Now that you’ve caught up on the So What! feature interviews from Metallica, it’s time to read up on the people behind the scenes who helped make the band’s new studio album, Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, happen.

Conversations between Steffan Chirazi and integral members of the production and artistic teams are now available for Fifth Members at this location (free sign up / log in required).

“It’s a creative partnership with them; there’s a lot of passion and there’s gonna be disagreements, and heated disagreements… But from my standpoint, producing and helping them get along, it’s a second nature.” - Greg Fidelman, Producer

“I love drum tracking. When you get the whole band [in] because the way Greg and Rick record records is they kind of do it more in a ‘live’ nature… It’s so exciting to see, and the chemistry between people. And I appreciate that a lot.” - Sara Lyn Killion, Assistant Engineer

“Obviously knowing the history of the band and the guys, we had some understanding of the evolving dynamics and relationship between them all, so we looked to get a range of different emotions from them during the shoot.” - Herring & Herring, Photography Team

“They wanted to do something really different, not using cliché imagery. And they’re not afraid to do something that’s gonna stand out from the crowd.” - Turner Duckworth’s Jamie McCathie and Tyler Brooks, Creative Design Team

Bonus: Steffan also sat down with audio engineer Mike Gillies. Check out their conversation in the most recent instalment of the So What! Podcast series.

To get access to all of this and more, become a Fifth Member via the link above.