There is a reason why Metallica frontman James Hetfield regarded Ride the Lightning as the band at their best. Despite most fans considering either Master of Puppets or The Black Album to be Metallica at their peak, Hetfield felt the band only experienced true authenticity with Ride the Lightning, the integration of each member reaching a pinnacle no other record had.
However, the sessions for Ride the Lightning were also unique for different reasons, mostly because the sound of the album would mark Metallica’s more refined effort compared to the debut. It also marked their first with producer Flemming Rasmussen, who Lars Ulrich endorsed after enjoying the work he did on Rainbow’s Difficult to Cure. Ulrich was also eager to record in Europe, so choosing Rasmussen was an exciting opportunity.
Although Rasmussen listened to their tapes beforehand and heard great potential, learning about one member’s knowledge gaps came as a surprise, to say the least. When he first entered the studio, he asked Ulrich an important question, only to discover he had no idea what he was talking about. “The very first thing I asked when he started playing was, ‘Does everything start on an upbeat?’ And he went, ‘What’s an upbeat?’” he told Metal Hammer.
“I thought he was useless,” he quipped. Adding: “We started telling him about beats. That they have to be an equal length of time between that hit, that hit, and that hit, and you have to be able to count to four before you come in again. Then he could play a really good fill that nobody else had thought of doing at that time.”
Rasmussen has become known as one of the most honest figures in the business, once apologising for how …And Justice For All sounded. The album has remained one of the band’s most divisive mostly because of how confidently they shunned any bass notes, removing a significant portion of Metallica’s signature headiness entirely.
While Hetfield once took responsibility for turning down Jason Newsted’s bass, Rasmussen later said sound engineers Steve Thompson and Mike Barbiero had something to do with it. “The bass tracks on [the album] are actually fantastic. Jason plays really well,” Rasmussen explained. “But, they heard the mix, and they went, ‘Alright, take the bass down, change this this this and this, and then take the bass down.’ So you can barely hear it. And then once they’ve done that, they said, ‘Take it another 3dB down.’”
Still, despite Rasmussen’s reservations about Ulrich on Ride the Lightning and the unfortunate mixing mishap on …And Justice For All, both albums ended up contributing more to the realm of experimentation with progressive rock than intended, likely due to Ulrich and the rest of the band’s immediate ability to tap into instinct, even if basic counting isn’t always there.