Clang & Clatter

On August 13, Metallica celebrated the 20th anniversary of its groundbreaking eponymous fifth studio album, more affectionately known as The Black Album. In the Studio’s Redbeard celebrates with a Classic Rock interview with Metallica’s James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett in which they talked about the band’s history, the devastating death of bassist Cliff Burton, and the making of one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Enjoy!

Arguably one of the original “Big in Japan” rock acts, Cheap Trick was once known as the “American Beatles” in that country because of their huge fan base, while here in the States the band struggled to gain mainstream success with its first three album releases. Then in late April 1978, Cheap Trick recorded two separate shows at the Budokan arena in Tokyo. Quickly mixed in only three days, the result was Cheap Trick at Budokan, originally intended as a promotional vehicle to capitalize on their growing popularity in Japan and never meant for U.S. release, but which ironically was the album that broke Cheap Trick in this country and launched the band into superstardom after promotional copies of selected tracks were circulated to radio stations as From Tokyo to You. The rest, as they say, is history.

Redbeard interviewed Rick Nielsen and Robin Zander in February 2009 for In The Studio on the 30th anniversary of At Budokan. Listen in as they discuss the band’s origins, their struggles in the U.S., and their meteoric rise to fame as a result of an album that was never meant to be.

Enjoy!

Redbeard talks with Ozzy Osbourne about the “scary music” he, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward created as Black Sabbath that helped birth a whole new genre. Listen as he looks back at the formation of the band, the making of Black Sabbath and Paranoid, Sabbath’s rise to fame, internal problems in the band, and going solo on In The Studio.

Join In The Studio’s Redbeard as he celebrates the 35th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s “musical postcard from the edge” Wish You Were Here. In this episode, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and the late Richard Wright recall the circumstances surrounding the recording of the 1975 follow-up to The Dark Side of the Moon. With the band growing increasingly dysfunctional and its members drifting further apart, it’s no surprise that their remembrances of this time period are quite different, with Gilmour, Mason, and Wright recollecting that they had felt like a band, while Waters recounts, “already the rot had set in.”

Wish You Were Here serves as much as a commentary and indictment on the greed and insincerity of the music industry as it does as a tribute to former “fallen” frontman Syd Barrett and the absence felt by his withdrawal from the band and those around him.

Listen as the members talk about the music business, Barrett’s influence, the writing and recording process, as well as some in-studio mishaps. Enjoy!