Rush’s Geddy Lee Almost Produced Metallica’s Master of Puppets
Can you imagine a version of Master of Puppets that was produced by Geddy Lee from Rush? Yeah me neither, but apparently, it almost happened. Asked about the rumor in a new interview with Noisey, Lee revealed…
“It’s sort of true. There was some discussion with Lars, back in the day, about working with them. This was before Master of Puppets came out, I think? There was talk, you know. I was friends with their management and I met Lars back in England. I remember going to see them here in Toronto when they played at the Masonic Temple. That’s when the original bass player was still happening. You know, before that tragedy. And, you know, we talked about it and I liked their band a lot at that time. But it just never came together.”
Although I understand how a fan of Rush and Metallica might see this and think “Wow, that would have been killer!”, I think we dodged a bullet here. Why? Because of something else Lee says in the interview:
“Well, I don’t listen to a lot of metal. Even though there’s an aspect of our sound that can be quite metal, I sort of attribute it more to early metal, in the way that Zeppelin were metal and in the way that Black Sabbath were metal, and Blue Cheer were metal. And that’s the sort of tradition of metal that we took on. I like Metallica. I’ve got great respect for them. But, you won’t hear too much speed metal or death metal in my house.”
“I don’t like metal, but I like Metallica” is a sentiment which makes sense in 2015… but the band that was in-between Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets was metal as fuck. With all due respect to Lee, it’s hard to imagine him helping the band make their masterpiece (pardon the pun) while having a general disinterest in the genre. I’m not saying with Lee at the helm that band would have made Load a decade earlier, I’m just saying I think Master would have been a very, very different album. Who knows? Maybe this would have altered the course of history forever. Maybe Master wouldn’t have turned out as well and today we’d know Slayer or Megadeth as the biggest metal band in the world. I’m sure that’s the fantasy Kerry King and Dave Mustaine will each have after reading this.
What do you think? Would a Lee/Metallica collaboration have worked or not? Head to the comments section to discuss!
