Rob Trujillo claims the pandemic played a major role in how Metallica conceived and recorded its latest album, 72 Seasons. During a new chat with Guitar World, Trujillo echoed his bandmates' recent comments about the set being a true collaborative and democratic musical effort, explaining, “This record had more involvement from all of us. There was also all that interesting energy around the pandemic — how we had to create these songs and get the process going was a challenge because it was all happening from our home studios. That was a challenge in itself, trying to start writing and creating from that kind of first launchpad.”
Trujillo, who celebrated his 20th year with Metallica last February, said of the band's recorded output: “Every record is like a different journey. There are some that lean more on Lars (Ulrich) and James (Hetfield), which was the path we took for the previous record. . . and that ended up being a great album. . . One of the beautiful things about being in Metallica is that there’s no shortage of great ideas. Our blessing is also a curse. We have more riffs than we know what to do with. With every handful of riffs we get out of Kirk (Hammett), there’s another 500 we didn’t hear.”
Robert Trujillo told us a while back that he never knows what to expect when the band starts writing: “The whole thing is, when we're being creative, when Metallica's creative, the last thing you want to do is interfere with the flow that happens between Lars and James (Hetfield), 'cause these guys bump heads and they get on a roll with things. And you really gotta let them do their thing, 'cause it is magic, and let them be productive when that's clicking.”
Metallica will next perform on June 8th at Castle Donington at the Download Festival at Donington Park.