aptly named Bob Rock.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
He's
he's not, he's not your basic producer, I'd say. He's,
he's here, I think a lot more than than most. He's,
he's really into the project and we just.
You know, getting a producer was kind of new to
us too, so.
Why you zero in on Bob like what why Bob?
Uh, I think well, management suggested him and we were
(12:23):
really stuck. We had no idea what we wanted to do,
you know, we heard, I guess a couple of other
projects he'd done before, and what we really wanted to
focus on this time was getting bass guitar, you know,
on this album. So he's really good at that. He's
got some pretty hot and low end on some of
his other stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Rock, a Canadian producer with a bit of a Canon
lore in his own right, had a massive hit in
the early 80s with his band, The Paolas. Their song
Eyes of a Stranger would win a Juno Award for
Best Single of the Year, and Rock himself would win
a Juno for Recording Engineer of the Year for the
accompanying album.
Well, perhaps not a global superstar, Metallica did witness a
(13:01):
bit of Bobamania here in Canada when they first agreed
to work with him.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Plus, I mean, just he's so famous in Canada. I mean,
when we came up there, it was like the first
night we went out together, um, we went to this
establishment for a couple of beverages and
We're just sitting there and I could kind of like
the corner of my eye, see like a couple of
kids coming over like, you know, pens and pieces of
paper and say, you know, OK, sign a couple of autographs,
and they just come over, completely ignore me and James. Just,
(13:27):
oh Bob Rock. Oh wow, I can't believe I'm meeting you.
Would you sign these autographs, please? And then when Bob
had signed the autographs, they just
Turned around and left. I was like, me and James
didn't even exist. And me and James sat there and
looked at each other. I was like, what? It's like,
this guy's really famous up here. Maybe we should hang
with him.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
One thing they didn't argue on, however, in all honesty,
it would be the first of many things, was where
the album was going to be recorded.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
He tried to convince you to do it in
uh Vancouver? Um.
Well, the day after that, we hung with him up there,
we went down and checked out Little Mountain and um
see how do I say it's the best way.
Um, let's. Uh, well, let's see. How about just saying
(14:10):
that it was not the kind of studio that we
would want to make our next album in. I think
I got out of that one pretty good. Um, no disrespect, but, uh,
so we kind of just said, look, you know, we
really kind of want to record in LA. And, um,
you know, at first he was a little not too
keen on that, because, you know, I mean, he knows
that studio and that's where his whole vibe is and stuff,
but
(14:31):
Then we started, you know, playing him some demos and
we were communicating and stuff like that. And I think
the more you heard the songs and the more, you know,
just the vibe kept getting better and better, the more
he became into maybe taking it elsewhere than Vancouver. With
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Vancouver out of the picture and Los Angeles chosen as
their agreed upon home base, Bob Rock would eventually wear
the band down to the idea that he wasn't just
going to mix their next record, he was going to
produce the whole damn thing.
Here's Rock Ari telling much as Dan Gallagher on location
at One on One Studios in Los Angeles about their
shared vision during the final weeks of recording.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Anyway, um, I think, uh, yeah, they approached me in
the mix and I said that, uh, sure, but I'd
like to work with them.
Through the whole album if they were into it and
I think, I think, uh, I had something like that
and you guys kind of phoned back and said well
maybe yeah like until we were like maybe and then
Peter called up and said he wants to produce you too.
(15:26):
I'm like, yeah, sure, we're Metallica nobody produces us. Nobody
tells us what to do. One thing they said is
they wanted to, uh, to get the melodic part of
their music brought out a little more, and they, they
wanted to work on the feel a bit and, uh.
When they said that I knew that I really wanted
to work with them, and that's what we've been doing.
That's why we actually this band I don't think you've
(15:47):
ever recorded altogether except for maybe the garage or anything.
No. Yes,
Speaker 1 (15:52):
perhaps one of the biggest changes Bob Rock intended to
make with Metallica's overreaching creative process was that he insisted
that all four members record together in a somewhat live.
The floor method, something believe it or not, Metallica, had
never done before.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Funny when we
got into this like, uh, when we started talking about this, uh,
in the earlier stages I, you know, where I was
mentioning that you could actually all play in the same
room at the same time and they were just like
they weren't aware of that before. You're kidding. That's and
then they told me that.
For for justice when they worked with Mike Clink that
Mike Clink after what was it 2 months or something, he,
(16:28):
he didn't even meet Kirk.
So you know I, I feel privileged that I actually
met the guitar player and the joke was always that
he never actually got a chance to meet the guitar,
lead guitar player. So I got to the big time, yeah,
I met all the guys in the band.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
As Ulrich would explain though, there were definite pros and
cons to this style of production, namely the sheer amount
of takes they would need in order to meet all
of their extremely high standards.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And.
The way that we went about doing this was that
instead of like playing the song once or twice and
you sit there and go, gee, you know, now the,
you know, red record buttons on and you start stiffening
up and you get really tense, and it sounds like that.
It's like Bob said, go out and play the song
30 times, basically. So, we'd sit here and play this song,
everybody would be in the room here behind me, and
(17:15):
I'd sit here and play the song 30 times and
by say, maybe take 10.
I would forget that I'm in a recording studio and
I would like be on a stage in an arena
and then you sort of you take your mental and
you just sort of, you know, remove yourself from the
studio and then you get really loose and that comes
across and that's kind of how we've been going for
(17:37):
this time and it's working really well, but
The downside of it is that when you have 30
takes of a song and you have to sit there
and shift through like, you know, 100 minutes of music,
it's like that all of a sudden becomes like a
huge time consuming thing where you have to sit there and, well, gee,
is Take 22 better than Take 19 or is Take 18,
you know, the solo section, does that spark a little
(17:59):
more than Take 25? It's like.
That really kind of took me by surprise at how
long that editing process would take. The
Speaker 1 (18:07):
finished project, eventually called Metallica, but more affectionately known by
fans as the Black Album, thanks to its all Black
album cover, save for a barely visible impression of the
Gadson flag snake, would be remixed in its entirety no
less than 3 times, causing huge delays.
And would end up costing more than $1 million to make.
(18:27):
It would also cost a lot more to Metallica than
just money, as the strains of aiming for musical perfection
contributed to the simultaneous divorces of Ulrich, Newstead and Hammett.
Hammett would tell Playboy, Lars, Jason and I were going
through divorces. I was an emotional wreck. I was trying
to take those feelings of guilt and failure and channel
them into the music to get something positive out of it.
(18:48):
The Black Album's first single, Enter Sandman, would very quickly
prove to the band and Bob Rock, who openly stated
that he would never work with Metallica again, but would
end up working with Metallica many, many more times, that
all of this painstaking work was worth it, as it
would help the record debut at number one on the
Billboard albums chart, with the single itself peaking at a
(19:09):
resounding number 16 on the Hot 100 pop songs. Now
overwhelmingly thought of as one of the best songs of
all time.
We'll save the ins and outs of NS Sandman itself
for a future episode of Encore, as it so rightfully deserves.
Complete with its own music video, only the second video
released in Metallica's history, and coming in at a tight
5.5 minutes, Metallica's fans were shocked but intrigued by the
(19:33):
band's new-ish direction.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
This is like a record that.
It always sounded like we were trying to make, but
just never really were able to like put together and
I think people, I don't know, a few people kind
of like have been telling me that they were like
a little freaked out right before they sat down and
like check it out and stuff, but you know within
about 30 seconds or something they just know that it's
this good old metallic. It's just sounding.
(19:55):
A lot better than we ever have before, you know,
just guitars, drums, everything just come crushing at you, but
it just sounds a lot bigger. It sounds a lot warmer.
It sounds a lot more kind of has a lot
more emotion and stuff in it and just the songs
are just a little more condensed. I mean, I think
people have been just making a little bit too.
big of an issue out of the whole thing with
(20:16):
Bob Rock and the fact that we just changed, you know,
the songwriting around
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
The song's accessible melodies also didn't hurt in the way
of opening the door for all new Metallica fans, as
the band would tell much.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
But it seemed that uh a lot of people have
embraced Metallica that never really gave Metallica, you know, chance and, um,
so it's pretty cool. How do you feel about those
new fans, those people that didn't know and like Metallica.
It's pretty interesting, you know, you work, you look out
to the audience and you see a lot of people
that you wouldn't have seen out in the audience five
(20:46):
years ago, it's
It's uh pretty different. I think it's too easy to
sort of sit and go, yeah, all the latecomers or whatever,
but you gotta remember that there's so many people that
it's because Metallic has always been so extreme that I've
never really maybe had access to Metallic because we've never
been on the radio or much on video channels or
whatever and it's like they're just getting a chance to
hear about us now for the first time and hopefully.
(21:08):
Finding out that it's something
that.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Second single, The Unforgiven would continue the band's upward trajectory,
flipping the concept of a power ballad on its head
with heavy chugging verses and almost medieval sounding classical guitar choruses.
If you weren't drawn in by Sandman, The Unforgiven would
almost certainly spark curiosity in the discerning music fan.
By this point, sales of Metallica's self-titled were through the roof,
(21:32):
going #1 all over the world, and by the beginning
of 1992, the record was already 4 times platinum in
the US alone.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Every day I get
these faxes coming in from the office, the album's number
one in Australia, it's number one in Norway, it's number
one in New Zealand, it's #1 in America, it's number
one in Canada. It's like, and in a way I
almost feel like we're removed from it because we're just
doing our own thing on tour, but obviously when I
turn the lights off and then my bed move by myself. Yeah.
It's a rock and roll drink I'm.
(22:01):
For lack of a better way of saying it, I mean,
I mean, the one thing about Metallica is that we've
never really been that career conscious. I mean, when we
started this band 10 years ago, it was not like,
oh we're striving to be.
but sure I'll take it, and I think what it is,
what's cool about it is that in a way it's
like
When we started off, there were a lot of people
(22:21):
that were laughing at us and pointing fingers metallica, they
can't play, they can't write, they can't do anything. It's
like there's a major, uh, something like that to them,
so it's like, I mean from that point of view,
it's
just a great feeling.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Needless to say, we here in Canada we're also pretty
proud of our country man Bob Rock for wrangling the
sounds of the metal underground and putting them together in
one rocking package.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Well, I tell you the reason I think most Canadians
are excited because Bob Rock is Canadian and I know
we had like.
Canadian flags up in the studio and it's just, you know,
like James is, you know, you know I'm Danish, so
I have like my Danish slack on my drum kit
as usual, and you know James has an American flag
on his ants and you know it didn't take Bob
all but like 5 minutes to get, you know, a
(23:04):
couple of Canadian flags up in the studios and we
were like Battle of the nations, you know, in the
control room.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
So when it was time to release single number 3,
the band felt confident in releasing their secret weapon, the
most vulnerable song on the record, Nothing else matters.
In hindsight, it's hard to believe that nothing else matters,
almost didn't make the cut for the album, and in
another lifetime, may have never seen the light of day.
Written largely by James Hetfield as a personal piece of
(23:32):
music while longing for his girlfriend on the road, it
was only after James showed the deep.
Personal track to Lars Ulrich on a whim that he
was convinced it was right from Metallica at all. Here's
the band explaining the situation to Howard Stern in 2013.
I think Lars
Speaker 2 (23:47):
heard it and said, hey, that's really good. And I said, no,
it's not. How did Lars hear that song if you
were ashamed of it? How did you hear it?
You played it for me. That's how he heard it.
So you weren't that ashamed. And did Lawrence, did he
come to you? Did James come to you and go,
Hey man, I'm gonna play something for you. No, I mean,
it's always been, there's always been a very open door policy.
(24:09):
I mean, we all trade. Usually what would happen back
in the early days is that, uh, when we would,
after a tour go on break, like James would give
me all his, uh, ideas, Kurt would give me all
his ideas, we'd all sort of trade ideas and then
we'd go away and then when we would start writing a,
a few months later, everybody.
Would kind of have an idea of what everybody else
was bringing to the table and Lars, you, uh, knew
(24:30):
that song was gonna be a hit. You had an
argument with the record. It wasn't, it wasn't so much
about hit. It was just more about a side of
Metallica that I was really proud of and I thought
that everybody should see. Were you scared that the fans
would revolt when they heard such a beautiful ballad? No,
I think it's good to challenge the fans once in
a while.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Next, of course, the band would bring the demo to
Bob Rock, who, you guessed it, would make the guys
record the track an ungodly amount of times before being
meticulously combed over by Metallica, Rock and their engineers.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
You sit
down and you got, you know, 2030 takes of, of songs.
Go film him or something, go see, see that what
he's doing, now he's putting pieces together, isn't that exciting?
Basically Randy razor blade, uh, brilliant engineer, he would then
basically sit and like cut the tape together that way
(25:17):
you find the bits that have the most spunk and
the most vibe and the most attitude to it. We
have about 250 fills for this song.
If you know anybody that needs a couple of, yeah,
if you know anybody, yeah, we have junk fills for sale.
We could've used some of these fills about 4 months back.
It got fun actually for a little while in the
studio experimenting with things.
(25:41):
I would try a bunch of different shit, you know,
certain amps like old, uh, old thing at Suro that
Jimmy Page was using and shit, uh, some 12 string stuff, uh.
You know, sitar thing on, uh, wherever I may roam.
That's just the cool thing about guitar you can kind
(26:02):
of get a little wild with them.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
With Rock's commitment to introducing Metallica to new instrumentation and
new sounds and Metallica's commitment to taking them on board,
Hedfield and the band found the necessary confidence to add
nothing else matters to the album.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
With these songs,
there was, it was a lot more breathing space and
there was a lot. The vocals really had to take
over in a lot of the songs, and, uh, a
lot of the songs were based on vocal lines and things, fearing,
you're the almighty.
You're a very fucking gutsy brave man, I gotta tell you.
(26:39):
Then there's that solo
He helped out exploding metal as far as uh giving
me some confidence and things because you know, nothing else
matters
and what the hell you doing, you know, the rest
of the guys.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
An underrated piece of nothing else matters lore is that
literally anyone can play it on guitar, or at least
it's opening riff. June.
In standard E tuning, the opening sounds of the iconic
song is simply open low E, followed by O G,
open B, open high E, and then back up to
B and G before repeating it all again. As long
as you get the tempo right, you don't even have
(27:16):
to put your hand on the neck of the guitar,
which is what makes the next bit of history about
the song even funnier. Unlike almost any Metallica song before it,
since joining in time for Killer More, Kirk Hammett was
actually not involved in the studio recording of Nothing Else Matters.
The heart-wrenching guitar solo, arguably one of the most emotionally
charged solos of all time, was a Hetfield original, written
(27:37):
and recorded by the singer who usually played backup when
it came to guitar parts.
As Hammett would tell Village Voice in 2014, we kept
putting it in the set and taking it out until
we were certain we actually were able to play it.
I had to relearn that whole intro part to play
it by myself on stage, which was a little bit
intimidating for me at that point. It's for this reason
that when it was released as a radio single in
(27:59):
April of 1992, Hammett has admitted he actually only technically knew.
How to play it for a little over a month,
with its first live performance coming on March 2nd of
that year. Once fully exposed to the world at large,
Nothing Else Matters became one of Metallica's calling cards, described
by Bob Rock as a love song without saying the
(28:19):
word love, a song that is huge and dramatic but real.
The concept of authenticity rings in every verse.
Equal parts defiant, resilient, nostalgic and vulnerable, it's truly one
of music's most enduring and relatable songs. With Nothing Else
Matters released, Metallica's Black album would go on to sell
another 2 million records in 1992 alone, and at last count,
(28:41):
the record has shipped more than 60 million copies in
the USA and over 31 million worldwide. With that many
copies sold, it was a bit of backlash from the
nineties metal hipsters of the world, but that wouldn't bother
Lars and the guys.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I
think people have been.
You know, there's always, you know, somebody who's like, well, gee,
they've sold a million records, now I hate them, just
for the fact that, yeah, do you know what I mean,
that whole kind of attitude. And there's always somebody that's like, well, now,
you know, my next door neighbor knows about the band,
so now I don't like them anymore because they're not
my own band. That kind of thing. I mean, there's
always going to be that kind of attitude and it's
(29:15):
something we've been living with for the last 68 years,
but
I think that it's been minimal, and I'm sure there's
gonna be somebody now going, oh gee, they're writing short
songs now I hate them or what. I mean, you know,
the bottom line is that we have to please ourselves
and we're doing right now what we want to do
very often.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Eventually, Nothing else Matters would transcend its original meaning, becoming
a wedding song, a stadium anthem, or as Howard Stern hypothesized,
an ode to the ties of brotherhood. What if you,
I
Speaker 2 (29:44):
said to you.
That this song could possibly.
The James's song to Lars.
What do you think of that? It's a love song
to your brother Lars. You probably didn't know that when
you were writing it. You think you were writing it
for a woman. I'm
serious.
You have to turn to face you. You have to
(30:05):
turn around and face them while you're sing.
But this is a beautiful love song that really came
to really came to be because a large you gave
James the confidence to release this song. I said, I just,
you know, when I heard it, it was in a,
a kind of a, a rough state. Uh, all the
parts on it now weren't there, but when I heard
the verses, I'd never heard James sing like that, and
(30:27):
it just moved me.
And I knew that this was something that we had
to share with the rest of the world. He felt
too vulnerable at that time to sort of let that
out there, but I knew that this was something that
had to be shared with everybody. Nothing
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Else Matters would pop up again in late 1999 as
a crucial part of Metallica's ambitious symphony and Metallica project in.
Collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Michael Kamen.
Released as the first single, the S&M version of the
song is brilliantly reimagined with a full live orchestral backing,
extenuating all the classically influenced instrumentation of the original in
(31:02):
a truly timeless fashion.
And while it would be hard to argue against End
to Sandman as the definitive Metallica song, I might suggest
that you keep an open mind for a different view
when it comes to the digital age. In August of 2021,
Nothing Else Matters became the first Metallica song to hit
a billion views, only the sixth song period to achieve
that feat at the time. Sandman's numbers, a paltry, 706 million.
(31:28):
We get more than that in one episode of Encore, naturally.
In late 2021, Metallica released an outrageous 53 track tribute
record called The Black List, with artists from all genres
of music playing homage to their revolutionary album. While artists
were encouraged to cover any track from the 1991 original,
you guessed it, more artists chose nothing else matters than
(31:49):
any other song. Included on the Mega album are reimaginings
of Nothing Else Matters by Phoebe Bridges, Dermot Kennedy, Chris Stapleton,
amongst others, but the true crown jewel is.
The interpretation by Miley Cyrus featuring Watt, Yo Yo Ma,
Chad Smith of the Chili Peppers, current Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo,
(32:10):
who replaced Jason Newstead after a public falling out, and
a little artist named Elton John. Miley Elton and Company's
version is truly special, by the way. It's always impressive
when Cyrus flexes her rockstar chops, but the sheer reverence
on display for the track truly bleeds through as the
ultimate tribute, touching and invigorating.
(32:30):
And this was no cynical endeavor either. Elton John would
surprise Miley Metallica to proclaim it one of the greatest
songs ever
written.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Miley, now you covered this Metallica song, but, but Elton
John plays piano on it, and with us right now
it's just Elton John to say hello. Look at you.
Oh my. Hi guys. Hi Miley. How you doing? Hey Elton,
talk to me about Metallica for a second for charity.
(32:58):
You are putting out a new album too, and this
song that you did with Miley appears on both albums.
It appears on Metallica's album, appears on your new album.
We're talking about nothing else matters. Working with Miley and
playing piano to a Metallica song, people would naturally think, oh,
Elton John doesn't play a Metallica song, but this is,
this is kind of an Elton John song. It's a
beautiful piano piece you do with this song. Well, it
(33:20):
that idea came from Andrew Walt, who produced the track
and played guitar on it, and he said,
I want you to start the song and finish the
song because I don't want it to start with a
guitar because that's how the original record started. And listen,
this is one of the best songs ever written to me.
I mean, it's just, yes, it's a song that never
gets old and playing on this track, I just couldn't
wait because the chord structure, the melodies, the time changes,
(33:44):
it's got, it's got drama written all over it and
uh I just thought it was a great idea to
start with piano. I have to say it was a
no brainer playing on this song. It's Metallica are probably.
You know, the creme de la creme of those kind
of bands of, uh, you can't really define them, not
heavy metal band, they're a musical band. Their songs aren't
(34:04):
just heavy metal, they're beautiful songs and this is such
a melodic song. It's just, it's fucking great actually. It
really is fucking great and I love the collaboration between
you and Miley and this the way you, you, you,
you interpreted it through piano. Is that a difficult thing
to do? I think because the song is so melodic.
Um, you know, it's a very beautiful song. If you
(34:25):
just take all the guitars and everything and just sing
the song a cappella, it's a bit like Greensleeves, um,
it's a beautiful melody, so you know when you've got
a beautiful melody to play to with all the rest
going on, it's, um, it's a juxtaposition of musical instruments
and so I found it really easy, I mean.
It's a kind of classical song, it's like
Speaker 1 (34:44):
a
Speaker 2 (34:45):
classical piece of
Speaker 1 (34:45):
music. In the clip, a visibly emotional James Hetfield can't
believe what he's hearing. Such high praise from one of
his songwriting heroes was very clearly not something he'd expected
at that moment. 30 years after, almost being too scared
to show it to his own brothers in arms.
Needless to say, the Black Album and its legendary singles
minted Metallica as one of the world's greatest rock bands,
(35:06):
full stop. Never too far away from internal turmoil, the
late 90s into the early 2000s were a particularly tumultuous
time for the group. The band would reunite with Mr.
I'll Never Work with Them Again, Bob Rock for 1996's Load, '97s, Reload, '98s,
Garage Inc. and of course, 2003's infamous album, Saint Anger.
(35:30):
After a highly publicized lawsuit against file sharing service Napster
in 2000 and the acrimonious departure of Jason Newstead in 2001,
Bob Rock himself unofficially became a part of Metallica, serving
as fill in bassist on Saint Anger, an album described
by Playlouder critic William Lough as a monolithic slab of noise,
(35:52):
too dense and daunting to be truly enjoyable. Following the
release of Saint Anger, Metallica would go on to release.
A documentary entitled Metallica, Some Kind of Monster, which would
document the process of creating 03's disasterpiece, losing Newstead, and
hiring Trujillo. Among the topics uncovered in the film were
James Hetfield's struggle with alcoholism and subsequent rehab stint, bringing
(36:16):
in a therapist for band group therapy to try and
avoid what felt like an inevitable breakup and the latest
resentment held against them by former bandmate Dave Mustaine.
After a brief period away, Metallica would once again return
in 2008 with a new lease on life and a
new producer, the legendary Rick Rubin, who convinced the band
to go back to their eighties sound that brought them
(36:38):
so much early success with Death Magnetic. 2016's Hardwired to
Self-destruct would continue the modernized thrash metal trend for the
band before going back to the well in 2020 for
a second S&M symphony effort.
Needless to say, Nothing Else Matters was released once again
as a lead single from the live album, while slightly
(37:00):
less symphonic in nature, this time, the final refrain includes
a more than willing San Francisco crowd jubilantly singing along.
At present, Metallica is still going strong. 2023's 72 Seasons
has brought Metallica back in a big way with their.
M72 tour, promising to be their biggest tour ever, now
(37:20):
on its third leg around the globe. Metallica are including
what they're calling a no repeat weekend where they'll play
a completely different setlist in each town they visit with
back to back shows. One request for the Toronto show though, lads,
please play Nothing Else Matters on both dates, and maybe
bring Miley and Elton.
I'm Myles Galloway, and that was the story of Metallica's
(37:43):
Nothing Else Matters on Encore, with new episodes every Thursday.
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