Happy birthday to James Hetfield of Metallica. He is 58 today (Aug 3) In 1991 Metallica uses an orchestra for the first time. Eight years later they’d do S & M, a double album with an orchestra. Producer Bob Rock urged Metallica to experiment with its sound on its self-titled “black album” — and that’s just what the band did. James Hetfield, with Lars Ulrich also on hand, explains how for “Nothing Else Matters” they hired conductor-arranger Michael Kamen, who’d worked with Pink Floyd, to orchestrate the song at Abbey Road in London.
“We wanted to just give that a shot. The song was great, we arranged it all ourselves, we had it build up really well ourselves. But we said, ‘Well, if we’re going to go for this, why not go for it all the way.’ And he didn’t just do light little pop strings like Alice Cooper kinda, he went full-on for it. Horns, I mean there was a 60-piece orchestra. He didn’t treat it lightly. He went for it like Metallica would in a regular song.
REUTERS PHOTO
