On August 12th, Metallica – better known as The Black Album – turned exactly 30 years old. The album was a milestone not only in the band's career, but in the history of metal, as even Bruce Dickinson seems to agree.
In an interview with Classic Rock , the Iron Maiden expressed his admiration for James Hetfield and said that Metallica was "without a doubt" an album that helped bring metal into the mainstream.
“We [Iron Maiden], Judas Priest , and Pantera all reached a crossroads where we had the chance to take the next step and move to the next level, but none of us had the courage. Metallica did,” Dickinson says. “You have to give them a lot of credit for seizing the opportunity when it arose. They took a risk and reaped enormous rewards from it. You can't underestimate their achievement [with the Black Album ].”
Bruce Dickinson continued to express admiration for Metallica's "control" over the album's sound, something he said Iron Maiden could never achieve. "We would never make an album like that because we're not controlled enough and we don't want to be," he said. "With us, the train would derail and we'd end up firing the producer!"
Iron Maiden's new album, Senjutsu , arrives on September 3rd, while Metallica is preparing a special reissue of the Black Album for the 10th of the same month.
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