JAMES TALKS ABOUT S

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SAUSALITO, CA

Heavy-metal titans Metallica are holed up in a Bay Area studio, piecing together symphonic versions of their songs from 96 tracks of French horns, violins, cellos and, of course, blaring guitars.
"As soon as you hear certain passages on individual instruments, you go, 'Man, all of the work that's gone onto this thing!' " singer/guitarist James Hetfield said as he sat in a cast-iron chair in the garden of the studio where Metallica are mixing the live album they recorded in April with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. S&M — short for "Symphony and Metallica" — is due Nov. 23.
"You solo just the strings, and you go, 'Well, that's an awesome melody, let's turn that up.' " — James Hetfield, Metallica frontman
"You sit and you solo just the strings, and you go, 'Well, that's an awesome melody, let's turn that up,' " Hetfield, 36, said. "But then you go to the other horns, and, well that's even cooler, let's turn that [up], and you can't have all of these cool melodies going on at the same time. ... That's what [conductor Michael Kamen] is doing live. He's mixing the orchestra. But here, you really get a chance to manipulate it a lot."
The album is culled from two shows at the Berkeley Community Theater in Berkeley, Calif., and will include the two new songs Metallica debuted at those shows: "- Human" ("Minus Human") and "No Leaf Clover." Its release probably will be heralded by additional shows with symphonies in New York and Europe.
Kamen, who also has worked with Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan, wrote the symphonic score for more than 20 Metallica songs and conducted the symphony at the Berkeley shows. Kamen also wrote the orchestral parts for Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters", from Metallica's self-titled "black album" (1991) and has joined the bandmembers in the studio to help them mix S&M.
Billy Konkel, an assistant engineer at the recording studio, said the biggest challenge has been "the full volume of the record that they're doing here. It's 21, 22 songs, and we're mixing a lot. We've got a full board of 96 channels, of full orchestra, full band, and that takes a lot of time to mix right."
Metallica — Hetfield; drummer Lars Ulrich, 35; bassist Jason Newsted, 36; and guitarist Kirk Hammett, 36 — are doing the mixing with longtime producer Bob Rock, whose credits, besides all of Metallica's '90s albums, include Mötley Crüe. They're working not only with the bandmembers' instrument tracks but those of close to 100 symphony musicians.
Hetfield said the two new songs were not written specifically to be played with the symphony, but they were used for the project because they lent themselves well to orchestration.
"No Leaf Clover" is spare, leaving room for the symphony in the arrangement. It begins with ominous horns, then the band comes in. The symphony swells, then the levels drop, opening up space for Hetfield's lyrics: "It's like a freight train comin' your way/ It's comin' your way."
The album also will feature symphonic takes on such classic Metallica cuts as "Master of Puppets" and "The Call of Ktulu." The S&M version of "The Call of Ktulu", is epic and grand. Newsted's bass thunders, while Hammett's razorlike guitar tone cuts through the violins and cellos.
At times, Metallica overpowers the symphony. Occasionally it is the other way around.
Staccato French horn fanfares give "The Call of Ktulu" a feel of having been cooked up in the devil's kitchen. High strings lead into an ending that features a fingerpicked solo from Hetfield and orchestra hits led by Ulrich.
On "Fuel," the symphonic strings sometimes echo the guitar parts. For "Bleeding Me", Hammett plays slide, emulating the sound of bowed violins before the song breaks down.
A DVD version, for which there is no release date yet, will include video and will allow the viewer to hear the audio in a variety of ways.
"There'll obviously be the live show with the mix we're doing now, and then ... you can go to another layer and just hear symphony only, and then another one where it's just band only," Hetfield said of the DVD. "So you get Metallica fans who can hear the new songs with just the band, or your symphony lovers who can hear the music without all that noisy guitar."
Metallica are tentatively planning symphony shows at Madison Square Garden in New York and somewhere in Europe — most likely Berlin — before the album comes out, according to
Hetfield.
"Nothing will take away from the coolness of the [Berkeley] show," Hetfield said. "I mean, it's like you busted a virgin, man. You can't redo it. ... We got the music written, the scores are written, you could take it anywhere. You could take it to any symphony and sit and play with them. So we're gonna basically go show New York how kinda cool it was."

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