Metallica Used a French Horn on an Album, Not Knowing What it Was
You don’t become legends of Rock without being unique, and that’s what Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield wanted to do with their bestselling Black Album.
According to Ultimate Classic Rock, James admitted they were hard to work with back in the band’s early stages. He admitted to being very fearful of giving up control of the sound to producer Bob Rock.
Eventually, Bob Rock was able to wear down the walls and teach James and Lars Ulrich how to become producers and experiment with new sounds. James was excited to try these, which led Hammett to put some unique twist in the album.
Kirk elaborated on some of the different flourishes added to the album. Noting the many prominent percussions pieces throughout but there is something special for each one.
Kirk was quoted saying: “It’s real subtle, but if you listen for it, you can hear it. There’s a French horn at the beginning of ‘The Unforgiven.’ I mean, I fucking didn’t know what a fucking French horn was. We had no idea what a French horn was. But we were like, ‘Okay!'”
[SOURCE: Ultimate Classic Rock]
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