"We were just snot-nosed punks doing what we were doing. It's pretty amazing that the record has stood the test of time." One of the greatest rock albums of all time celebrates its 40th birthday today

On March 3, 1986, Metallica released their third album Master of Puppets on Music For Nations in the UK and Europe, and on Elektra Records in the US. The album wasn't an immediate hit for the San Francisco-based quartet - debuting on the Billboard 200 chart at number 128, and peaking at number 41 in the UK charts - but it went on to become the first thrash metal album certified for one million US sales. It has also gone on to be acclaimed as one of the greatest metal albums of all time, and an inspiration for almost every metal band who has followed in Metallica's slipstream.

The making of the record, and its 40th anniversary, is celebrated in the new issue of Classic Rock magazine.

“I would like to say that there was something magical in the air in the summer we wrote Master Of Puppets, something that hasn’t been there before, and has never existed since,” Lars Ulrich told this writer in 2006. “But that would be a lie. I guess we just had the right attitude and the right openness to ideas. The whole band was getting more confident.”

“We were just snot-nosed punks doing what we were doing, and trying to do something different from everyone else. It's pretty amazing that the record has stood the test of time. It's not something you think about when you're making an album, obviously.”

As with Metallica's second album, Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets was recorded at Sweet Silence studios in Lars Ulrich's former hometown Copenhagen, Denmark, with producer Flemming Rasmussen.

“We more or less wanted to redo Ride the Lightning," Rasmussen admits, "just a lot better.”

“Master Of Puppets is definitely a more uncommercial album than Ride The Lightning," the Dane also reflects. "Master Of Puppets is Metallica celebrating that they’ve got a major label deal and that they no longer give a shit. It was them saying, ‘We’re just going to do the stuff we like and if the record company doesn’t like it, then fuck them.’ I think that was the attitude. And it worked too. There’s not one bad song on the album, not a single one. It is just fabulous from start to finish. They had that youthful attitude of ‘We’re better than everybody else in the whole world’ and they were just out to kick some ass.”

“It’s a motherfucker of a record," Lars Ulrich reflected when speaking with me in 2006. "It’s super-dense and intense, and it doesn’t let up until Damage Inc is over. There’s a real natural youthful energy to it, and I’m pretty psyched about how strong it sounds. Lyrically too, I think it’s still as relevant.

"It's awesome to think that some of you guys weren't even born when we recorded Master Of Puppets... and that's cool, it's part of the metal initiation, part of the ritual."

Ulrich went on to express his pride in the fact that the record, which in 2015 became the first metal recording to be selected by the US Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" has retained its power, and continues to influence new generations of metalheads.

"Is Master Of Puppets the greatest Metallica album?," the drummer mused. "I’m too close to it, my relationships with Metallica albums are bound up with memories of creating the albums, and recording them, and everything that comes in the aftermath. It’s difficult for me to judge that shit. We’re just honoured that it’s a record that’s perceived as a milestone, and as record that’s been so inspiring to so many people.”

The new issue of Classic Rock is on sale now.

In additional Metallica news, the band are to add six more nights to their forthcoming residency at Sphere, Las Vegas, due to "unbelievable demand".

The Californian metallers will play the venue under the banner Life Burns Faster, titled in reference to a James Hetfield lyric from Master of Puppets.

"This residency gives us another chance to reinvent how we interact with our fans in a live setting," says Lars Ulrich. "We are beyond excited to share this with the world in six months time, and way fuckin’ psyched to go next level!"

Ticket registration is now open here.