Skip to content
News

Rick Rubin to Produce New Metallica Project

What’s good enough for System of a Down, Audioslave, Slayer and Neil Diamond, is good enough for Metallica.

Metallica has announced that they are in the studio, recording a new album with the help of super-producer, Rick Rubin, according to a post on the band’s official site. Rubin has “been coming by the studio every now and again to listen to some of our new stuff and throw his two/three cents in,” the post says.

A series of photos from the studio includes shots of Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield collaborating, Ulrich holding up a spiral notebook of lyrics, and the heavily-bearded Rubin lounging on a studio couch, while the band jams nearby.

While the post says Metallica has just “been jamming, writing, just plain messing around and having fun in the studio for the last few weeks,” they’re clearly planning to buckle down and get to recording the follow-up to 2003’s St. Anger soon.

“Since this Rick dude is new to all of this,” the post continued, “we thought it would be a nice gesture to help break him into the music business by asking him to produce our next record. We’re very happy he said yes! In other words, we are psyched to share with you that Rick Rubin is producing the next Metallica album!”

Metallica has also announced plans for “Escape from the Studio ’06,” in which they will spend the summer playing a series of European festivals including the Download Festival in Donington and Dublin.

Metallica official site

Get SPIN.com headlines for FREE on your mobile phone! Just text SPIN to 68423 to sign up. It’s one message per day, Monday thru Friday, bringing you all the news that rocks, minus the carpal tunnel.