Rubin is producing Metallica's next album too. Bob Rock is out!
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TORONTO (Billboard) - Bob Rock says he feels "20 years younger" after his split with Metallica, whose albums he had produced since 1991.
The Canadian producer parted company with the metal titan earlier this year and is now devoting his energies to other artists and a return to his own recording career.
According to the 52-year-old Rock, "My life is now about my wife and kids, and recording other bands."
Those "other bands" are a varied bunch. He's in Vancouver producing Canadian crooner Michael Buble. This fall, he will reunite with Lava/Atlantic pop/punk act Simple Plan. (He produced the band's hit 2004 album, "Still Not Getting Any.") Rock also is heading to the studio with the Offspring for the act's eighth studio album.
Rock first teamed with Metallica for its self-titled 1991 album (aka "The Black Album"). The Elektra set debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 281 weeks. Rock helmed Metallica's subsequent albums, through 2003's "St. Anger."
A behind-the-scenes look at that tumultuous project was featured in the following year's unflinching documentary "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster." A petition that some 1,500 fans signed subsequently was posted online calling for Metallica to dump Rock, claiming he had too much influence on the band's sound.
"The criticism was hurtful for my kids, who read it and don't understand the circumstances," Rock says. "Sometimes, even with a great coach, a team keeps losing. You have to get new blood in there."
But Metallica co-manager Peter Mensch argues that Rock "nursed Metallica out of almost complete collapse on that record. Bob is one of the five best producers on the planet. But it was time to shake things up."
Rick Rubin is producing the next Metallica album.
ROCK ROOTS
Rock made his international reputation in the '80s while he was an engineer at Vancouver's Little Mountain Sound, working with producer Bruce Fairbairn on multiplatinum albums for Loverboy, Bon Jovi and Aerosmith.
In 1988 he switched to producing with the self-titled debut Polydor album from Kingdom Come, followed quickly by productions for Bon Jovi, Motley Crue and the Cult.
Since "St. Anger," Rock increasingly has turned to working with fellow Canadians at his home base, Plantation Studios in Maui, producing
Bryan Adams, Our Lady Peace and Simple Plan in recent years.
He also produced an act that many consider Canada's most beloved rock band, the Tragically Hip. The resulting album, "World Container," is due October 17 via Universal Music Canada, with a U.S. release anticipated for 2007. Rock says working with the Hip was a no-brainer: "I've always wanted to make a great Canadian album."
Rock is also planning to record an album with his own band, the Payolas. Fronted by singer Paul Hyde, the pioneering punk band split in 1986 after four albums for A&M Records of Canada and six Juno Awards, Canada's top music honors.
Rock is unfazed by talk of a Payolas tour. "I'd get to go on a tour bus with my family," he says. "That sounds like fun."
