Iconic producer Bob Rock first teamed with Metallica for the band’s self-titled mainstream breakthrough, a.k.a. “The Black Album,” in 1991. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 281 weeks selling more than 16 million copies in the United States alone. Late last week, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett released the first song from his upcoming solo EP, “Portals,” which is set to release April 23 via Blackened Recordings across digital platforms, on CD and as a Record Store Day-exclusive vinyl. “‘High Plains Drifter’ initially came from a flamenco piece I had written,” Hammett said of the debut single. “It was a two-and-a-half-minute piece, and I really liked it, but it was one of those riffs that would be hard to integrate into Metallica. I knew I wanted to do something with it, even though it came out spontaneously. I had been sitting outside messing around with a flamenco acoustic guitar I’d just bought, and it flowed out in the moment. I was determined it would have a life. It would have its moment.”
In a new interview with Matt Wardlaw of Ultimate Classic Rock, Hammett explained his decision to enlist rock as producer for the EP. “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?’ You know, I can’t really travel to the mainland and do all of this stuff, because I have commitments in Hawaii and C*VID is happening. But when things started to open up a little bit more too as well, I thought, ‘Wait a second, 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. 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 really 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.”
Kirk continued: “So when [Bob] came over to Honolulu, it was really 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 fuckin’ two hours and then say, ‘Oh, shit! We’ve got to start working!’ Then we would work. I mean, we just have a mutual love for this kind of thing. I really didn’t have anyone else to call. Like 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 really helped me out. I am really appreciative of that.”
Rock came under fire from some Metallica fans throughout his time working with the band which spanned from “The Black Album” to 2003’s “St. Anger,” but it’s hard to argue with his success. 1996’s “Load” went six times platinum in the U.S.; the follow-up, “ReLoad,” went three times platinum and “St. Anger,” despite its different production values, sold two millions copies in the U.S. and six million worldwide.
