Metallica Icon Brings Back Big Name On New Album

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Metallica great, Kirk Hammett’s latest solo project entitled ‘Portals’ is due out on April 23rd and it will be the first solo effort by the iconic Metallica guitarist. Solo projects have proved to be fairly successful in 2022 as Hammett joins a list of big-name solo releases that have been released recently. During a recent interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Hammett would discuss how he came to bring aboard legendary producer Bob Rock to help mix the upcoming EP. Credit to the outlet for the following.

“When it came time to get the stuff together, it was last summer,” Hammett, who lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, said. Most of the stuff was recorded. But I still needed to do a few guitar parts here and there to add to the songs. All of it needed to be mixed. The four tracks needed to be mixed and I thought, ‘How am I going to do this?’ I can’t travel to the mainland and do all of this stuff because I have commitments in Hawaii and the pandemic is happening. But when things started to open up a little bit more too as well, I thought, ‘Wait for a second, [former Metallica producer] Bob Rock’s in Maui. I’m here in Oahu.’ That’s a short flight and I know that he would be the best person to do this because he loves guitar and this is all fuckin’ guitar-oriented stuff. I mean, it’s guitar-dominated. The guitar dominates everything.”

He continued: “I thought, ‘How about I give Bob a call?’ I didn’t want to bother Greg Fidelman, because he had his hands full with all sorts of other Metallica stuff. I didn’t know who else to call. So you know, when I thought about Bob, I thought, ‘That’s great because Bob and I are friends.’ We have a great working relationship. We love the same stuff. We love the same guitar players, the same guitars, the same amps, the same types of music. We have a history and we’re buds.”

Hammett would also say: “So when [Bob] came over to Honolulu, it was cool to see him again and be working with him again. You know, when I see Bob, the start of those days were like this: we’d talk about guitars and music for f***in’ two hours and then say, ‘Oh, s**t! We’ve got to start working!’ Then we would work. I mean, we just have a mutual love for this kind of thing. I didn’t have anyone else to call. As I said, I would have loved to have had Greg do it, but he was up to his neck in other Metallica commitments, so Bob was the next best guy. You know, he came through for me and helped me out. I am appreciative of that.”