Metallica haven’t really been up to much lately, if you’re looking at them purely from an album standpoint. Back in 2014, they released a new song, “The Lords of Summer,” back in 2014, but then two summers came and went without anything else. And while they did release an album with Lou Reed, the much maligned Lulu, even that was almost five years ago. However, they have been touring, releasing a film, and even had their own festival since Death Magnetic came out in 2008. And they are continuing to work on the album, at least that’s what Kirk Hammett tells AltPress. And he even gave the magazine somewhat of an exclusive as to who will be producing the next album:
You’ve been in the studio but you have yet to officially announce a producer.
We’re pretty much doing it with Greg Fidelman. He is in the mix. As far as what the final outcome will be, I don’t know. We have not brought in any [other] producer and it looks extremely [unlikely] we’d bring one in this late into the project.
Even when Fidelman works as an engineer, my understanding is he’s very integral. Some producers just drop by here and there. He rolls up his sleeves.
The title “producer” itself is a bit ambiguous. It differs from person to person. You can call Rick Rubin a producer, but he’s not the [same] type of producer as Bob Rock, who is there for every note. At the same time, Rick Rubin gets stuff done. Greg Fidelman is a different type of producer in that he’s with the engineer always looking to try and move the project forward. And that’s different from, say, Dr. Dre, who is the type of producer who is actually making backing tracks, producing music, writing music. In the hip-hop world, Dre is a producer. It’s so ambiguous. If you go by the traditional term, we’re doing it with Greg, pretty much.
So basically, they’re not fixing what ain’t broke. Fidelman has worked with the band on both Lulu and Death Magnetic, even though he was only an engineer/mixer on their last proper studio album. Fidelman has also worked with Slayer, Slipknot and Black Sabbath. Elsewhere in the interview, he continues to make his appeal to find someone to give him money to make a film:
Absolutely! I want to make a movie. And I’ll make a movie right away, just as long as someone else is paying for it. The one thing I’ve learned about making movies is that it’s always better if someone else is paying for it [Laughs.]. Give me $30 million and I’ll give you a killer movie! I’ll tell you this much: [this] month, I start writing my script. If it’s good or bad, I’ll let you know.
I know Robert Trujillo put his own money into the Jaco documentary.
All I need to do is find someone out there with more money than fuckin water, give them my spiel and we’ll see how it goes. It’s something I’ve wanted to do and have been talking about doing for a while now, but I have a date that I’m actually going to sit down and start doing it. I think I have a killer [story] and I have a guy I’m actually going to write the script with [this] month. He’s a screenwriter. He writes about a script per year and it almost always gets made. I’m going to sit down with him. It’s no guarantee that I’m going to actually make a movie, or finish a script, or anything. But I’m definitely going to give it a try and break the ice on that.
Yeah, we’re guessing that even if it is bad, he’ll say it’s great, but hopefully he’s got a good idea in him. It should also be noted that since the last time he spoke about making a film, his price has gone up another $5 million.
