Metallica's Kirk Hammett on the Black Album: "We wanted a Back In Black”

Metallica
(Image credit: Paul Natkin/WireImage)

Metallica's self-titled 1991 record, known to most as The Black Album, was a game-changer that vaulted the Bay Area quartet from mere stardom to outright superstardom.

Now 16x Platinum, the Bob Rock-produced album has sold more copies in the United States than any in the last 30 years. That sort of success is difficult for anyone to wrap their head around, but – according to the band's guitarist, Kirk Hammett – it's exactly what the band had in mind when they first began to assemble the now-30-year-old album.

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Jackson Maxwell

Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.