In 2008 while recording their ninth studio album “Death Magnetic,” Metallica decided to change things up and part ways with longtime producer Bob Rock (who worked on everything from 1991’s self-titled album to 2003’s “St. Anger”). Instead, they chose to go with famed producer Rick Rubin.
In a recently resurfaced interview with MTV News from 2008, guitarist Kirk Hammett spoke about how Rubin’s style worked for the band at the time.
“The great thing about working with Rick is he’s never around,” Hammett explained. “I would say that’s a very strong point, in that it leaves the four of us to take on the entire brunt of the work and the planning that goes into the songwriting process and the recording process. Of course, Rick was there for part of that process — when we recorded drums and vocals — but the fact that we were isolated in our studio, working on the songs ourselves, made a big difference, because it kept our sound pure. We got more Metallica that way than we had previously with Bob Rock.”
He continued: “Bob would add a lot of his own musical input, and with that came a lot of his own influences and style and jurisdiction and idiosyncrasies. And it would eventually make it into our sound. But with Rick, because he wasn’t there, it’s almost 100 percent undiluted Metallica. He’d come in and say, ‘That’s good, that isn’t, change that.’ And we would have to figure that out for ourselves. This is the most pure we’ve sounded in a long time.”
