November 3rd, brings the 20th anniversary reissue of legendary singer Pat Boone’s In A Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy, a collection of interpretations of hard rock/heavy metal classics by the likes of Judas Priest, Van Halen, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne and Guns N’ Roses.

On behalf of the Inquisitr, Darren Paltrowitz spoke with with the now 83-year old Mr. Boone about the album, while also discussing some of the other projects he has been working on as of late. A few excerpts follow…

On what inspired him to reissue In A Metal Mood: “It was a hit… It became a hit immediately after the American Music Awards show in which I and Alice Cooper presented the award for Hard Rock to Metallica. Dick Clark had asked that Cooper and I present the award because Dick had heard my album that was going to be released the very next day on MCA [Records]. He knew it was going to be a hit because these are all giant heavy metal classics that nobody had recorded again, after they became hits, except me. These big band jazz versions of these songs, treating the songs as songs, not just heavy metal classics.

“Twenty years have gone by… Why not bring some attention to it and celebrate? Every time I appear anywhere, the sound technicians all bring out their copies of the CD and want me to sign it, or they will play it during my soundcheck and stuff. So it won a wide audience of people who liked the original songs, of course, the college kids… They know the songs already and like them, they would welcome some other version if they were somehow compatible with the songs themselves and the rocking good music that they were or are.”

On how he may have influenced Metallica: “I think Metallica was inspired by this. They did an album with the San Francisco Symphony of some of their hits. I got a huge kick out hearing all these [orchestral] musicians who probably have been quite disparaging as I had been of all the cacophony in heavy metal, having to sit there and play these songs, treating them like symphonic jams.”

On almost recording with Slash of Guns N’ Roses: “We did “Paradise City.” Slash actually was going to play guitar. He had agreed to play guitar… When he heard our track he wasn’t there for the recording. We wanted him to play a big guitar solo in “Paradise City”, and when he heard he said, ‘You do it faster than we do.’ I wish I hadn’t done it quite that fast because it was really an assignment to get all the lyrics in doing it as fast as we did it. But meanwhile, Guns N’ Roses were trying to get back together right at that time, so his days and nights were taken up as they were trying to regroup… He bowed out, I don’t think it is because he didn’t think he could play it this fast because I know he could. But I took his explanation to heart that he was trying to get their group back together right then.”

On Metallica and recording “Enter Sandman”: “When I asked James Hetfield who is doing that, the little kid [voiceover in the middle of the song], he said, ‘Oh, it is one of our roadies’ kids.’ They didn’t have kids of their own and the whole thing was ominous as it sounded like a dad was trying to get his son to stay in bed using the time-tested method of frightening him. “There is something under the bed, something overhead, you better stay there is something going to get you.”

“Well, in my case, it was my own 4-year-old grandson, Tyler. Not Steven Tyler (laughs). Tyler Michael is my second daughter’s son, my grandson who is repeating, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” You know a little kid’s voice, and it was very much like the original but that is what it was. It was nothing particularly ominous about it lyrically, but the sound and the way that Metallica does it, it sounds heavy metal anthem; I imagine their most famous song.”

Read the full interview at the Inquisitr.