That time back in ’91 when producer Bob Rock told me that he, Bruce Fairbairn, and Mike Fraser all had different things to offer

By Steve Newton

I did my first interview with hugely successful hard-rock producer Bob Rock in December of 1991 at Vancouver Studios, where he was working on albums by the London Choirboys and his own band, Rockhead.

Four months earlier the massively popular album Rock made with Metallica, The Black Album, had been released, and he was easily one of the most in-demand record producers in the world–probably on a par with his longtime local colleague, Bruce Fairbairn.

At one point in the conversation I asked Rock if he’d ever wished he’d gotten some of the primo production jobs Fairbairn had scored with bands like Aerosmith and AC/DC, which led to some interesting comments on how he and Fairbairn–as well as famed local mixer Mike Fraser–approach their work.

Have a listen:

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