Enter Night_ A Biography of Metallica - Mick Wall [172]
Since then, Fairbairn had also helped rescue Aerosmith’s career with the hit-laden albums Permanent Vacation (1987) and Pump (1989). By the summer of 1990, Pump had been on the charts for almost a year, had housed four chart singles, and was on its way to selling four million copies in the USA – exactly the kind of album, in short, that Metallica now set their sights on having. These achievements came at a price, though. As Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton later recalled, the positives of working with Fairbairn were that he was ‘a very big, no-bullshit, in-focus, demanding producer who made sure the conditions were right to let the creativity happen. I mean, this guy had the ability to make us play better than even we thought we could play.’ The price: ‘A lot of it was painful because we gave up some control, big-time.’
When Rock ventured out as a producer in his own right – his first international success came with the debut Kingdom Come album in 1988 – he was determined to do things his way. Yet it was Fairbairn’s uncompromising methods he employed to reach his goals. ‘With Bruce, we kind of grew up together,’ said Bob. ‘Bruce’s style of production is so different to mine, though. But the one thing I really got from him was about really concentrating on the performance end of it rather than a perfectionism kind of thing, which may sound bizarre coming from me but that’s what I really try and concentrate on. I really try to facilitate musicians to be comfortable and really fill in the blanks when it comes to their needs, to get what they want accomplished.’ Or as Mötley Crüe bassist and band leader Nikki Sixx later recalled of his time with Rock: ‘Bob whipped us like galley slaves. His line was, “That just isn’t your best.” Nothing was good enough.’ Rock would make guitarist Mick Mars spend weeks doubling a guitar part over and over again until it was synchronised to perfection. As for the lead vocals, some days singer Vince Neil ‘would only get a single word on tape that Bob liked. Bob was critical, demanding and a stickler for punctuality.’ He went on: ‘No one had ever pushed us to the limits of our abilities before or kept demanding more than we thought we had to give until we discovered that we actually did have more to give.’ He admitted ‘the process was the antithesis of every punk principle I had held fast to as a teenager’, but concluded, ‘at the same time, I wanted an album I was finally proud of’.
Similarly, Metallica. Although they already had albums they were fiercely proud of, not least Master of Puppets, what they now craved – needed – was an album that opened their music up to the same audience that bought The Cult, Mötley, Guns N’ Roses and, yup, even Bon Jovi. They wanted it all and Bob Rock was to be the one to help them get it, they decided. The only snag – on paper – was Rock’s well-known reluctance to record anywhere but Little Mountain. However, as Lars told me, ‘We really didn’t want to do it in Vancouver – everyone comes to him. For a while I didn’t think it was going to work out. Bob’s got a big family and he wasn’t that keen on coming to LA. Then when we played him the stuff I could see his eyes light up. We’d built a little eight-track studio in my house and made some rough demos; just me on drums and James.’ The clincher was when they played him the roughs of an epic new track called ‘Sad but True’: ‘It was like, boom! From there it was pretty much a done deal.’
Recording had begun the first week of October, 1990. By the time I caught up with Lars again at the start of 1991, he was obviously thrilled with the way it had been going. ‘Looking back on our last four albums, they were great records. I’m not going to say anything bad about them. But we never thought that we’d done one where you think, there it is. That one album is it. You’re never gonna be able to make a record like that but as close as you can get to that one album, this is fucking it,’ he enthused. ‘The new stuff that we’ve been writing is like a breath of fresh air. We’re just really excited in