We noticed in the song titles and lyrics on the new album that there are a lot of themes on death. Was that something that was planned or a certain message you were trying to get out?
Well, thematically it starts to develop with the lyrics. Once we get bits and pieces of choruses and verses from James, he'll sing this and that part while we're actually writing and developing the music. This time after a while, I noticed that a lot of the the lyrics had to do with death and suicide. We started talking about the rock n' roll martyrs that we've experienced in our generation like Kurt Cobain, and it started to develop. A lot of the songs are about suicide, redemption and forgiveness. It just kind of grew from there into an overall theme. “Death Magnetic” brought all those themes together.
HAMMETT OF THE GODS
One of the most influential heavy-metal bands of the '80s, Metallica have gone back to their roots on their latest release, Death Magnetic. NI recently spoke to lead guitarist Kirk Hammett about recording the new album, and how Guitar Rig played a role in creating his signature riffs during songwriting and pre-production.
Was this a metaphor for the death of the sound that you had been experimenting with over the past few albums and a sort of “return to your roots”?
You could definitely say that. Yeah, it can be applied to that... The beauty with James' lyrics is that it can be a metaphor or analogy for a lot of different things and to me that’s what makes James such a great lyricist. His lyrics aren't so cut and dry, they are not meant to be taken so literally. They can be interpreted in a bunch of ways. For me, the lyrics have somewhat of a deeper meaning.
Now this was the first time you guys worked with a new producer. You choose Rick Rubin for this album after working with Bob Rock for many years. What was the reason that you decided to make this change and how did that affect the sound?
Well, we felt it was time for a change so we were thinking of Rick Rubin quite a bit at that point. Also, it was funny, every time I was approached with the subject by fellow musician friends and associates the name Rick Rubin would come up. So it was almost destined for us to hook up with him and do this album.
As far as his whole approach goes, I think he is brilliant in that he really has a perspective that’s more like standing in the audience listening to a band rather than standing in a control room and trying to dictate what musical theory would work for a particular part of a song. What I mean is that he has a very non-musician-like approach. He'll hear things from the viewpoint of a fan or just a music appreciator. For us that is great because we can work on the technical side of the music while he just has to worry about the vibe and the direction we have to steer in.
Speaking of the music, on the last album you were a little more in the background, while on “Death Magnetic”, you are pretty much the vital piece, because of the heavy guitar work, riffs and the solos. Was that something that Rick pushed, or was it something that just happened naturally?
It was just something that was impending. It was bound to happen because of the way that last album turned out. We knew that our audience deeply missed the guitar solos and we realized how big a part of the Metallica sound guitar solos actually are. So that was something that was definitely going to be brought back. There was no discussion, it was just really obvious.
You have a really nice duet with James in "End of Line". The both of you have a bit of a duel going on. Do like to do stuff like that or do you prefer to stay in the spotlight?
I love to play harmony stuff with James. It has everything to do with our love for bands like Thin Lizzy who played tons of harmony stuff on a lot of different guitar lines. So we did that mainly because there is love for it and also we felt there was a need for it in certain songs. As far as riffs are concerned, I always write tons and tons of music for every Metallica album, and on this album my riffs are just scattered throughout all the songs. And I have to say, a lot of the riffs were developed using Pro Tools and Guitar Rig.
Did you do a lot of pre-production work independently before you all came together again to continue?
Yeah, I developed a lot of different riffs on my own just sitting in my basement with my laptop and throwing stuff down on CD knowing that inevitably we would get together and start going through all the music that we'd written and saved over the last couple of years.
Did you find Guitar Rig to be inspirational in any way?
Oh, absolutely. What's so great about Guitar Rig is that when you have an idea and you want to throw it down you can cycle through all the different settings and tones and just get a real feel for what sound matches the particular type of music you need. If you're looking for a specific vibe you can just go through all the tones that actually work best without having to replay it a million times while dialing in every amp setting.
So you would record your stuff dry and then later on re-amp your tones and effects to experiment?
Yeah, exactly. And that’s just for the raw riff. I mean, that’s not even going into all the great things you can do with all the effects patches, like adding them into the loop, bringing them in and out and just tweaking whatever it is you want. It works so quickly. I remember spending hours and hours just going through my pedals getting everything in line and almost inevitably having to change the battery because it was weak and it would affect the sound, or finding out after 15 minutes of doing that that somehow the pedal was broken. A lot of time is saved by using Guitar Rig. I also love the fact that you can just tweak for hours and hours. When it comes to amps, effects, changing mic positions, adding air... I love all that stuff!
It sounds like you're getting deep into it!
It's funny because there will be periods where we play live, rehearse live and record everything live, and then there will be periods where we won’t be doing anything and I'll be down in my basement thinking "sooner or later I have to get to that part and just refine it". I'll put the part up on Pro Tools and then get Guitar Rig up and work with it for a short intense period of time and then go back to the live recording in the studio or rehearsals and say "hey guys, I got this idea and I developed it in Guitar Rig". A lot of times I'll use it to compose bits and pieces of music on the road and for me that’s when Guitar Rig really shines.
You mentioned that you did a lot of pre-production using Guitar Rig to get the sound you want. Did any of that work end up making it to the final masters or did you always go back to using analogue in the studio?
Our basic rule is to try to re-record everything through analogue just to have it in case we want to make any further changes to it. Greg, our engineer, has this theory "We need to beat the demo, all demos that come in"! So I would try to get the best performance together I possibly could and then bring it to the studio, and then we'd try to beat it. Ninety-nine percent of the time I would end up getting a better performance in the studio only because of the vibe, the sound and intensity there. But for me Guitar Rig is the perfect spring board to getting it as good as possible.
What are some of your favorite amps and effects in Guitar Rig?
I really like a lot of the delays that are in there, as well as the tube screamer.
A lot of the time something I thought wouldn’t work, like a really fuzzed out 60's or 70's tone, I will put in and find out that it does affect the sound in a way I wouldn't have expected and get more into a certain direction. I love the fact that you have a whole range of distortions and modulation effects. I love that Electric Lady Flanger, which to me is a really great sounding Flanger, as well as the pitch pedal. I also like the talk wah... I could go on forever about all the stuff I love.
Are there any features you'd like to see in the future?
I'm a big Mutron wah fan. Having an effect like that in there would be cool. I'm also a big Klon Centaur fan, it's a super transparent distortion pedal... it's pretty crazy. The Randomizer is also a really unique pedal in that it's more like sonic chaos than anything else. It has a random switch, so if you want totally unpredictable sounds you hit that and it goes into a random generation and modulates the sound and does all sorts of weird things. I'd like to see that in Guitar Rig only because it’s so outrageous, freaky and unpredictable.
Have you ever worked live on stage with Guitar Rig and a laptop?
I would have to rethink my entire live setup in order to do that, which would be quite an undertaking. I'm a tube guy; I like amps that have big tubes and big speakers. I like the fact that I can plug into a real amp.
What was interesting about this album was that you threw away the traditional song formula. It seems to be really free flowing with a lot of jamming and soloing. It's not just the typical verse/chorus/verse/chorus structure, and you even have a ten minute instrumental piece which is also something fresh. Tell us more about that...
We would just come up with the theme of the song, which would be a main riff. Then we'd jam on it and ideas would start coming up spontaneously. Nine times out of ten we would just have a lot of ideas that fit the concept of the song. We didn’t want throw any good ideas away and wanted to make sure we could get every good idea for the song in there.
So you weren't really worried about radio play or formulas, you just wanted to do this for yourself?
Yeah, that was never really a consideration. At least nowadays it isn't. We just play what we think is best for the song and let it take shape and give it the right identity. If it means putting in fifteen parts as opposed to five parts, then so be it.
One of the other interesting things was that you made the album available for Guitar Hero, the game. There seems to be a real resurgence of the guitar and rock music in general. What are your thoughts on that?
Guitar Hero is great in that it exposes all this great music, classic rock and heavy metal to a younger generation. A generation that wouldn't hear this anywhere else other than maybe from their parents’ music collection. I think it's inspiring a lot of these kids to maybe take it one step further and actually buy a guitar. Guitar sales have gone up quite a bit since the Guitar Hero phenomenon and I think it’s great that it is opening people up to becoming real musicians.
