Metallica's second album, Ride the lightningis celebrating its 40th anniversary, having been released on July 27, 1984. The LP is an all-time metal classic and, according to guitarist Kirk Hammett, the band had a “burning ambition” to make the best album possible at the time.
Ride the lightning has been certified six times platinum thanks to such stellar songs as “Fade to Black,” “Creeping Death,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and the title track. For many fans, it lives up to their follow-up album, Puppeteeras the best Metallica album.
Get tickets for Metallica here
Serious consequence I caught up with Hammett, who briefly reflected on Metallica's mindset going into Ride the lightningwhich came a year after the band's debut album, Kill them all.
“I would say that when we were recording [Ride the Lightning] “We were still in the same living situation where we were literally living hand to mouth,” Hammett recalled. “We didn’t have much. Neither of us had vehicles or houses. I had maybe one guitar, actually two guitars. But suddenly we had these songs. We held them very close to our hearts.”
The album was recorded with producer Flemming Rasmussen at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark, marking a major step forward from the setup the band had going into the album. Kill them all.
“So when we went in to record these songs, it was our first time in what we consider a real studio,” Hammett recalled. “So we really wanted these songs to be as good as possible sonically and in the execution of the production. So we had the constant [mindset]“Is this the best we can do? Is this the best guitar sound we can do? Is this the best performance we can do? We need to make an album that can stand up to everything else out there!”
thanks to our partners at consequence.net
