Metallica Producer Reveals A Rare-Known Funny Story From The Recording Process Of ‘St. Anger’
In a new interview with Tone Talk, the Canadian producer/sound engineer Bob Rock, who started his Metallica work on the band’s “Black Album” and left them with his final effort “St. Anger,” talked about “St. Anger” and remembered a funny story from its recording process.
While he talks on the issue, he said that he liked the effort. He also revealed a funny story and remembered those days with the following words:
“I’m fine with that. The thing is, this is interesting, there is a story: while we were doing that, we went to their clubhouse; we were in San Francisco, we went to their Oakland place where they rehearsed with Cliff.
“And we had a great time, and Lars told me about his drums, how they were set up in a certain place.
“We were looking for inspiration, let’s put it this way, because James wasn’t there, so I said, ‘Pull off the drums, the double kick’ because we were fooling around with other drums.
“So he set up the drums in the rehearsal room, we were on our way, and Lars just kept staring at the drums.
“Finally, he sat behind and said, ‘Just give me a snare drum.’ I had bought a Plexi Ludwig snare because I wanted to try it, and he put it on the drum kit, and he said, ‘That’s the sound.’
“And I said, ‘What?’…”
Bob also talked on the results and said they did a demo. He also said that he not blaming him.
“So basically, we did a demo, and I used two 58s, a 58 on the kick drum and a couple of whatever simple mics were around, and we did a demo, and that was the sound, and he just would not go back.
“I’m not blaming him, this was about, basically, if you can wrap around a concept, this was the sound of the drums when they were rehearsing the album, it’s basically the closest to them being in that clubhouse, and no matter what everybody says, it kept the band together, and that inspired them to go on.
“So I’m OK with all the flak I’ve taken. It’s a fucking snare-drum sound, give it a break.”
Click here for the conversation.
