Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 412] Metallica: The Best, Worst & Most Overrated Albums with Martin Popoff

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[EP 412] Metallica: The Best, Worst & Most Overrated Albums with Martin Popoff · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Speaker 1: Is there a point, if any, where you feel that
0:02
Speaker 1: maybe they sold out?
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Speaker 2: I think so.
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Speaker 3: They sounded a little self-important. This idea that there are
0:08
Speaker 3: certain bands that seem like they're the most important bands
0:11
Speaker 3: in the world. Messiah, we're here to save rock and
0:14
Speaker 3: roll kind of thing.
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Speaker 1: We're totally booked.
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Speaker 2: Rock and roll!
0:17
Speaker 1: Well, I think I'll leave you to your reading.
0:20
Speaker 2: Little Hans says it's time to rock and roll. Rock
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Speaker 2: and roll!
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Speaker 1: We are totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock,
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Speaker 1: conversations with authors, musicians, and insiders revealing the stories behind
0:35
Speaker 1: classic rock's greatest songs, albums, and artists. A big thanks
0:39
Speaker 1: to everybody who supports Booked on Rock on Patreon, Backstage Pass.
0:43
Speaker 1: Members now get every episode in both audio and video
0:46
Speaker 1: completely commercial-free, along with early access to new episodes. If
0:50
Speaker 1: you'd like to grab the Backstage Pass, it's just $ 5
0:53
Speaker 1: a month. Click the link in the show notes or
0:55
Speaker 1: go to BookedOnRock.com. Now onto our guests, Martin Popoff returns
0:59
Speaker 1: to talk about his new book, Metallica album by album.
1:03
Speaker 1: He gathers insights, opinions, and anecdotes from acclaimed music journalists,
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Speaker 1: industry figures, and fellow musicians to tell the full story
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Speaker 1: behind each record from kill them all through 72 seasons.
1:13
Speaker 1: Martin joins me to explore the making of Metallica's music,
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Speaker 1: the creative risks and controversies along the way and how
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Speaker 1: each album helped shape the band's extraordinary legacy and Good
1:23
Speaker 1: to see you again, Martin. How are you doing?
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Speaker 2: Good to see you again, Eric. Very cool. Yeah, looking
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Speaker 2: forward to this.
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Speaker 1: You've written about Metallica many times over the years. When
1:31
Speaker 1: you look at their entire catalog from Kill Em All,
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Speaker 1: 1983 through 72 Seasons, 22, 23, what makes their story
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Speaker 1: different from almost every other metal band that came out
1:39
Speaker 1: of the early 80s?
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Speaker 3: Oh man, so many things. I mean, obviously the big
1:43
Speaker 3: one is, uh, they are pretty much the biggest metal
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Speaker 3: band on the planet and, uh, they're, they're pretty darn
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Speaker 3: extreme at doing that. Uh, I mean, obviously extremity advances
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Speaker 3: all the time. Past thrash, we had death metal, we
1:56
Speaker 3: had black metal, we had, you know, black and death
1:59
Speaker 3: core and what, whatever today's super extreme metal is with
2:03
Speaker 3: the pig grunts and the, uh, you know, the, the chimey,
2:05
Speaker 3: the chimey snare, which kind of comes from St. Anger.
2:09
Speaker 3: to some extent, but still a pretty, pretty extreme band
2:13
Speaker 3: to be as big as they are. So that that's
2:16
Speaker 3: the coolest thing. You know, like many other bands, they
2:20
Speaker 3: they are pretty creatively fearless in terms of changing their
2:24
Speaker 3: sound up quite a few times through the career. But yeah,
2:27
Speaker 3: it's I just think it's nuts. You know, we never
2:30
Speaker 3: would have, you know, envisioned You know, you could tell
2:33
Speaker 3: as soon as Ride the Lightning came out that this
2:36
Speaker 3: is the most talented of this new kind of music
2:38
Speaker 3: thrash band. And you figured that they were going to
2:42
Speaker 3: be the biggest. They just seemed to have the most
2:44
Speaker 3: raw talent. But nobody ever figured they'd get as big
2:49
Speaker 3: as they did.
2:50
Speaker 1: No, and they've obviously changed. They kept changing over the years.
2:54
Speaker 1: Do you think that willingness to change would be the
2:57
Speaker 1: biggest reason they became the biggest metal band in the world,
2:59
Speaker 1: or did they sometimes change too much?
3:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think the first big change was the
3:05
Speaker 3: record that blew it wide open for them, the Black Album,
3:08
Speaker 3: Metallica Metallica, 1991. So, I mean, we are looking at
3:15
Speaker 3: the band getting almost Voivodian in how complex and obscure
3:22
Speaker 3: they were, or they could become on And Justice For All.
3:25
Speaker 2: 1988.
3:27
Speaker 3: And then this record is them saying, we want to
3:30
Speaker 3: groove a little more. We want to add some bottom end.
3:32
Speaker 3: We want to make simple, shorter songs. And I think
3:35
Speaker 3: they over-corrected because I was never a massive fan of
3:38
Speaker 3: that album. I almost think it's like a, like too
3:41
Speaker 3: simple and too doomy. It's a very doomy, dour, slow,
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Speaker 3: sloggy kind of album. Um, and, and the funny thing is,
3:48
Speaker 3: and people always give me heck for this, but I,
3:50
Speaker 3: I truly believe this. I mean, it might sound boring, but, uh,
3:53
Speaker 3: I think Ender Sandman turned out to be the best
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Speaker 3: song on it.
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Speaker 2: And it was the advanced single.
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Speaker 3: So I remember hearing that and just loving it and
4:01
Speaker 3: and thinking, yeah, they're doing all the things the fans
4:04
Speaker 3: have kind of, you know, would have want asked them
4:07
Speaker 3: to do. And they think like we do. And they
4:10
Speaker 3: they did what the fans would have wanted. And that's
4:12
Speaker 3: that's kind of a cool thing about them.
4:14
Speaker 2: But to your point.
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Speaker 3: I mean, sure, I imagine they did change too much
4:19
Speaker 3: here and there and alienated fans. I think that whole Load,
4:22
Speaker 3: Reload era alienated the fans with the, you know, the
4:26
Speaker 3: famous fashion, you know, redo on them as well. And
4:31
Speaker 3: those albums being, you know, I think they shot themselves
4:37
Speaker 3: in the foot a little bit by calling it Load
4:40
Speaker 3: and Reload and having similar cover art as well. It's
4:43
Speaker 3: like another thing we would have wanted Metallica to do,
4:47
Speaker 3: which they did do is, um, and we would have
4:50
Speaker 3: wanted them to do this later as well is, uh,
4:53
Speaker 3: is make the albums shorter and break. They're not short albums,
4:56
Speaker 3: but break them up a little more. Like we, we
4:58
Speaker 3: all sort of think, Oh, what if, what if hardwired
5:00
Speaker 3: or 72 seasons was two separate albums or whatever. But,
5:03
Speaker 3: but I think when you do that, you have to, you,
5:06
Speaker 3: you really should distinguish them a little more anyways. And
5:08
Speaker 3: we would have stopped looking at them as a pair
5:11
Speaker 3: so much.
5:12
Speaker 2: Um, But then St.
5:14
Speaker 3: Anger angered people as well. But the last three are
5:20
Speaker 3: similar to each other, and it's kind of back to
5:22
Speaker 3: the old Metallica, and it's settling in as this sort
5:29
Speaker 3: of traditional thrash band with traditional recording values again. And
5:34
Speaker 3: the only thing not traditional about them is these are massively,
5:37
Speaker 3: massively long albums with long songs with way too many
5:40
Speaker 3: riffs in them. That's an interesting characteristic of them versus
5:44
Speaker 3: other bands. But yeah, so Change Super helped them, and
5:48
Speaker 3: I think Change hurt them as well. Let's go back
5:51
Speaker 3: to the first four albums. Kill Em All, 83, Ride
5:53
Speaker 3: the Lightning, 84, Master of Puppets, 86, and then Injustice
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Speaker 3: for All in 88. Those are sacred among a certain
6:00
Speaker 3: generation of metal fans. If you remove the nostalgia, are
6:03
Speaker 3: those records sacred? really as great as their reputations suggest.
6:08
Speaker 2: I would say not kill them all.
6:10
Speaker 3: I mean, I remember like it was yesterday, the day
6:13
Speaker 3: that album came out and we're playing it for the
6:15
Speaker 3: first time and, um, really loving it. Um, and realizing
6:20
Speaker 3: that the, the, um, the performances are so tight. So
6:24
Speaker 3: this is beyond speed metal. You know, I often say
6:26
Speaker 3: thrash is just speed metal with the high hat closed. Um,
6:30
Speaker 3: and it's, uh, and it's just less smeary and, uh,
6:33
Speaker 3: the guitars are more palm muted and stuff. So you
6:35
Speaker 3: got that on that. You got this molten guitar sound.
6:38
Speaker 3: You got this new kind of angry vocal. It's just like,
6:41
Speaker 3: this guy is really cranky. He's ticked off. And so
6:44
Speaker 3: I remember feeling all these, all these little bits and
6:47
Speaker 3: pieces that added up to, Hey, this is a new
6:50
Speaker 3: kind of music. I think this is the invention of
6:52
Speaker 3: thrash July, 1983. Um, but it did, uh, you know,
6:57
Speaker 3: as time went on and I guess credit to Metallica
7:00
Speaker 3: for even shining this light on the first album. The
7:03
Speaker 3: first album really seemed like, um, everything crowded around the riff.
7:09
Speaker 3: Everything was about, these are songs that were all about
7:11
Speaker 3: the riff, the money riff all the time, sort of
7:13
Speaker 3: thing as Phil Anselmo would later say, um, you know,
7:17
Speaker 3: about one of the great benefits of Pantera money riff
7:20
Speaker 3: all the time, uh, is, is how he would put it. But,
7:23
Speaker 3: But yeah, when you get to the next album, I mean,
7:25
Speaker 3: it was just an absolute masterpiece. At that point, you
7:28
Speaker 3: could tell they were the best. They were even changing
7:30
Speaker 3: up production values and giving us something super bizarre. So
7:34
Speaker 3: that sounded great. Master of Puppets. I did a book
7:38
Speaker 3: back in 2004 called The Top 500 Heavy Metal Albums
7:41
Speaker 3: of All Time, which was taken from a big statistical poll.
7:44
Speaker 3: And that album won the greatest metal album of all time.
7:47
Speaker 3: People still say that. But to me, It is essentially
7:51
Speaker 3: Ride the Lightning Part 2. You can match up all
7:53
Speaker 3: the songs sort of thing. I do like Ride a
7:55
Speaker 3: little better, but they're both amazing. And then Justice is
7:59
Speaker 3: a weird one. You know, when I got it as
8:03
Speaker 3: a new release, it was a double LP album. I
8:06
Speaker 3: didn't buy a CD of it in 1988. And so
8:10
Speaker 3: it was very disorienting. And it bothered me that it
8:13
Speaker 3: was a double album, but the sides weren't particularly long
8:16
Speaker 3: on it. Um, so it was one of those ones
8:18
Speaker 3: that was kind of ticking you off for various, various reasons. And,
8:22
Speaker 3: and obviously it's got the famous lack of base on there.
8:24
Speaker 3: Like they just kept turning down the new basis, Jason
8:27
Speaker 3: Newstead down, down, down. And so it's got this weird
8:30
Speaker 3: sound on it as well. Um, so that was a
8:33
Speaker 3: very arcane, strange record. Um, and, uh, I, I didn't
8:37
Speaker 3: love it so much as even, even kill them all, uh,
8:40
Speaker 3: for that matter, but the, but the middle two there, uh,
8:43
Speaker 3: absolute masterpieces. And, uh, again, um, I remember living through
8:47
Speaker 3: that period and just feeling like if you were a
8:50
Speaker 3: metal fan, you knew these guys were great songwriters and
8:54
Speaker 3: the variety was there and the dynamics was there and
8:57
Speaker 3: super interesting drummer as well. And just everything about it
9:01
Speaker 3: was great. And you knew they were going places, but
9:04
Speaker 3: you thought they were going to go to gold, right?
9:06
Speaker 3: And maybe platinum once or twice.
9:09
Speaker 2: You didn't think they were going to get as big
9:10
Speaker 2: as they did.
9:11
Speaker 1: Rite of Lightning is my personal favorite. But Kill Em All,
9:14
Speaker 1: it's primitive compared... to with what came later. There's an
9:17
Speaker 1: energy to it that I guess Metallica could never completely
9:20
Speaker 1: recreate or, or did they, I mean, what do you
9:22
Speaker 1: hear on that record that, that stands out?
9:25
Speaker 3: You know, the, the primitiveness again, I think the primitiveness
9:29
Speaker 3: of it is more so in how too much of
9:34
Speaker 3: the songs are, you know, I often say a death,
9:37
Speaker 3: one definition of heavy metal you could make is, uh,
9:40
Speaker 3: you know, you, you think of, uh, you think of, uh,
9:44
Speaker 3: An oil drum with a fire in it, you know,
9:47
Speaker 3: in the Bronx in the 70s. And a bunch of
9:50
Speaker 3: guys warming their hands around a fire, you know, in
9:53
Speaker 3: a back alley out of an oil drum, right, with
9:56
Speaker 3: a with a fire they've lit in it to me,
9:58
Speaker 3: heavy metal somewhat is everybody crowding.
10:02
Speaker 2: Around and warming their hands on the riff.
10:04
Speaker 3: And that album, I, for whatever reason, when I, when
10:07
Speaker 3: it got in my mind, I can't get it out
10:09
Speaker 3: of my mind, but it just seems like every song
10:12
Speaker 3: is just living and dying on riffs. So it's always
10:16
Speaker 3: had that slightly simplistic thing to me, but it's, Otherwise, um,
10:20
Speaker 3: like I say, I think, I think there's, there's such
10:23
Speaker 3: a snap to it and tightness to it that, that
10:27
Speaker 3: makes speed metal sound primitive or the new wave of
10:29
Speaker 3: British heavy metal sound primitive versus kill them all.
10:32
Speaker 2: So I don't think it's that primitive.
10:33
Speaker 3: So I, I think for a baby band on a
10:35
Speaker 3: small budget, the recording is quite good. And, uh, and
10:40
Speaker 3: maybe there's a primitiveness to that vocal bark of James. He's,
10:44
Speaker 3: he's kind of, he's, he's, uh, he's not got all
10:47
Speaker 3: the gears he.
10:47
Speaker 2: Would have later.
10:49
Speaker 3: Um but you're right in in terms of metallica it's
10:52
Speaker 3: very primitive uh but it just it just felt like
10:56
Speaker 3: um it felt like a step forward it felt less
10:59
Speaker 3: primitive than than what had come before so i i
11:01
Speaker 3: like that about it uh that record.
11:04
Speaker 1: Is ride the lightning the album where they went from
11:06
Speaker 1: being a really good thrash band to potentially becoming something
11:10
Speaker 1: much bigger because the songwriting suddenly becomes much more ambitious
11:13
Speaker 1: the songs like fade to black shows a completely different
11:16
Speaker 1: side of the band. Yeah.
11:17
Speaker 3: You get a long instrumental, which is very tuneful. You
11:20
Speaker 3: get fade to black, which is like a doom ballad,
11:22
Speaker 3: you know, maybe the first doom ballad of all time.
11:25
Speaker 2: Uh, well not really.
11:26
Speaker 3: And the first, the first doom thrash ballad of all time,
11:29
Speaker 3: I suppose you got for whom the bell tolls, which
11:32
Speaker 3: is slow and interesting and all these cool parts. And
11:35
Speaker 3: then I remember dropping the needle on the first two songs,
11:38
Speaker 3: fight fire with fire and ride the lightning and just
11:40
Speaker 3: be absolutely blown away by the, tightness and the speed
11:44
Speaker 3: and the energy and the progressiveness of those two on
11:47
Speaker 3: there and i always like to escape you know it's
11:49
Speaker 3: the one people complain about but i i you know
11:52
Speaker 3: people complain about it for the for james's vocal melody
11:55
Speaker 3: on the chorus but i i love that little that
11:57
Speaker 3: little shotgun drum beat thing in there and uh and
12:00
Speaker 3: the commerciality of that song so uh yeah it's just
12:03
Speaker 3: a beautifully sequenced and paced uh album with a lot
12:07
Speaker 3: of different ideas so yeah that is the one where
12:09
Speaker 3: it it just it blew me away. I remember bringing back, um,
12:13
Speaker 3: you know, an import copy of that, a UK copy
12:16
Speaker 3: of that, uh, which ticked off Johnny's Azula when those
12:19
Speaker 3: things were happening. Uh, but, um, uh, at the same time,
12:24
Speaker 3: I believe I got at the same time, um, savage
12:27
Speaker 3: loose and lethal and sabotage sirens. Cause I just remember
12:31
Speaker 3: these three blue album covers. They might not have been
12:33
Speaker 3: on exactly the same trip, but all three of those, um, Um,
12:38
Speaker 3: and one of them is an 84 albums, so it's
12:40
Speaker 3: kind of odd, but maybe I was just catching up
12:41
Speaker 3: on the other ones. Anyways, all three of those have
12:44
Speaker 3: blue album covers and all three of those were amazing
12:47
Speaker 3: for different reasons. I just remember feeling like three amazing,
12:50
Speaker 3: amazing blue album cover albums, but the sabotage, the sabotage
12:55
Speaker 3: was like the absolute best you could get at doing
13:00
Speaker 3: like a Judas priest thing. merciful fate, traditional metal sort
13:04
Speaker 3: of sound. It wasn't, it wasn't moving into this new
13:07
Speaker 3: world that, that ride the lightning was, but it was
13:09
Speaker 3: just as good, but it was good in a, in
13:12
Speaker 3: doing traditional music. And that was a total baby band
13:15
Speaker 3: that was on par records. Uh, you know, the original
13:18
Speaker 3: blue cover of that.
13:21
Speaker 1: I always loved the cover to ride the lightning. My
13:24
Speaker 1: older brother had the cassette. That was the first thing
13:25
Speaker 1: that pulled me in. And then I played it and
13:28
Speaker 1: I was immediately taken by the production of it. And
13:30
Speaker 1: I'm curious to what Metallica fans think of that. Cause
13:32
Speaker 1: I know in later years, the talk was how Lars,
13:35
Speaker 1: his drum sound, you know, in the mix and all that,
13:38
Speaker 1: but I loved the way it sounds on that album.
13:41
Speaker 1: Am I in the minority on that or what a
13:43
Speaker 1: Metallica fan say?
13:44
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think, I think you're in
13:46
Speaker 2: the majority on that. I loved the production.
13:48
Speaker 3: I thought it was big and powerful and different sounding. It's,
13:53
Speaker 3: it's got a little bit of that anthrax dryness to it.
13:56
Speaker 3: It doesn't have a lot of high end on it, Um,
13:59
Speaker 3: it's got a massive snare sound, massive bass sound, um,
14:03
Speaker 3: the bass guitar and the guitars meld nicely.
14:06
Speaker 1: You can feel the bass pedal if you're playing it
14:08
Speaker 1: in a good stereo. Yeah.
14:10
Speaker 3: And it's, you know, it's this exotic Fleming Rasmussen, uh,
14:14
Speaker 3: Denmark sort of thing, uh, going on. I know. I,
14:18
Speaker 3: I just thought it was a very novel, different kind
14:21
Speaker 3: of production pushing the band a little more extreme. Like,
14:24
Speaker 3: you know, the, the first one had more of a
14:27
Speaker 3: traditional production. very powerful, but also a lot of.
14:30
Speaker 2: Distortion and high end. It was, it was steely. Um,
14:34
Speaker 2: but this was not steely.
14:35
Speaker 3: It was like big and puffy sounding, um, which was
14:38
Speaker 3: really cool.
14:40
Speaker 1: Ride the lightning or master of puppets, which is the
14:42
Speaker 1: better album. And why?
14:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's ride the lightning just because of
14:46
Speaker 3: the excitement of first discovery. Um, and just, and just, uh,
14:50
Speaker 3: having them be that good on the, you know, first
14:52
Speaker 3: time out sort of thing. And then master always master
14:55
Speaker 3: to me always felt like just the part two album
14:58
Speaker 3: you got the super fast ones on there you got
15:00
Speaker 3: the orion you know your instrumental on there you got
15:03
Speaker 3: your long epics on there master maybe line up with
15:05
Speaker 3: creeping death and you know battery lines up with metal
15:09
Speaker 3: militia and and whatnot maybe trapped under ice a little
15:13
Speaker 3: bit but it it felt like um it felt like
15:17
Speaker 3: um just more amazing great metallica but it didn't seem
15:22
Speaker 3: particularly different or that they had you know a ton
15:25
Speaker 3: of great new ideas on here The production was very different.
15:29
Speaker 3: The production got rid of that sort of bulbous fatness,
15:33
Speaker 3: and it was even more dry and anthrax-y, more New
15:37
Speaker 3: York hardcore, if you want. And still really cool and
15:43
Speaker 3: different in radical production, and I thought that was really
15:46
Speaker 3: cool about it, too.
15:47
Speaker 1: And Cliff Burton, sadly, tragically dies in 1986, shortly after
15:51
Speaker 1: the release of Master of Puppets, and he's become... a
15:54
Speaker 1: mythical figure in Metallica history. How different do you think
15:58
Speaker 1: Metallica ultimately becomes if Cliff lives?
16:01
Speaker 2: I don't know.
16:02
Speaker 3: I mean, we didn't really know a lot about Cliff
16:04
Speaker 3: and we keep hearing about how he's like the musical
16:06
Speaker 3: guy and he liked his little Leonard Skinner and thin
16:09
Speaker 3: Lizzie and all this stuff.
16:10
Speaker 2: And he was important. He was the soul of the
16:12
Speaker 2: band and stuff.
16:12
Speaker 3: But as time goes on, I just, I just start
16:15
Speaker 3: forgetting what anybody's ever said about Cliff. I suppose somewhat and,
16:20
Speaker 3: and really wondering, you know, how, how much was he,
16:24
Speaker 3: a part of the songwriting and making them sound as
16:26
Speaker 3: good as, as they are, but on the, on the
16:28
Speaker 3: same token, um, you know, after that, I guess the, the, uh,
16:34
Speaker 3: the personality of the band did change somewhat, but I,
16:37
Speaker 3: but I, I feel like in the early days, um,
16:41
Speaker 3: I still feel James's and Kirk's and Lars's present oversized
16:46
Speaker 3: over and above cliff, you know, even though cliff died.
16:48
Speaker 3: And I think it adds to the legend side of it,
16:50
Speaker 3: but I really don't know.
16:52
Speaker 2: I really don't know. where they would have done.
16:55
Speaker 3: Um, and I, I really don't know how crazy, crazy
16:58
Speaker 3: important he is, uh, in, in that band, because I,
17:02
Speaker 3: I just feel so much of it is the other
17:04
Speaker 3: guys anyways. Yeah.
17:06
Speaker 1: I wonder that. Well, that's the thing. Does the black
17:07
Speaker 1: album ever happen if Cliff's still in the band and
17:09
Speaker 1: you say, it sounds like you say, yeah, probably would have.
17:12
Speaker 3: Yeah.
17:12
Speaker 2: Or justice or load or whatever.
17:14
Speaker 3: Right. Um, but you know, if, if Cliff is quote unquote, the, uh, the,
17:18
Speaker 3: the musical, the songwriting kind of guy, um maybe we
17:22
Speaker 3: don't get uh we don't get a justice and they
17:25
Speaker 3: and they move towards something like the black album even sooner.
17:28
Speaker 1: Injustice for all that's the one you mentioned the bass
17:31
Speaker 1: and that's got one on there and that's a huge
17:33
Speaker 1: hit mtv the video is huge brings them to a
17:36
Speaker 1: much wider audience does the lack of bass hurt the
17:39
Speaker 1: album for you or does it matter.
17:41
Speaker 3: I remember at the time not disliking it for that
17:45
Speaker 3: reason i just thought oh here they are doing something
17:47
Speaker 3: very radically different again interesting no one else is doing
17:51
Speaker 3: this um odd you know a very clacky bass drum
17:55
Speaker 3: sound um so it just felt like uh like a
17:58
Speaker 3: different production it wasn't so much the production that bothered
18:01
Speaker 3: me uh other than for for whatever reason like i
18:04
Speaker 3: say it bothered me that the songs were long you
18:07
Speaker 3: only got a couple songs per side it was this
18:10
Speaker 3: weird double vinyl thing but not super double vinyl.
18:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. The songs were too long, too much going on.
18:16
Speaker 3: You know, the other thing that kind of bothers me
18:18
Speaker 3: a little bit about Metallica is because the drummer is
18:21
Speaker 3: such a leader in the band and an outspoken member
18:25
Speaker 3: of the band. When they do mellow music, it sounds like,
18:30
Speaker 3: it sounds like they're writing, they're, they're doing a song
18:32
Speaker 3: at a sound check. There's always big drums in it. They,
18:35
Speaker 3: and you know, the guitars, they, They just kind of
18:37
Speaker 3: turn them down a little or it's a little more arpeggiated,
18:40
Speaker 3: but it's usually, you know, electric as well. So I
18:44
Speaker 3: don't even like one very much. I think it's it's
18:47
Speaker 3: clunky sounding and, you know, with the drums and whatnot.
18:52
Speaker 3: You know, not that I even want Metallica to make
18:54
Speaker 3: metal mellow music anyways.
18:57
Speaker 2: But but it's but it's odd when they do.
18:59
Speaker 3: It just feels like the same arrangement as the heavy
19:02
Speaker 3: song and they're just trying to play quieter kind of thing.
19:05
Speaker 2: Right.
19:06
Speaker 3: But yeah, I, you know, I, I generally speaking, don't even,
19:10
Speaker 3: you know, remember the songs that well off of justice
19:13
Speaker 3: because they just are so bizarre and scholarly and Voivodian
19:18
Speaker 3: and Mekong Delta ish and corner ish. You know, they're just,
19:21
Speaker 3: they're just being very, you know, I suppose what they're
19:24
Speaker 3: doing there and watch tower ish. And, you know, so,
19:28
Speaker 3: so I guess what they're doing there, which we thought
19:31
Speaker 3: was cool at the time is that other thrash bands are,
19:35
Speaker 3: It's almost like other thrash bands were now emulating the
19:40
Speaker 3: Metallica of Ride and Master, and Metallica said, okay, we're
19:44
Speaker 3: just going to get even more bizarre. We're going to
19:46
Speaker 3: get less commercial, which is kind of what they did,
19:49
Speaker 3: which is cool of them. you know that is a
19:50
Speaker 3: even less commercial album than the previous three.
19:53
Speaker 1: The black album 91 do you hear that change the
19:56
Speaker 1: simplified songwriting songs like enter sandman which you say you're
20:00
Speaker 1: a fan of is that an artistic evolution for the
20:03
Speaker 1: band or is it a conscious grab for a bigger audience.
20:06
Speaker 3: Well, it's a conscious grab for a bigger audience, but
20:08
Speaker 3: they totally believed in it. And like I say, one
20:12
Speaker 3: of the interesting parallels to them doing that, these guys
20:18
Speaker 3: are all exactly my age, right? And I remember thinking
20:22
Speaker 3: the very first band of all time in all of
20:25
Speaker 3: rock that thought exactly like we did as young metalheads
20:29
Speaker 3: of a certain age when they were picking songs to
20:33
Speaker 3: cover was Iron Maiden. The second band was Metallica. So
20:37
Speaker 3: it's like Metallica's covers are picked exactly the way I
20:42
Speaker 3: as a fan would want them to pick songs. Doing
20:45
Speaker 3: this album is exactly what me and my buddies would
20:49
Speaker 3: have wanted out of Metallica at this point.
20:51
Speaker 1: It's like, oh man, I.
20:52
Speaker 3: Wish they'd give us just a great four minute rock
20:56
Speaker 3: and commercial song and put the bass back in and
20:59
Speaker 3: just cut down on the number of riffs. That was
21:02
Speaker 3: a very confusing, weird, cold mechanical album from before.
21:06
Speaker 2: Let's, let's have them do this.
21:08
Speaker 1: Right.
21:09
Speaker 3: And so what I love about that is that, like
21:12
Speaker 3: I say, them being exactly my age and growing up
21:15
Speaker 3: on all exactly the same albums, um, they did, they,
21:19
Speaker 3: they thought exactly like what their fans would want out
21:22
Speaker 3: of them, which is cool. Um, But like I say,
21:26
Speaker 3: you know, somewhat psyched out by the crappy album cover.
21:29
Speaker 3: I never liked that cover. I never liked calling it Metallica.
21:32
Speaker 3: I thought the snake thing was stupid.
21:34
Speaker 2: All of it.
21:35
Speaker 3: I didn't like any of the packaging. But I feel
21:40
Speaker 3: like the the songs in total sound like that album cover.
21:45
Speaker 3: They're just all black and murky and not particularly exciting.
21:50
Speaker 3: I'm just I was just never a massive, massive fan
21:52
Speaker 3: of that album.
21:53
Speaker 2: I don't know it.
21:53
Speaker 3: Has something to do with the arrangements. You know, the
21:56
Speaker 3: production on it is for the first time in their career,
22:02
Speaker 3: maybe kill them all. You could say is a little
22:03
Speaker 3: bit like this, but for the first time in their career,
22:06
Speaker 3: it was unexciting. It was just literally a super correct
22:12
Speaker 3: corporate competent production with no eccentricities to it. So that
22:16
Speaker 3: kind of bothered me as well. It's like, it's like
22:19
Speaker 3: it was kind of just a, just a really good
22:22
Speaker 3: sounding album. Um, so it was, it came off kind
22:25
Speaker 3: of dull, dull for me. I just was not a
22:28
Speaker 3: massive fan of it.
22:29
Speaker 1: Well, that's Bob Rock who produced it.
22:31
Speaker 3: Yeah.
22:32
Speaker 1: How much credit does he get or sometimes blame, I guess,
22:36
Speaker 1: for the transformation?
22:38
Speaker 3: Oh, he gets a lot and he deserves it. He's,
22:40
Speaker 3: he's like a, like a great song guy himself. He
22:42
Speaker 3: came from a band from here in Canada that I
22:45
Speaker 3: liked called the payolas. Um, you know, he's a guitarist,
22:48
Speaker 3: he's a writer. Um, he's outspoken. Um, he's not going
22:52
Speaker 3: to be a shrinking violent, uh, violet, uh, in there
22:55
Speaker 3: with those outspoken guys. Um, and he was a big
22:58
Speaker 3: part of that and load and reload and say to
23:01
Speaker 3: anger and, you know, all of, all of those he's
23:03
Speaker 3: in there helping them shape things. He's helping navigate, you know, the, um,
23:08
Speaker 3: the tensions in the band as well. Um, the power
23:12
Speaker 3: struggle with Jason, the, the, the bigger power struggle between
23:16
Speaker 3: Lars and James.
23:18
Speaker 2: So he's a massive part of this thing.
23:20
Speaker 3: But, you know, I don't I don't particularly like what
23:23
Speaker 3: the outcome was through the I'll tell you one thing
23:25
Speaker 3: about Bob Rock, which I do love, is that once
23:29
Speaker 3: you get to load and reload back again is the
23:33
Speaker 3: super interesting new ways to produce records. I love the
23:37
Speaker 3: sounds of those albums. And it was different and fresh.
23:42
Speaker 3: It was almost like they took the power of the
23:45
Speaker 3: black album. and added back something eccentric and new and
23:49
Speaker 3: pioneering that was missing on the Black Album when it
23:51
Speaker 3: comes to the production. So brilliant, brilliant producer.
23:55
Speaker 2: And then St. Anger, I'm super happy with the production
23:57
Speaker 2: on that as well.
23:59
Speaker 1: What did you think of Bob Rock's job on David
24:01
Speaker 1: Lee's A Little Ain't Enough? I thought that was an
24:04
Speaker 1: interesting pairing, David Lee Roth's A Little Ain't Enough.
24:08
Speaker 3: You know, that album, I grudgingly, I really don't like
24:12
Speaker 3: the David Lee Roth catalog very much. I complain about
24:15
Speaker 3: them all variously in various ways but to me i
24:18
Speaker 3: think i've decided that's my favorite david lee roth album
24:21
Speaker 3: it's heavy it's the heaviest one it's the one with
24:24
Speaker 3: the most bottom end because that was my complaint about
24:26
Speaker 3: certainly skyscraper and eat him and smile um certainly skyscraper
24:31
Speaker 3: it's such a thin album and steve vi is part
24:34
Speaker 3: of the problem there but um but no i thought
24:37
Speaker 3: lil lane enough had a Um, a little ain't enough.
24:40
Speaker 3: I keep thinking it's one of these low.
24:42
Speaker 1: Well, the song, the song is a little, or it's
24:46
Speaker 1: the other way around. I can't remember.
24:48
Speaker 3: It's literally a little ain't enough.
24:50
Speaker 1: I believe it's a little is the album alone is
24:53
Speaker 1: the single. Yeah.
24:54
Speaker 2: Okay.
24:55
Speaker 3: Um, but I think they get a heavy guitar sound
24:57
Speaker 3: and a heavy bass sound and a bottom end. And it's,
25:00
Speaker 3: it's a guitarry album and it really does line up
25:03
Speaker 3: with four unlawful carnal knowledge as a meaty ambitious album.
25:08
Speaker 3: which both those bands needed because both those bands can
25:12
Speaker 3: be a little non-ambitious at times. And to me, they
25:15
Speaker 3: both arrived at their most ambitious album at exactly the
25:19
Speaker 3: same time. So those two albums go together for me.
25:24
Speaker 1: Getting back to Metallica, Martin Popoff's new book is titled Metallica,
25:28
Speaker 1: Album by Album. Okay, so you got Enter Sandman, also
25:32
Speaker 1: The Unforgiven, Nothing Else Matters. And it took Metallica places
25:35
Speaker 1: they had never been commercially to Is there a point,
25:38
Speaker 1: if any, where you feel that maybe they sold out?
25:41
Speaker 1: Because that was the accusation. Is there any validity to that?
25:45
Speaker 2: I think so.
25:46
Speaker 3: I think when bands embrace 90s trends, they haven't really
25:51
Speaker 3: aged well. They sounded a little self-important, a little bit.
25:56
Speaker 3: And I talk about, you know, I don't know if
25:59
Speaker 3: I've done a whole podcast episode on this in History
26:01
Speaker 3: in Five Songs with Martin Popoff or.
26:03
Speaker 2: Not, but I think I have.
26:04
Speaker 3: I think I did a one called the Messiah complex, but, um, this, um,
26:09
Speaker 3: this idea that there are certain bands that seem like
26:12
Speaker 3: they're the most important bands in the world, you know, um, Messiah,
26:16
Speaker 3: we're here to save rock and roll kind of thing.
26:18
Speaker 3: And I think, I think there's some sort of self-important
26:21
Speaker 3: sounding things on load and reload. Um, and yeah, that whole,
26:25
Speaker 3: that whole image, that look was terrible for them. Um,
26:29
Speaker 3: so I can't get that out of my mind either. Um, and, um,
26:35
Speaker 3: I found the arrangements to be again, that problem with
26:38
Speaker 3: just massive drums everywhere, even when they're making mellow music,
26:41
Speaker 3: it just didn't seem like they were mixing things up
26:43
Speaker 3: a lot that way. Um, and I, I like, you know,
26:46
Speaker 3: I like a good half of both of those albums.
26:49
Speaker 2: They're long, long albums. Um, and there's a lot of
26:52
Speaker 2: deep tracks on them. Um, but yeah, uh, sellout.
26:56
Speaker 3: Yeah. I suppose you can say so a little bit
26:58
Speaker 3: because they were probably going along, you know, being such,
27:02
Speaker 3: militant metalheads.
27:03
Speaker 2: Like I say, I'm exactly their age.
27:05
Speaker 3: I know exactly how they think, um, they were, they
27:09
Speaker 3: were going through life as militant metalheads. And at this
27:12
Speaker 3: point they're, they're kind of abandoning metal and, and, you know,
27:15
Speaker 3: playing it down and just trying to be even bigger
27:18
Speaker 3: and bigger rock stars sort of thing. So I suppose
27:20
Speaker 3: they're getting caught up in the excitement of all of
27:23
Speaker 3: this new music around them too. And they're growing and
27:26
Speaker 3: they're changing and whatnot. But, uh, yeah, I, I, you know, you, you,
27:30
Speaker 3: you could almost, you, you could almost look at selling
27:32
Speaker 3: out there being like five or six different components of it.
27:35
Speaker 3: And they're like dipping their toe in each of those components.
27:38
Speaker 3: They're not, they're not flagrant sellouts in any way. Um,
27:42
Speaker 3: but they, but they've got a little, little bit of each.
27:44
Speaker 3: We'll do a little of this, little of that, little
27:46
Speaker 3: of that. There's still a heavy metal band. Um, but, uh, yeah, I,
27:50
Speaker 3: I don't, I don't feel like a lot of that
27:52
Speaker 3: material has aged well. It, by the way, I want
27:54
Speaker 3: to also mention this as well. To me, those albums
27:57
Speaker 3: sound influenced by Danzig. They sound very Danzig like, um, and, um, I,
28:05
Speaker 3: I feel like they had a respect for Danzig and, uh,
28:08
Speaker 3: and the stuff they were getting. I think Danzig four
28:11
Speaker 3: in particular is an absolute masterpiece. My favorite are four
28:13
Speaker 3: and two. Um, and three is a little bit of
28:16
Speaker 3: their cult Sonic temple, little, little watered down, little second guessing, little,
28:20
Speaker 3: little corporate. Um, But to me, those albums and even
28:26
Speaker 3: Black Album just got a little bit of that alternative
28:29
Speaker 3: goth sort of feel to them.
28:32
Speaker 1: 96 was Load, Reload 97. Were the fans hard on
28:37
Speaker 1: those albums at the time? I mean, were they fair
28:40
Speaker 1: in that criticism? Because that wasn't the Metallica they wanted
28:44
Speaker 1: at the time, I don't think.
28:45
Speaker 2: Well, they were definitely hard on them.
28:47
Speaker 3: Those albums didn't sell nearly as well, but they still
28:50
Speaker 3: sold a ton. They had a lot of hit singles.
28:53
Speaker 3: It brought them a whole new audience. Certainly, I suppose,
28:56
Speaker 3: and they know this, and this is how a metalhead
28:59
Speaker 3: would think anyways, and it's probably true. They had this
29:03
Speaker 3: massive audience. They probably lost 30 or 40% of that audience,
29:10
Speaker 3: if not half their audience with Load and Reload, primed
29:14
Speaker 3: starting with black album, they probably lost half their audience.
29:19
Speaker 3: And then they probably replaced 30%.
29:23
Speaker 2: Of that back again.
29:24
Speaker 3: So at the, at the end of the process, it
29:26
Speaker 3: feels like they've maybe lost, um, 20% of their audience
29:31
Speaker 3: in total. So yeah, they, they replaced a big chunk
29:33
Speaker 3: of their more militant, hardcore, you know, we're now moving
29:37
Speaker 3: on to death metal audience.
29:39
Speaker 2: Uh, and black metal audience. They, they lost those.
29:42
Speaker 3: Guys, but then they, they gained a whole new layer of,
29:45
Speaker 3: of mainstream with all these big hit singles.
29:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. I loved hero of the day. I played that
29:50
Speaker 1: when it was played on the radio, I played it at, uh,
29:53
Speaker 1: WCCC in Hartford. I remember playing that song. What was
29:56
Speaker 1: the other one off that album? There's hero of the
29:58
Speaker 1: day and, Oh, there.
30:00
Speaker 2: Were so many big. I'm now looking at the book here.
30:06
Speaker 1: Oh, until it sleeps was the other one. That was
30:08
Speaker 1: another one.
30:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:10
Speaker 2: Ain't my bitch is a heavier one, but yeah.
30:13
Speaker 1: King of nothing.
30:15
Speaker 3: Mama said, Ronnie, we get the Southern Southern direction on
30:19
Speaker 3: these ones.
30:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:21
Speaker 3: They, they did not look good in short hair, you know,
30:23
Speaker 3: this medium short hair thing that neither of them, james
30:27
Speaker 3: james with his little neck choker thing on that never
30:30
Speaker 3: looked good keep it keeping the mutton chops but the
30:32
Speaker 3: short hair fuel was a great song i really like
30:35
Speaker 3: yeah unforgiven too uh so yeah there's there's a lot
30:39
Speaker 3: of there's a lot of pretty big songs on here
30:42
Speaker 3: and like i say some of them were the mainstream
30:44
Speaker 3: metal songs and some were more.
30:46
Speaker 1: The ballads right king of nothing is on load i
30:48
Speaker 1: believe right king nothing yeah king nothing They always wore
30:52
Speaker 1: their influences pretty openly. So Garage Inc. from 98 puts
30:56
Speaker 1: those influences front and center. They do Turn the Page,
31:00
Speaker 1: Whiskey in the Jar. What are their choices of cover songs?
31:03
Speaker 1: Tell us about Metallica that maybe their own records don't.
31:07
Speaker 3: They pick a lot of the songs that we as
31:09
Speaker 3: the fans would have picked as well. You got Diamond Head.
31:12
Speaker 3: I'm looking at it now. We've got Sabra Cadabra. So
31:15
Speaker 3: a deep Sabbath tracks. You got It's Electric from Diamond Head,
31:17
Speaker 3: which is one of their crappier songs. It's not a
31:20
Speaker 3: very good song. Um, but you got the merciful fate, uh, 11, 10, um,
31:24
Speaker 3: you know, medley on here, which is almost like in
31:27
Speaker 3: the spirit of Satan's fall from that album, which is,
31:29
Speaker 3: you know, a different riff all the time. So it's
31:31
Speaker 3: almost like they're making their own Satan's fall when they
31:33
Speaker 3: do that. And then you've got, yeah, you've got James
31:36
Speaker 3: with bringing in those Southern rock influences, him, him being
31:39
Speaker 3: like a gear head, you know, kind of guy, you
31:42
Speaker 3: got the very, very bizarre version of whiskey in the jar,
31:45
Speaker 3: which is just so insanely catchy that people almost get
31:47
Speaker 3: cranky about how catchy it is. Um, And of course
31:51
Speaker 3: what we've got here is a whole odds and sods
31:54
Speaker 3: because garage ink is, is like an expanded version of
31:57
Speaker 3: garage days from the old days, but you've got all
31:59
Speaker 3: the motorhead stuff on there.
32:01
Speaker 2: Um, which with some deep, deep tracks on here too late,
32:04
Speaker 2: too late is on there. Uh, you've got your bread. Yeah.
32:07
Speaker 2: So these are, these are your, um, you know, bread
32:10
Speaker 2: fan from budgie.
32:12
Speaker 3: Every, every guy of our age that that would be
32:15
Speaker 3: the best budgie song, right? So of course they would
32:18
Speaker 3: pick that stone cold, crazy, super, modern, innovative, thrashy Queen song.
32:23
Speaker 2: Of course they picked that.
32:24
Speaker 3: The Prince, a better, a better Diamondhead song. And you've
32:27
Speaker 3: got a little bit of that, you know, hardcore stuff
32:30
Speaker 3: in here as well.
32:31
Speaker 2: So, so what? What else?
32:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, Last Caress. And the other great Budgie song, Crash
32:38
Speaker 3: Course in Brain Surgery. The Small Hours from Holocaust. So
32:42
Speaker 3: a pretty obscure new wave of British heavy metal song,
32:45
Speaker 3: a doomy slow one, and another good Diamondhead.
32:48
Speaker 2: Song in Helpless. So it's electric. It's kind of a,
32:51
Speaker 2: a falter on here. Astronomy.
32:54
Speaker 3: I'm not crazy getting that from them, um, from blue
32:56
Speaker 3: oyster cult. I would love to her tattoo vampire or something. Um,
32:59
Speaker 3: but yeah, it's, uh, it's, uh, a good selection, but
33:03
Speaker 3: it's a little commercial as well. Um, you know, the,
33:06
Speaker 3: the sum total of it, um, gives a little credence
33:08
Speaker 3: to the load reload area, you know, with Tuesday's gone
33:11
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, uh, on there, um, turn the page.
33:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. I kept them on the radio, turn the page and, uh,
33:19
Speaker 1: and whiskey in a jar.
33:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
33:21
Speaker 3: So, so, uh, yeah, we, we love the idea of
33:23
Speaker 3: them doing covers. And then the, the cool thing about
33:26
Speaker 3: Metallica over time is you can see them for various
33:28
Speaker 3: benefits and charity things, do other amazing, amazing covers that
33:32
Speaker 3: you would not expect to like UFO while willing in
33:35
Speaker 3: the innocent. And, uh, man, they're, they have, and, and
33:39
Speaker 3: being the professor, the, the pros that they are, They
33:42
Speaker 3: really seem to make sure they pull it off and
33:44
Speaker 3: do a good version of it. So you could tell
33:46
Speaker 3: they did their work on it, but they love their
33:48
Speaker 3: obscure covers. And that's such a great thing about Metallica.
33:50
Speaker 1: All right, let's go back to St. Anger, 2003. Between
33:55
Speaker 1: the internal turmoil, the absence of guitar solos, and that
33:58
Speaker 1: infamous snare sound, it almost seemed like it was designed
34:02
Speaker 1: to irritate Metallica fans. Is there actually a good Metallica
34:05
Speaker 1: album buried inside there?
34:07
Speaker 3: I never hated that album. I thought it was kind
34:10
Speaker 3: of cool and innovative. Um, and I loved the production.
34:14
Speaker 3: I thought the production was really cool. I did not
34:17
Speaker 3: miss the guitar solos. Um, we do know it's a
34:20
Speaker 3: little new medley, um, for sure. Um, and the, uh,
34:24
Speaker 3: the lyrics, I'm just trying to find the, uh, the trial.
34:26
Speaker 1: Here we are.
34:27
Speaker 3: Um, The lyrics were a little bit TMI, a little
34:32
Speaker 3: bit too James. You know, we're all guys, right? We
34:36
Speaker 3: don't want to share our feelings. I think we don't
34:39
Speaker 3: particularly want to hear James's struggles. You know, that might
34:43
Speaker 3: sound a little cold, but we want our James to win, right?
34:46
Speaker 3: So we love James, but it just seemed at times
34:52
Speaker 3: a little bit too emo, a little bit too too
34:55
Speaker 3: new medley, I, I suppose. Um, but I loved, uh,
34:58
Speaker 3: I loved, uh, that they were trying a totally different thing. Um,
35:02
Speaker 3: the snare sound was funny, but it didn't, didn't annoy me. Um,
35:06
Speaker 3: I loved the guitar sound. I loved some of the
35:09
Speaker 3: songs on here. Um, I loved that they were leaving
35:12
Speaker 3: the load reload era. Um, so it was just good
35:15
Speaker 3: for them to move on. So I never hated this album,
35:17
Speaker 3: never had a, had a big problem with it.
35:20
Speaker 1: Um, But it does.
35:22
Speaker 3: I mean, I remember, you know, a band that was
35:24
Speaker 3: kind of exciting at that time. I think around that time.
35:28
Speaker 3: I hope it's not later or earlier. But Mudvayne, it
35:30
Speaker 3: sounds kind of Mudvayne-ish at times, right? So it had
35:34
Speaker 3: that sort of nu metal vibe a little bit to it.
35:37
Speaker 3: So yes, they're pandering a little to the nu metal thing,
35:40
Speaker 3: but they're doing it totally their way. It's a very
35:43
Speaker 3: bizarre album that doesn't sound really like anything else out there.
35:47
Speaker 3: So I appreciated the creativity and the bravery to do this.
35:52
Speaker 3: And I barely even noticed that there were not guitar solos.
35:56
Speaker 1: I wonder, big picture, looking at it this way, maybe
35:59
Speaker 1: they needed to make it in order to survive. In
36:01
Speaker 1: other words, regardless of what we think of the album
36:04
Speaker 1: or the songs, St. Anger or Frantic, could that album
36:08
Speaker 1: have been more important to the band personally than musically?
36:10
Speaker 1: They needed to make that kind of album to move
36:12
Speaker 1: forward after that.
36:14
Speaker 3: I guess to move forward, like the idea of, uh, just,
36:17
Speaker 3: we want to remain a creatively vital band, I suppose,
36:21
Speaker 3: and working through James's issues. Um, but you know, they,
36:25
Speaker 3: they could have gone into a death magnetic sort of, uh,
36:29
Speaker 3: back to our old Metallica thing at this point, they
36:31
Speaker 3: could have made another load reload.
36:33
Speaker 2: Um, it wasn't a particularly successful album.
36:36
Speaker 3: So uh, survive is kind of an odd term in,
36:40
Speaker 3: in terms of how massive Metallica is.
36:42
Speaker 2: Obviously they will survive.
36:43
Speaker 3: They're just so huge, but it was actually a further career, um,
36:48
Speaker 3: you know, stake through the heart sales wise and super,
36:52
Speaker 3: super critically. I mean, it is a very ridiculed album, uh,
36:55
Speaker 3: in the, uh, in the catalog. So, uh, So no,
36:59
Speaker 3: it's almost like a career suicide album. It's maybe to
37:03
Speaker 3: survive as a band and stay together. I also wanted
37:06
Speaker 3: to mention, and I did mention this earlier, but just
37:10
Speaker 3: hats off to Bob Rock for just having a completely different,
37:17
Speaker 3: the ability to do something and not stick with, there's
37:19
Speaker 3: no Bob Rock sort of sound. This is a completely pioneering, new,
37:24
Speaker 3: different production thing. So he's now, He's now done that twice.
37:28
Speaker 3: Like I say, Black Album, great, unexciting. Load and Reload,
37:32
Speaker 3: super exciting, different, weird production.
37:35
Speaker 2: And here again, super exciting, different, weird production.
37:40
Speaker 3: O.H.
37:40
Speaker 1: 's Death Magnetic, widely viewed as Metallica's reconnecting with the longer,
37:45
Speaker 1: more complicated style of the early records, particularly on songs
37:49
Speaker 1: like The Day That Never Comes, which is a great song.
37:52
Speaker 1: Did that feel like genuine creative resurgence to you or
37:55
Speaker 1: Metallica finally giving the longtime fans what they wanted.
37:58
Speaker 3: Ah, that's a good way of putting it. I think
38:00
Speaker 3: it is given the fans, uh, what they wanted. Um,
38:03
Speaker 3: but maybe Metallica also, um, you know, wanting to go
38:07
Speaker 3: back to, uh, you know, to, to being more of
38:09
Speaker 3: a purist, um, thrash band. This, this is the album that, um,
38:14
Speaker 3: you know, famously got involved in the whole brick wall
38:17
Speaker 3: wars where people thought it was, uh, ear fatiguing and
38:20
Speaker 3: everything squashed to the middle.
38:21
Speaker 2: And it is a very oppressive album.
38:23
Speaker 3: It's very, distorted and electric and, uh, and just like
38:28
Speaker 3: straight between the eyes sort of things. I, but yeah, I,
38:31
Speaker 3: I love a lot of the songs on here. The
38:32
Speaker 3: day that never comes is, is like absolutely my favorite mellow, mellow, heavy, mellow, heavy, mellow, heavy, uh,
38:39
Speaker 3: Metallica song. Uh, my favorite power ballad from Metallica. I
38:43
Speaker 3: just love everything about it. The melodies, uh, everything on here. So,
38:47
Speaker 3: and very strange cover art as well. I, I like
38:50
Speaker 3: the title death magnetic. Um, But yeah, I suppose this
38:55
Speaker 3: is another form of selling out, right? You, you, you
38:57
Speaker 3: go back to what the fans want sort of thing,
38:59
Speaker 3: but I'm sure they wanted it too. And I'm, I'm
39:01
Speaker 3: glad they did it. Um, you know, I, I think people,
39:04
Speaker 3: people do love this album and, uh, and I, I
39:07
Speaker 3: say these, these three are, are, um, the only three
39:11
Speaker 3: albums in a row from Metallica that, that are of
39:13
Speaker 3: a set. They have a lot of pairs. Um, but
39:16
Speaker 3: this is the, now they've got three in a row
39:18
Speaker 3: that I think are.
39:19
Speaker 1: Of a set. Hardwired to Self-Destruct came out in 2016.
39:23
Speaker 1: And at this point, the band had nothing really left
39:26
Speaker 1: to prove commercially. So when you listen to their later records,
39:29
Speaker 1: are you hearing a band? pushing itself creatively? Or is
39:31
Speaker 1: it for musicians who have figured out exactly what a
39:34
Speaker 1: Metallica record is supposed to sound like at this point?
39:37
Speaker 3: I think, oddly enough, it's not really pushing things super creatively,
39:44
Speaker 3: but I think they are proving what they did back
39:49
Speaker 3: on ride the lightning and master that within this genre,
39:53
Speaker 3: because now at this point they're up, they're a pretty
39:55
Speaker 3: pure thrash band. Again, in this genre, they are just
40:00
Speaker 3: proving that they are the most talented people in it.
40:03
Speaker 3: And the greatest riff writers, Dave Mustaine's pretty damn good
40:06
Speaker 3: with the riffs too. I mean, he's those, those later
40:08
Speaker 3: Megadeth albums are also really, really, you know, top shelf
40:12
Speaker 3: thrash albums. But, um, I think what they're proving, you know,
40:18
Speaker 3: they are annoying people a little bit with that whole
40:20
Speaker 3: Iron Maiden syndrome of the songs being too long. But
40:24
Speaker 3: whereas Iron Maiden can be quite repetitive and quite rudimentary,
40:28
Speaker 3: production values, riffs, everything, within those long songs, Metallica is
40:33
Speaker 3: giving you a lot of fresh, interesting ideas, but almost
40:37
Speaker 3: too many per song. And that annoys the fans somewhat.
40:41
Speaker 1: But.
40:43
Speaker 3: yeah, I think, uh, I think what they're doing is, um,
40:47
Speaker 3: they are, uh, succeeding in making the very, very, very best, uh,
40:53
Speaker 3: albums within this pretty now traditional genre of thrash metal
40:59
Speaker 3: and still being pretty proggy at doing it. Um, but I,
41:04
Speaker 3: I think, uh, I think that's, uh, that's the, um,
41:07
Speaker 3: the victory that you get out of these three albums
41:09
Speaker 3: is that, um, you, you come out of it going,
41:12
Speaker 3: Nobody writes riffs like James.
41:15
Speaker 2: I mean, he's just the best riff writer.
41:16
Speaker 3: I often say that you could find 30 riffs on
41:20
Speaker 3: these albums, that any one of those 30, if you
41:24
Speaker 3: stuck them on a little more lunch bucket, meat and potatoes,
41:28
Speaker 3: mid-level thrash band album, and then had an A &
41:33
Speaker 3: R guy walk into the room, he'd pick that song
41:36
Speaker 3: out as the best song on the album. And that's
41:39
Speaker 3: how great James' riffs are.
41:41
Speaker 1: I hear Metallica fans talk about this quite a bit
41:44
Speaker 1: and read about it online. The idea that Lars, his
41:47
Speaker 1: skills have diminished with age. Is that something that you
41:51
Speaker 1: see as a, that has a direct effect on their music?
41:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
41:55
Speaker 3: I think what happens also with these albums, you know,
41:58
Speaker 3: Metallica fans can, can be pretty nitpicky. They're not as
42:02
Speaker 3: cranky as Kiss fans and Zeppelin fans and Van Halen fans.
42:05
Speaker 3: They're not, they're not a crank. They're not a particularly
42:08
Speaker 3: cranky bunch. They can be a little cranky, but, When
42:11
Speaker 3: they are cranky, it's usually about Lars. They can be
42:13
Speaker 3: cranky about Kirk, too, about his, you know, the wah-wah
42:17
Speaker 3: pedal sound and his soloing style. But with Lars, I
42:21
Speaker 3: think what happens at this point is he's so bright
42:26
Speaker 3: and high in the mix, but he also, a good
42:31
Speaker 3: chunk of his brain has always retained, boy, I loved
42:35
Speaker 3: being that groovy ACDC guy.
42:37
Speaker 2: From the Black Album moving forward.
42:39
Speaker 3: And so he's, he's carried that into songs, uh, even
42:43
Speaker 3: when they're fast now. And I think he realizes now
42:46
Speaker 3: it doesn't have to be double bass all the time.
42:48
Speaker 3: I don't have to be super fast on the high hat.
42:50
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm just going to recline my way through these
42:53
Speaker 3: fast passages. And I think you get that. And then
42:56
Speaker 3: I think sometimes when you even hear the old songs,
42:58
Speaker 3: he's smoothing them out a little bit, taking some of
43:01
Speaker 3: the notes out of them. Right.
43:02
Speaker 1: So, um, yeah.
43:04
Speaker 3: And, and, um, you know, when you hear so much
43:07
Speaker 3: Metallica over time and all these long songs and stuff,
43:11
Speaker 3: you do start realizing he loves his big single stroke
43:15
Speaker 3: snare fills that start really early. So you hear a
43:19
Speaker 3: lot of that Ramonesy kind of thing going on. So yeah,
43:22
Speaker 3: he could be a little Ramonesy, um, within this very
43:26
Speaker 3: complicated music. So, you know, to some extent, maybe he's
43:30
Speaker 3: you know, I've never really thought about this, but maybe
43:32
Speaker 3: he's the least complicated guy within these complicated songs. And
43:37
Speaker 3: we generally want our thrash drummers to be very, very complicated.
43:42
Speaker 3: But as time goes on, you know, we know these
43:47
Speaker 3: older bands, Metallica's not as old as our oldest bands.
43:50
Speaker 3: You know, we've got so many 70s examples of bands
43:53
Speaker 3: where we're seeing the fact that the singer degrades But
43:58
Speaker 3: but now we're starting to see drummers degrading, slowing down
44:02
Speaker 3: and not being able to play and having afflictions with
44:05
Speaker 3: their back and tendonitis and carpal tunnel and stuff like that.
44:09
Speaker 3: And we're seeing guitarists have this happen now as well.
44:12
Speaker 3: So in Metallica, you know, thank God James, for some
44:16
Speaker 3: bizarre reason, can still sing really, really good. But, you know,
44:21
Speaker 3: I imagine Lars is feeling his age a little bit
44:23
Speaker 3: because it's a demanding, demanding band to be a drummer in.
44:27
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you're saying, I mean, in baseball terms,
44:29
Speaker 1: it's like a pitcher who loses his fastball. If he
44:31
Speaker 1: can find a way to work around that and mix
44:34
Speaker 1: it up a bit, you could still keep it entertaining.
44:36
Speaker 1: Is that kind of the way you feel with Lars?
44:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Play less innings, right?
44:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
44:42
Speaker 2: Pull them out sooner or whatever.
44:45
Speaker 3: But, you know, Metallica, oddly, that doesn't really parallel because
44:50
Speaker 3: Metallica plays so many concerts. They're such a great touring
44:53
Speaker 3: band and they play, it's a punishing set. A lot
44:57
Speaker 3: of songs, a lot of different songs. They learn a
44:59
Speaker 3: lot of songs. They play a long set. So Lars
45:02
Speaker 3: ain't coming out early, you know, early in the game.
45:05
Speaker 3: He's he's not he's not in there for five innings
45:07
Speaker 3: or anything like that. So so and, you know, an
45:13
Speaker 3: album's an album. But these it is it is demanding job. So, no,
45:18
Speaker 3: I guess I guess the way Lars does it is, yeah,
45:21
Speaker 3: I think I think when it comes to the parts
45:24
Speaker 3: he decides to put to these new songs. they're going
45:27
Speaker 3: to be a little simpler and easier to play than
45:30
Speaker 3: they were in the old days.
45:31
Speaker 1: Well, the touring, I think, is why we have such
45:33
Speaker 1: a wide gap between albums or one of the reasons.
45:35
Speaker 1: I mean, they're on the road forever. So 2023 was
45:37
Speaker 1: the next album. That's seven years later, 72 seasons. And
45:41
Speaker 1: these guys are still making aggressive, lengthy metal songs. This
45:44
Speaker 1: is over 40 years into it, starting with Kill Em All.
45:49
Speaker 1: what impresses you most about the fact that they can
45:50
Speaker 1: still make this kind of music at this point in
45:52
Speaker 1: their career?
45:53
Speaker 3: Well, one thing that impresses me is people sometimes complain
45:56
Speaker 3: Metallica really, you know, hasn't made that many albums, but
45:59
Speaker 3: when you think of how long they are, double CDs,
46:02
Speaker 3: you know, extra tracks here and there beyond magnetic EP
46:06
Speaker 3: garage ink, the live albums, the live with symphony of
46:10
Speaker 3: they've made a lot of music over time.
46:12
Speaker 2: So that's really cool.
46:13
Speaker 3: Um, I don't think it's a, it's a particularly amazing
46:16
Speaker 3: accomplishment to, uh, to make a great sounding, aggressive sounding, bright,
46:21
Speaker 3: perfect sounding album in the studio. You can do whatever,
46:24
Speaker 3: whatever you can to do that. I think, I think
46:26
Speaker 3: the great thing about Metallica, uh, again is just how,
46:31
Speaker 3: you know, you just Marvel as you go through the
46:33
Speaker 3: songs and go, yeah, that, that would, that would be
46:36
Speaker 3: the best song on any given, you know, I don't
46:39
Speaker 3: want to put anybody down, but any given Testament or
46:42
Speaker 3: death angel or overkill or Exodus album or whatever, right.
46:45
Speaker 3: Slayer album, even, um, you know, literally just, just idea
46:51
Speaker 3: after idea after idea is just, wow. How, you know,
46:55
Speaker 3: you think everything's been done in heavy metal, especially traditional
46:58
Speaker 3: heavy metal, which this is now. And then you're just
47:01
Speaker 3: constantly marveling. It's like, how come nobody's thought of a
47:04
Speaker 3: riff that good? And then 30 seconds later, there's another
47:07
Speaker 3: one of those. And 30 seconds later, there's another one.
47:09
Speaker 3: And you go, wish the whole song was based on
47:12
Speaker 3: that riff.
47:12
Speaker 2: It's that good.
47:13
Speaker 3: Um, so they are just brimming with ideas and the
47:16
Speaker 3: lyrics are really cool too. So yeah, they are, they
47:19
Speaker 3: are operating at a super, super high level. Um, and
47:22
Speaker 3: I guess the only complaint we can have, or we
47:25
Speaker 3: do have, and you see out there is that, you know, it's,
47:29
Speaker 3: it's not as, it's not wacky.
47:31
Speaker 2: It's not wacky music anymore.
47:33
Speaker 3: It's, it really is, um, an interesting sort of hooky,
47:38
Speaker 3: well-written thrash.
47:42
Speaker 1: Series of rapid fire Metallica questions for you starting with,
47:45
Speaker 1: and this is all in your opinion. This is your
47:48
Speaker 1: personal favorites. Best album.
47:50
Speaker 2: Ride the lightning.
47:51
Speaker 1: Definitely.
47:52
Speaker 3: Okay.
47:53
Speaker 1: Worst Metallica album. Hmm. Can you put Lulu in there?
47:59
Speaker 1: Is that considered a Metallica album?
48:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose you'd put that in there.
48:02
Speaker 3: You know, Lulu to me, Lulu to me felt very
48:07
Speaker 3: pretentious and, uh, it felt, um, a little bit insincere because, uh,
48:12
Speaker 3: Like I say, I'm exactly the age of these guys.
48:15
Speaker 3: I know what they grow up on. They did not
48:16
Speaker 3: grow up on you, Lou Reed, right? They never talked
48:19
Speaker 3: about Lou Reed. So it just feels like they smooshed
48:23
Speaker 3: together this thing and this like, hey, we're super big
48:26
Speaker 3: and important. You know, we can be as literary as
48:29
Speaker 3: Lou Reed and we can work with Lou Reed. So
48:32
Speaker 3: it felt a little self-important, like a little bit of
48:35
Speaker 3: a reach. And then just this idea of, because Lou
48:39
Speaker 3: Reed is a very acquired taste.
48:41
Speaker 2: He's got this, this little.
48:43
Speaker 3: Curmudgeonly out of tune speaking, singing style that goes with the,
48:48
Speaker 3: the cool New Yorkie downtown music he did to just,
48:52
Speaker 3: to just, just put a bunch of Metallica stuff behind it.
48:56
Speaker 3: And then this really dark story and stuff that doesn't
48:59
Speaker 3: feel like the Metallica guys either.
49:01
Speaker 1: Right.
49:01
Speaker 3: So it, it just, it always felt to me like, um,
49:04
Speaker 3: like a failed experiment. Um, it got a lot of
49:08
Speaker 3: fun made of it, but no, we can't include that. Um,
49:11
Speaker 3: So I would say reload.
49:12
Speaker 2: I'll go with reload.
49:13
Speaker 1: Okay. How about most underrated album.
49:18
Speaker 2: Boy um well.
49:22
Speaker 3: I'd say saint anger because it is rated so low
49:25
Speaker 3: it's hard not to uh you know and then um
49:29
Speaker 3: i would say people don't rate 72 seasons high enough
49:32
Speaker 3: either um or hardwired or or uh death magnetic but
49:36
Speaker 3: i i'd go with um I'd go with sane anger.
49:39
Speaker 3: You know, that, that whole word underrated, you could do
49:42
Speaker 3: a whole episode just talking about what, what that word means. Right. Um,
49:46
Speaker 3: but you know, uh, I, I think, uh, I think
49:49
Speaker 3: people have, um, yeah, I, I think they've underrated sane
49:53
Speaker 3: anger and they've underrated, uh, 72 seasons.
49:56
Speaker 1: All right. I think I know the answer to the
49:57
Speaker 1: next one. Most overrated album.
50:00
Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, I'd go with black album.
50:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
50:02
Speaker 2: Uh, I, I find it a little dull.
50:04
Speaker 3: Okay.
50:06
Speaker 1: Best Kirk Hammett solo.
50:08
Speaker 3: I can barely even play any of them in my head.
50:11
Speaker 3: They're so similar to each other. They're so shreddy and
50:14
Speaker 3: atonal and Tony Iommish and a lot of, a lot
50:17
Speaker 3: of Wawa.
50:19
Speaker 2: Boy, one is pretty important. Master is pretty important.
50:23
Speaker 1: Master of puppets.
50:24
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
50:25
Speaker 1: Okay. So with a tie for one and master of puppets,
50:30
Speaker 1: how about a best James Hetfield vocal?
50:34
Speaker 3: You know, it's, I just have a fondness that we
50:36
Speaker 3: were talking about the day that never comes. Right. Um,
50:39
Speaker 3: and I, I just love, I love the whole vocal
50:42
Speaker 3: melody of that. And I suppose that's got a few
50:44
Speaker 3: of his different gears in it too.
50:45
Speaker 2: So let's go with that.
50:46
Speaker 1: All right. Did he get better as a singer over
50:48
Speaker 1: the years? I've heard that.
50:50
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh yeah.
50:52
Speaker 2: Uh, I'd say so.
50:53
Speaker 1: Um, or put more, he put more effort into, yeah.
50:57
Speaker 3: And added more gears, uh, you know, and the lyrics
50:59
Speaker 3: improve over time as well. Um, It was more of
51:03
Speaker 3: a more of an angry bark in the beginning. So
51:06
Speaker 3: he added stuff as he went on. I appreciate all
51:10
Speaker 3: his gears. I don't like some of the vocal melodies.
51:12
Speaker 3: I don't like Hero of the Day for the vocal melody.
51:16
Speaker 3: So a bunch of them, you know, I guess I guess,
51:21
Speaker 3: you know, and I and again, I think they would
51:23
Speaker 3: think exactly like this as well. And remember, the first
51:26
Speaker 3: time we complained about a vocal melody was Escape, right?
51:29
Speaker 3: So I think if you're if you're an angry metalhead,
51:34
Speaker 3: you know, you get to a certain spot where the
51:36
Speaker 3: vocal melodies, you're going to accept them. And and it
51:39
Speaker 3: touches your heart even at that at that treacly end.
51:42
Speaker 2: You know, that's OK. I like this. I love this.
51:45
Speaker 3: And then at other times you might go. That's just
51:48
Speaker 3: a bridge too far. That just doesn't sound like his personality.
51:51
Speaker 3: And I think you get a bit of that sometimes.
51:53
Speaker 1: Best Lars performance.
51:56
Speaker 2: I love the.
51:57
Speaker 3: Creative ideas that he did on For Whom the Bell
51:59
Speaker 3: Tolls at the beginning. And I loved what he did
52:03
Speaker 3: on Fight Fire With Fire. So I think that was
52:05
Speaker 3: his coming out album for that.
52:07
Speaker 2: We loved The Fire.
52:08
Speaker 3: We thought he was an incredible drummer on Kill Em
52:10
Speaker 3: All as well. Fooled everybody because, of course, he's just new, right?
52:13
Speaker 3: He's brand new, but he's so fast on that album.
52:16
Speaker 3: But I just love my favorite thing about Lars is
52:20
Speaker 3: just the non-obvious place when he gets to a fill.
52:23
Speaker 3: It almost sounds like they can be spare fills, but Um,
52:27
Speaker 3: and they usually are spare fills, but he's putting the
52:30
Speaker 3: snare and the snare and the Tom combinations and the
52:33
Speaker 3: bass drum combinations in weird places, almost like he's trying
52:36
Speaker 3: to trip up the band. I love that sort of
52:38
Speaker 3: vibe that you get out of them. And so, yeah,
52:40
Speaker 3: there's really nice simplistic ideas on for whom the bell
52:44
Speaker 3: tolls and, uh, and there's, there's super energetic, crazy things
52:49
Speaker 3: on ride the lightning and fight fire with fire.
52:52
Speaker 1: He does that on one though, at the start of one,
52:54
Speaker 1: where you're just wondering where he's going with it.
52:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a ballad. It sounds stupid. It's distracting.
53:01
Speaker 3: Like those bass drum patterns, they're in bad taste.
53:07
Speaker 1: Alex does that with Van Halen where, like you say,
53:09
Speaker 1: maybe he's just trying to have fun and trip up
53:11
Speaker 1: the band. Sometimes he'll do those things. It's really cool.
53:13
Speaker 1: All right, best album released after the Black Album?
53:18
Speaker 2: I'm going to go with Hardwired. Everybody loves Hardwired.
53:20
Speaker 3: I think they've picked that one out of those three
53:23
Speaker 3: and said, yeah, this is where they really got it right.
53:26
Speaker 1: Okay. And then best song released after the black album.
53:29
Speaker 1: So best single. Boy, it's hero of the day. I
53:33
Speaker 1: love that song.
53:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not going to go with that.
53:36
Speaker 3: You know, I, I just, I just want to look at, again, I,
53:41
Speaker 3: I just love the day that never comes so much,
53:44
Speaker 3: but yeah, boy atlas rise was a single remember that
53:51
Speaker 3: yeah all of all of all of these later albums
53:54
Speaker 3: seem to have like three advanced singles right um yeah
53:58
Speaker 3: atlas rise was really cool moth into flame was cool
54:01
Speaker 3: oh yes yes that's a good tune what were the
54:05
Speaker 3: advanced ones off of the last album let me just
54:07
Speaker 3: look at the track list here real quick um the
54:10
Speaker 3: last album 72 seasons so the advances if i remember
54:14
Speaker 3: correctly were lux eterna for sure And Lux Eterna is
54:18
Speaker 3: one of those ones where I remember hearing that and
54:20
Speaker 3: thinking Lars is smoothed out the drumming too much. This
54:23
Speaker 3: is almost like too relaxed and sweet and almost like
54:27
Speaker 3: a poppy thrash song.
54:28
Speaker 2: It's just too perfectly well put. It's almost too simple.
54:32
Speaker 3: It's fast and simple at the same time.
54:34
Speaker 2: It reminded me of SoCal punk kind of thing, right?
54:39
Speaker 2: What was the other one on there that was an advance?
54:42
Speaker 1: The day that never comes is hard to argue. Yeah, yeah.
54:46
Speaker 3: Yeah a lot a lot of great tracks and a
54:48
Speaker 3: lot of shorter songs too it's cool to see as
54:50
Speaker 3: i'm looking at the track list here um there there
54:53
Speaker 3: are a bunch of threes and fours and fives on
54:55
Speaker 3: on 72 seasons i love that album cover i thought
54:58
Speaker 3: it was cool and the idea of 72 seasons was
55:00
Speaker 3: a great idea too yeah great cover so i guess
55:03
Speaker 3: we'll stick with the uh the day that never comes
55:05
Speaker 3: sure all right uh.
55:06
Speaker 1: One metallica song you never need to hear again.
55:09
Speaker 3: I think that is one uh you know i I just,
55:13
Speaker 3: I was never a massive fan of that song.
55:16
Speaker 2: It's such a creepy story too, right?
55:18
Speaker 3: Yeah.
55:18
Speaker 1: Oh God.
55:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
55:19
Speaker 2: Really creepy, especially when you get to the video.
55:21
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's, it's long and it's one of those that, that,
55:25
Speaker 3: that had that thing stick in my brain that every,
55:27
Speaker 3: every mellow Metallica song sounds like them at a soundcheck.
55:31
Speaker 1: And it's a bummer if you don't like the song,
55:33
Speaker 1: cause that song was on all the time, MTV and
55:36
Speaker 1: radio all the time. I was, uh, 17 when that
55:41
Speaker 1: came out and, uh, came home from school, turn on MTV.
55:44
Speaker 1: There it is. Turn on the radio. There it is.
55:47
Speaker 1: Although more on MTV than the radio, because radio was
55:50
Speaker 1: just starting to embrace Metallica, right? I mean, rock radio,
55:53
Speaker 1: I think, you know, mainstream rock radio. If someone discovered
55:57
Speaker 1: Metallica tomorrow and asked you to give them five songs
56:01
Speaker 1: from 83 to 23 to explain why this band matters,
56:04
Speaker 1: what are the five songs?
56:07
Speaker 3: Well, um, you're going to have to go with, uh,
56:12
Speaker 3: the first masterpiece from them, which is fight fire with fire. Um,
56:17
Speaker 3: I think you got to go with master of puppets
56:19
Speaker 3: being a super famous yet massive song from them. Um, and, and,
56:25
Speaker 3: and uncompromising heavy. Um, I think you got to go with, um,
56:35
Speaker 3: what is that? I think it's spit out. The bone
56:38
Speaker 3: is the name of the last one. Uh, it's a, it's,
56:41
Speaker 3: it's a really good one at the end of, um,
56:44
Speaker 3: isn't it at the end of hardwired?
56:45
Speaker 1: Okay.
56:47
Speaker 3: Spit out the bone.
56:48
Speaker 1: Yes.
56:48
Speaker 2: Spit out the bone. The last one on hardwired.
56:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.
56:51
Speaker 2: That's a really cool song.
56:52
Speaker 1: That's fine.
56:54
Speaker 3: You know, uh, I would definitely go with enter Sandman because, uh,
56:58
Speaker 3: it just gave them such a massive, it's such a
57:01
Speaker 3: big part of their history. And it's them just doing that, um,
57:05
Speaker 3: that very simplistic chugging thing. When Lars says I'm listening
57:08
Speaker 3: to a lot of ACDC these days, that's kind of
57:10
Speaker 3: what I'm into. Right.
57:12
Speaker 2: Um, I love, I love fuel.
57:16
Speaker 3: Uh, that's, uh, that's a really cool track. Um, Hang on,
57:22
Speaker 3: let me just look at that album quickly.
57:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd go with Fuel.
57:25
Speaker 3: I think on that one, you hear a little bit
57:28
Speaker 3: of their Southern rock influence. You get this incredible drum sound,
57:32
Speaker 3: like I say, from Bob Rock. And I think in
57:34
Speaker 3: the spirit of them being such massive fans of music,
57:38
Speaker 3: other people's.
57:39
Speaker 2: Music, we got to go with a cover. And for that,
57:43
Speaker 2: I would probably go with... I would go with... let's
57:48
Speaker 2: just be super obscure because there's such scholars.
57:51
Speaker 3: Let's go with the small hours from, uh, Holocaust for
57:54
Speaker 3: a cover.
57:57
Speaker 1: The book Metallica album by album coming out September 15th,
58:01
Speaker 1: find it wherever books are sold. I believe motor books
58:04
Speaker 1: is the publisher on this.
58:07
Speaker 3: Yep. And remember the whole, the whole concept of these
58:11
Speaker 3: is I'm just like a Q and a moderator. I mean,
58:14
Speaker 3: I'm saying some good things too, here and there, there are,
58:17
Speaker 3: you know, as we go through it.
58:19
Speaker 2: But the idea was, you.
58:20
Speaker 3: Know, I've got a whole panel of people on here,
58:23
Speaker 3: Metallica experts, people who are going to focus on lyrics,
58:26
Speaker 3: people who are going to focus on music, some big
58:29
Speaker 3: rock stars, Kim Thayil from Sound Gardens here, right? And yeah,
58:35
Speaker 3: it literally is, what I like about these books is
58:39
Speaker 3: they're beautiful, first of all.
58:40
Speaker 2: Kordo does a great job of the layout, but.
58:43
Speaker 3: I love, and I get this as compliments all the
58:46
Speaker 3: time on these books. I love when all the albums
58:49
Speaker 3: get the equal amount of attention and reverence. All those
58:53
Speaker 3: later albums get a lot of pages. We go through
58:55
Speaker 3: every single song. So the whole idea here is to
58:58
Speaker 3: really get you to think more deeply and take these
59:01
Speaker 3: records more seriously, because here are some smart people saying
59:04
Speaker 3: some smart things about them.
59:05
Speaker 1: Body of work.
59:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.
59:07
Speaker 1: So what else? You've got some other books that you've
59:09
Speaker 1: got books coming out all the time. So what else
59:11
Speaker 1: do you have coming out? Where can people find you online?
59:14
Speaker 3: So martinpopoff.com, you can get all these. I signed them,
59:17
Speaker 3: send them up from the office. But at the same
59:20
Speaker 3: time as the Metallica, I had Unchain Your Brain, the
59:23
Speaker 3: Gillen story come out. So that's the band Gillen, you know,
59:26
Speaker 3: Ian Gillen's cool punky deep purple band called gillen who
59:30
Speaker 3: we all love and i have um aerosmith 72 to
59:34
Speaker 3: 82 the columbia years just came out and i have
59:38
Speaker 3: punk and new wave record ads which is going to
59:40
Speaker 3: be part of a series through shiffer and that's a
59:43
Speaker 3: beautiful coffee table book where i'm writing captions and theming
59:46
Speaker 3: and putting together a whole bunch of punk and new
59:48
Speaker 3: wave ads and discussing them and analyzing them And, um,
59:53
Speaker 3: what else? Um, probably shouldn't mention anything else. I got
59:56
Speaker 3: a couple more quarto things coming out and, uh, and
59:59
Speaker 3: a couple more Schiffer things coming out, but, uh, but
1:00:02
Speaker 3: those are the, those are the four that are coming
1:00:04
Speaker 3: out all at this exact time, uh, together. And, uh, I, I,
1:00:08
Speaker 3: I try not to announce anything that the publisher hasn't
1:00:11
Speaker 3: announced yet.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:00:13
Speaker 2: And I think there's seven more, uh, in total coming
1:00:16
Speaker 2: out at seven.
1:00:17
Speaker 3: Okay.
1:00:17
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm on the email list. That's the best thing
1:00:19
Speaker 1: is just to get on your email list. Cause they
1:00:21
Speaker 1: get all those emails on the books that you've got
1:00:23
Speaker 1: coming out. So people can do that if they go
1:00:24
Speaker 1: to your website. Okay. And Oh, the podcast, right? You
1:00:28
Speaker 1: have a few of them. You still doing the ACDC one?
1:00:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:00:31
Speaker 3: So, so I have the, well, no, the ACDC is
1:00:33
Speaker 3: finished that I did with John Gaffney, but I still
1:00:36
Speaker 3: have the audio straight audio podcast called history and five
1:00:39
Speaker 3: songs with Martin Popoff, 376 episodes of that. That's on Spotify,
1:00:43
Speaker 3: Apple music, all over the place, Amazon. And then we've
1:00:45
Speaker 3: got the YouTube channel, the contrarians where we're good for,
1:00:48
Speaker 3: pretty much a show a day, if not slightly more
1:00:50
Speaker 3: than that per on, on average, um, that we're very
1:00:54
Speaker 3: serious about keeping on slamming in those shows.
1:00:57
Speaker 2: So check out the contrarians.
1:00:58
Speaker 3: We've got 1300 shows, I think at this point, uh,
1:01:02
Speaker 3: that we've done, uh, over there. Yeah.
1:01:04
Speaker 1: Great show, Martin. Thanks so much. Always good to see him.
1:01:06
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you again.
1:01:08
Speaker 2: All right. Thank you, Eric. Very cool.
1:01:16
Speaker 1: That's it. It's in the books.