"When James puts that guitar in his hands he immediately wants to play fast riffs!”

Metallica's co-producer Greg Fidelman reveals how the new album was made - with Hetfield and Hammett using battle-hardened gear, and the whole band focused on capturing a 'live' feel

- By Jenna Scaramanga. Photo Tim Saccenti

Greg Fidelman first worked with Metallica as engineer on the 2008 album Death Magnetic – a result of his long association with that album’s producer Rick Rubin. Since the late 90s, Greg has served as engineer on numerous albums produced by Rubin, including System Of A Down’s self-tilted debut, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication, the posthumous Johnny Cash release American V: A Hundred Highways and Black Sabbath’s final album 13.

It was on the 2011 album Lulu, Metallica’s collaboration with Lou Reed, that Greg took on the role of co-producer alongside guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. He has continued in this capacity on 2016’s Hardwired... To Self-Destruct, 2020’s live album S&M2 and now, this year’s 72 Seasons.

“It’s not your traditional hard rock record,” Greg says as he gives TG the inside story of its creation...

When you started making 72 Seasons, what conversations did you have about how you wanted it to sound?

Initially everyone was isolated. We started trying to write songs remotely. So some of the usual chats you would have before walking into a project didn’t happen. It was more, ‘Do you think we could try to cobble together some riffs and some song ideas while we’re waiting this thing out?’ Then we got together for a Helping Hands benefit broadcast from Metallica HQ. We thought, ‘Let’s show up a week early and stay a week after, and in person work on these songs that we had.’ Everyone was so excited to get started, and so excited to be playing together. We never really looked back.