RICK RUBIN: 'I Asked METALLICA Not To Reinvent Themselves So Much As To Make A Defining Album'

Legendary producer Rick Rubin (SLAYER, SYSTEM OF A DOWN, AUDIOSLAVE, RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS),who was named "Producer of the Year" at this past weekend's Grammy Awards, spoke to MTV.com about his work with METALLICA on their much-anticipated follow-up to 2003's "St. Anger", tentatively due before the end of the year via Warner Bros.

"I saw [the warts-and-all METALLICA documentary 'Some Kind of Monster'], and it made me really nervous," Rubin said. "Then we started working, and it's the opposite direction of that. They're really productive, really communicative — it seems like they really like being in the room together. It's a great process. They say they're more excited than they have been in a long time about making music. We're going to start recording in March. I asked them not to reinvent themselves so much as to make a defining album, like the purest of what METALLICA is. That's the aim, so we'll see what happens."

METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone magazine that Rubin said that he wants to make the group sound "like the METALLICA that made them METALLICA without going backward" — and that he's doing it by challenging old habits.

"He's questioning what key we should play in," Ulrich told Rolling Stone. "We've played in E flat since the beginning of the '90s. Nobody questioned it. All of a sudden, Rick is going, 'Maybe the stuff has more energy and Hetfield's voice sounds better in E.' He's forced us to rethink big-picture stuff, something we haven't done in years."

Rubin also insisted that METALLICA rehearse and learn the material until, as Ulrich puts it, "we can play these songs in our sleep, standing on our heads. "With Bob [Rock, METALLICA's longtime producer], we'd go into the studio when we had some concrete ideas. But Rick wants us to take care of all the creative elements first. He wants us to capture these songs in a recording environment instead of creating them there."