Speaker 1: Give me fuel, give me five, give me that's out
of that.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Surely You Can't Be Serious podcast. That
is such an awesome song. It's not what we're here
to talk about today. Sorry, we are here today to
talk about Metallica. Metallica. Welcome back, Jason. How you doing
manut I'm good man. It's been a long time. You
and I have been gone for a couple of weeks. Yeah,
we happened to run into each other running of all places,
and so that was nice. That was a revisit of
the spawning of our podcast. Those runs we used to
do together all the time.
Speaker 3: It's crazy were I just started for a little run
and then you dragged me on a bigger run.
Speaker 2: That's funny how that always works up. Well, I'm prepping
for marathon, man, I know, I know. Good for you.
Speaker 3: We are back after two weeks off. We have reissued
some podcasts. We did Nirvana's Nevermind. We did pro Jams ten,
which we did about a year ago to sort of
kick off this Fall of ninety one thing that we're.
Speaker 2: Doing right now. Yeah, the day that we're recording two
day is the thirtieth anniversary of Pearl Jams. Ten album
being released. I know, it's crazy. Thirty years thirty years,
So thirty years for all of these albums. You got
thirty years for Ozzy Osbourne No More Tearss, You've got
thirty years for Metallica Black You've got thirty years for
Use Your Illusion one and two, which we're going to
compare it to this album. I mean, all of these
things are hitting their three decade mark and they're still amazing.
Speaker 3: There was a lot happening the fall of ninety one.
It's going to be super fun and super cool to
get into it. We were watching some of these videos
with the Metallica Black stuff, and I was going through it,
and that album is so timeless. It seems so recent
in my memory. When they're looking at like the Persian
Gulf War who while they're recording, I'm like, wow, that
kind of dates it for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, all right, so you ready, I'm ready,
let's do this. Okay, we're going to discuss the history
of the band, and then we're going to get into Metallica. Metallica,
the album that brought Metallica into the mainstream, cost a
million dollars to make, was remixed three times and ended
three marriage pretty big.
Speaker 3: The band it's pretty big. This is otherwise known as
the Blackout.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, beginning the history of Metallica, you have two
major players in the band. You have mister James Headfield
and you have mister Lars Ulrich. There are other members
of the band that come and go along the way,
but these guys are the ones that originated the band,
and they're the ones that have been the driving force
behind their songwriting and their rise and stay in fame. Yes.
So James was raised in California. His dad left when
he was thirteen years old. His mom died when he
was sixteen years old, which left him living with his brother.
He got into music. That was kind of a way
to relieve the pain from the fact that he now
was parentless. He was pretty quiet in high school, kept
to himself, and he had a couple of bands that
he started. One was called Phantom Lord okay Yeah, and
then that one eventually disbanded and then led into another
one called Leather Charm, and that band did the new
wave of British heavy metal sound. They were covering bands,
which is interesting to think about because you think about
Metallica and you think about def Leppard and how their
world's apart. But in eighty one they were doing the
same thing.
Speaker 3: The branches of the tree were a little closer together
in the early.
Speaker 2: Eighties exactly exactly, Okay. So eventually that band disbanded and
James began looking for another band to put together. Well,
right about this time, a guy named Lars Ulrich, who
was a tennis prodigy from Denmark, had also moved out
to California. As it turned out, even though he was
like one of the top ten players in Denmark, he
wasn't even like the top five on his street once
he got to the US. Right before we get going,
I just want to point something out. We have been
talking to each other now for a couple of years,
face to face, and one of the reasons that I
can do that is because you don't have nose hair.
Have you been talking to people like you can't even
concentrate on what they're saying because of their nose hair? Absolutely,
they like tuck to you. It dangles, yes, it wiggles.
It's a total distraction. Absolutely, And so let me let
me say, if you are one of those guys, we
have a product that is supporting the podcast that you
need to check out is called the weed Whacker and
it is from Manscape.
Speaker 3: It is an amazing product. It trims your nose hair.
It's not embarrassing. You just stick it up there. It
takes care of it.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna look at people and bother them, right,
And I'm one of those guys who's self conscious about
my nose hair. So somebody that you're gonna see me
and I'm gonna be like yanking them out and wincing
in pain, don't do that. There is a special thing
that they make and they've also just released in addition
to the weed Whacker, they have just released something called
the Lawnmower if you have other areas of your body
that you're looking to trim up. And I'd like to
point out that a giraffe is easier to see in
the planes than it is in the forest, So that's wonderful. Yes,
yes it is.
Speaker 3: So it's very good around sensitive areas, if you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They have also an entire shave kit called the
Ultra Smooth packet package. You get the idea. So who
doesn't want their package Ultra smith right, right, So don't
forget to go to manscapes dot com and use the
promo code fan sided twenty to get twenty percent off
your order and free shipping. Whack it perfect.
Speaker 3: I heard him say that that was really funny, I thought,
and so.
Speaker 2: He and when he realized that his dentist dreams were
probably not going to come to fruition, he got obsessed
with the local heavy metal scene that was going on
there in California, and so he started putting out ads
in the recycler to try to put a band together.
And as it turned out, a couple of guys that
had heard about the ads were these guys named Hugh
Tanner and James Hetfield, and so they met up and
James and Lars immediately hit it off. They both had
interest in the same types of music. That is how
the seed is planted.
Speaker 3: That's Ales born October twenty eighth, nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: So when they first start playing together, James is pretty
good at the guitar. He's not fantastic, but he's pretty good.
He described Lars as pretty bad, okay, pretty not good,
pretty not very good. But what had Lars had going
from him was he knew this guy named Brian Slagel
of metal Blade Records, and he was going to put
together this compilation album of metal music called Metal Massacre. Right,
that's right, And so Lars not even having a band,
just because he knew the guy, said hey, I want
to put a track on this album, and Brian was like, okay, sure, well,
I just I need more people. Let's make that happen.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: That song that they gave to that metal compilation was
Hit the Lights.
Speaker 2: Okay, So they had a song, but they didn't have
a name yet. Do you know this? Okay, this is
a really cool story. This is kind of crazy. So
they they didn't know what their name was going to
be yet, and they had this Lars had this other
friend named ron Quintana, right, say what you will, man,
that guy can roll. Sorry different anyway, ron Quintana was
going to make a metal magazine, right, his his dream
was to have this magazine. So he's tossing around ideas
for names with Lars and he's like, I'm thinking either
metal Mania or Metallica, and Lar's ears perk up and
he's like, I really like that metal Mania name. You
should go with that, and so he did, and Lars
stole the name Metallica for the name of the band.
Speaker 3: That's hilarious, What a great story that is.
Speaker 2: They also when they would hand out their stuff, they
would call it power metal. This was before the term
thrash metal, right right play, and so they called it
power metal. Well, power metal was also something that he
had stolen from Ron Quintana. It was on his business card.
He's like, oh, power metal, I like that. I'm gonna
steal that one too. So that's how they got power metal,
and that's how they got their name.
Speaker 3: Did you know where the term thrash metal actually comes from?
Speaker 2: No? Tell me? Okay.
Speaker 3: So there's this Anthrax song called metal Thrashing mad.
Speaker 2: Yeap that Krang Magazine.
Speaker 3: Just thought that sna cool and they just said they
just grabbed that and said thrash metal.
Speaker 2: And there's really I mean, there's no question about what
the sound of thrash metal is versus other types of
heavy metal, right right, And Metallica becomes one of the
big four. You've got Megadeth, you take them all the manner,
You've got Anthrax, you've got Metallica, and you've got Slayer.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 2: By the way, it was the gym like two days ago.
And have you ever been there with the guy's like
lifting the weight really high and stomp at his feet
and then just throws it down and it's like this,
I'm like, God, why do you do this? And I
looked over it. He's got this huge Slayer tattoo on
his calf muscle, and I'm like, this guy's a true fan.
This guy's a hardcore fan that he's gonna tattoo Slayer
on his calf.
Speaker 3: That guy is really mad and loves the Satan. Don't
mess with him. Okay, before we go any further, d
is thrash metal your thing? Are you like a thrash
metal guy or what?
Speaker 2: Okay, so we are ultimately going to get into the
fact that this album different than the albums of the
priest right of Metallica. The answer is simply no, I'm
not a thrash meadow guy. I never got into it,
and I still I am not into it that much.
I can like, if you get thrash with some melody
in it, like we get on the Black album, right
and a little bit on Injustice for All. Yes, I'm
all in. I worked out to it today, love it,
but just this constant just it just sounds the same
to me. Over and over and so no, it's not
my thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we should go ahead and get that out
if you're listening to this. I was talking to our
buddy James Buckley this week and trading text.
Speaker 2: With him a little bit.
Speaker 3: We are fans of music, but we like def Leppard
and Michael Jackson and bon Jovi, and the Black Album
really resonated with us. But we're not hardcore Metallica people.
But we're in We're in this, We're enjoying it, we're
having fun with it.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you brought up James Buckley because I texted
him too. Hey, let's let's get a hold of the James.
What's going on? And he sent me this article out
of Modern Drummer from way back in the early nineties
where Lars Ulric has the cover and has a big interview,
and it's talking about the difference between what they had
done before the Black Album and what he did with
the Black Album, and it made a lot of sense.
He said, we had gone so far with this progressive metal,
where you've got the syncopated rhythms, you've got the change
in time signature, and it began to really center around
the drums, but he said, you know, he took it
this far, but when he's in concert, he just felt
himself being all in his head. He's like, Okay, I
got this time change coming up here, and I've got
this other thing that I'd be worried about here, and
he couldn't live and experience it because he was so
much in his head. Now, they had some songs that
weren't so technically difficult on the drums, and he found
himself able to relax and kind of live in the music.
And so he thought, well, we're either going to take
it further down the progressive road, which I don't think
I want to do, or we're going to go back
to basics and we're going to have something that has
soul and has more. I mean, it's simpler, but it's
something that you can put your soul in too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we'll talk about that as we go through
track by track. It's gonna be awesome. These songs are
different than what they're used to. I asked my friend
James Branscomb, Okay, a different guy, guy I go church with.
And I'm like, all right, listen, I'm not really fully
understanding the epicness of the early Metallica stuff. He's like, well,
you have to understand that every song is three songs
in one, right. It's super complicated, and it goes and
it weaves and it comes here and does this and
turns around and comes back.
Speaker 2: That's not the Black album at all.
Speaker 3: No, they get a hook and they pound it to
death and they rode that wave all the way at
the top.
Speaker 2: And I'll say this because you and I have talked
about this, and we talked about it when we were
talking about the grunge movement and rock and roll music
being about a revolution. Right. So Metallica made itself a
band without any mainstream help. Like they weren't having singles
played on the radio, they weren't on MTV. I mean
the first video they had on MTV was one that's
off their fourth album, It's Crazy, And yeah, they're playing
arenas by this point. So they've made their own name
without all of this help. And part of that is
that they're a revolution. They're a rebellion against the hair
metal bands that were happening at the time. And that's
what their fans loved was, Hey, we love these guys
and we know about them, and other people don't like.
That's kind of it's our secret. And so with the
Black album, when this thing becomes more mainstream, when they
become more mainstream, I can see, I can understand how
those guys were like, I've lost my band. I understand it.
I understand it.
Speaker 3: And I was thinking about this because I was talking
again with James Buckley. I'm like, you know what am
I not getting? Because this album is so great?
Speaker 2: Why are the.
Speaker 3: Hardcore metallic fans rejecting it? And he said, well, it's
kind of like Van Halen's nineteen eighty four. Yeah, their
garage band who had gone on mainstream with these awesome songs,
but they felt a little bit abandoned because now everybody
jumps in it's like, wow, I love Van Haleen, Wow
I love Metallica. And I was thinking to myself, I'm like,
you know what this has happened to me.
Speaker 2: Whenever I run into a twenty.
Speaker 3: Year old who tells me how great the Last Jedi is,
I want to freaking punch their lights out.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's that's hysterico.
Speaker 3: I'm just like, shut the bobs, did you get out
of here? We don't need to talk to you.
Speaker 2: At all. Okay, all right, well we've preached on that
soapbox I make a lot. Let's jump back into the history. Okay,
So Hit the Lights, the one that ended up on
Metal Massacre. James Hetfield played the bass and they had
this guy named Lloyd Grant play the guitar. And so
this was not the Metallica that we know now. This
was something completely different. So what they needed, because this
guy wasn't here to stay, they needed another lead guitarist.
They put another ad out on the Recycler and one
of the guys that responded to that ad was a
guy named Dave Mustain.
Speaker 3: Dave Mustaine, who later creates one of the Big Four
that you mentioned. He's the head guy for Megadeth.
Speaker 2: He replied to their ad and they're like, Wow, he's
got some really expensive equipment. Let's get him. Yeah, let's
get him. And as it turns out, he could also
shred on the guitar.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The problem was he could also shred on the alcohol bottle. Yeah.
And he even said it himself. He's like, there's two
types of drunks. There's the drunks that get silly and
the drunks that get violent and I'm the one that
gets violent and they're the ones that get silly, and
that's not a good mix. It's not a good mix.
But he's not. It's not been a good relationship. But
before I'm geting ahead of myself, I'm getting out off,
all right. So they get Dave Mustain. They have the
old bassis from Leather Charm named Ron McGovney, but they're
not feeling like he's the right fit for the band.
So with this guy not really cutting it, they're trying
to find another bass player and they end up going
to the Whiskey Goog in West Hollywood and there is
a San fran Francisco band named Trauma playing, And as
they walk in, they see this guy shredding a guitar
solo and they're like, wow, this is the used guitars
alto I've ever heard. And they're like, wait a minute,
that guitar only has four strings. Wait a minute, that's
not a guitar, that's a bass. Holy crap, this guy
is playing a bass solo and he is killing it.
We got to talk to this guy. That guy's name
is Cliff Burton, Yeah, And so they go they talk
to Cliff. They say, hey, we want you in our band.
He liked them. They were already party kids at like
nineteen years old, right, and so he's like, Okay, I'm
interested in being the band, but I'm not moving to LA.
You guys have to come up to the Bay Area.
And they said, we hate LA. That sounds great. So
that's so interesting.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about that for a second ahead. So in
LA you've got the upcoming glam scene. I mean you've
got You've got Motley Crewe. Of course, that gives birth
the Poisons and the Guns N' Roses and Doc the
World right, Great White. All these bands are birthed out
of the LA scene. But Metallica just didn't really fit
that mold.
Speaker 2: These were guys instead of being in black leather and spandex,
Metallica's wearing their T shirts and jeans. They still had
the long hair, but there was no hairspray. They had
facial hair, they didn't have makeup. This is the revolution
that I.
Speaker 4: Was talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm not dressing up and having fake blood
and doing weird things with you know, whips, and.
Speaker 2: What's weird is more girls would go to the concerts
where the guys look like girls. Than the guys look
like guys Metallica. I mean, I love them, but they're
not handsome men.
Speaker 3: They're not good looking guys. That's right, that's okay, that's okay.
Speaker 2: So one of the guys that comes across it is
this guy named Jonathan Suzzula, but we knew him better
as Johnny zy Z, and Johnny Z says, guys, I
love what you're doing. I am going to go to
New York City for you and I'm going to broker
a deal with you and one of the record companies.
They're like, great, that sounds great. So he goes out
there and gets turned down flat by every record company
New York City. So what he does and stead is
he finances it himself. Says, I'm gonna spend fifteen thousand dollars.
You guys are going to come out here. I'm going
to have my own record label, and we're going to
record a record on that record label called Mega Force Records,
Mega Force, Mega Force. I don't think it has anything
to do with Lee Marvin or.
Speaker 3: One of the great movies in nineteen eighty two. So
when they moved to New York, they moved into a
luxurious condo that they said today would be called a
crack house, and they slipt on floors like on U
haul blankets and stuff like that, and they said, if
it was a great day, you had McDonald's most of
the time, they said, maloney on hand.
Speaker 2: They called it loser's lunch, right right lunch because you
can't afford sixty nine cents for bread. You don't have
three quota. So the album that they're planning to record
is going to be called Metal Up Your Ass, right,
And the first thing that they tell Johnny Z when
they get there is, hey, thank you for the all
expense paid bus ride over here. By the way, We're
going to fire our guitar player. Yeah, like tomorrow, And
he's like, what the heck? So I'm not really sure.
I'm not sure how that in that day and age
in the early eighties, the information traveled and was able
to happen so quickly. But basically they were done with
Dave mustain right, So they wait, you know, let him
get drunk and pass out. They go and buy him
a bus ticket home and then shake him awake and like, hey, dude,
you got to leave. Your bus is leaving in like
ten minutes He's like, what you like, you're not in
the band anymore. Here's your ticket, get out the door,
and like, no second chance, no conversation, get out, and
that's he leaves. And at seven pm that night, Kurt
Hammett rips, it's incredible, it's crazy, he says. He gets
there at seven of the evening and these guys are
just waking back up. He's like, these are my guys,
these are my guys. So Kurk Hammett was with a
band called Exodus, and he could shred. He could shred
at the time, he can still shred today, phenomenal guitar player.
And basically he just kept on going with him through
the recording. They would play live shows together. He then
became the guy that would break up the fistfights that
would happen between Lars and James, which instead of happened
quite a bit, it'd be like somebody threw a punch
and somebody's tackling somebody else, and I was the guy
that was tasked with stopping all of that. Mustaane goes
home bitter and jaded. He still like calls ham At
a rip off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's really mad at him. He feels like he
stole his job. I mean, well, still his job. That
guy has my job and his lips too.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah. He thinks that he took songs that
you know, guitar leads that he had done for songs
that they had recorded demos for and just stole them.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One of the metal magazines named Kirk Hammett Guitar
Player of the Year. Yeah, and Davis says, like he's
playing myself right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was interviewing with that magazine and he's like,
and you guys made him Uitar Player of the year.
Speaker 3: Now here's the thing. We'll get into this later. But
Dave Mustain can't say the word Metallica. He can't look
at these guys. It's certainly not friends with them. He
can't even listen to their music and tell the Black
Album and he's got something very interesting to say about
one of the songs on the Black Album.
Speaker 2: Can't wait to hear that, okay, little teaser? Yeah, stick
around all right. So they record their first album. It's
got a picture of a hand with a dagger coming
out of a toilet and it's called Metal Up Your Ass.
And the record company says, could we do something else?
I can't really sell that at Walmart guys. Once again,
I mean, why don't you just ask us to put
a naked baby on the front of the album chasing
a dollar bill on a hook? Hey, exactly. So they
changed the name to Kill Them All, Kill Them All,
Kill Them All, released July twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three.
Not a big commercial success initially, of course, right. It
has definitely sold a lot since then, right, Yeah, But
at the time it led to them becoming a big
fan based, underground metal powerhouse. Sure, they start touring after
that one, they eventually record the next one. And I'm
gonna run through these because my hope is that someday
we will dive into the thrash metal portion of metallogys life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd love to get into some of these, like
Ride the Lightning and Master Puppets.
Speaker 2: Master Puppets is an amazing album, and I think that
we need I mean I think that and Justice for
All is a transition album and we can talk about that,
but we can't. We don't have enough time to do that, right,
We're going to just roll through these, roll through these all, right.
So number two is Ride the Lightning came out in
August of.
Speaker 5: Eighty four, We're getting you know got July eighty three,
August of eighty four.
Speaker 2: That one actually hit number one hundred on the top
two hundred albums that year.
Speaker 3: Hey, summer of eighty four, go back and listen. There
are Bruce Springsteen and Huey Lewis episodes. It's funny to
think that during that poppy summer of Thriller and Madonna
and Bruce Springsteen you had Metallica's Ride the Lightning come up,
which shows that their fan base has to be huge,
right if there's again, there's no singles out there, not
on MTV, they're not any of that stuff.
Speaker 2: But they're still hitting number one hundred. That's impressive. So
here's an interesting thing on Ride the Lightning. Not many
deep cuts in this, but here's one. Okay in France
that accidentally printed it green means have their collector's items. Now,
oh that is so cool. So if you are, if
you're a fan and you have one of the green
printed France Ride the Lightning albums, please send us a picture.
We will post it on age. That would be awesome,
It would be sweet.
Speaker 3: It's called Ride Ze Lightning, not Germany.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Doctor.
Speaker 2: Okay. After Ride the Lightning That was August of eighty four,
after its release. The next month, September of eighty four,
these guys named Michael Alago and Cliff Bernstein go to
a concert and they see them and they say, we
want to sign you to Electra Records. Yeah, and we
also want to sign you to our management company called
Q Prime, And so they that becomes the new record
company and new management of Metallica. So they start touring Europe.
They're playing to bigger and bigger houses, about thirteen hundred
people per show, which I mean, that's if you've ever
played a concert at all, a few hundred people's a
lot over one thousand people's. That's in a shocking change.
Speaker 3: Thirteen hundred wetty metal head stompers.
Speaker 2: Ugly guys, ugly guy, and about five girls, That's right.
So they go back to the US. They start touring,
co headlining with a band that we mentioned on our
Terminator episode. You know this, Dons and Roses is the
only one I can think of. Wasp. Wasp Okay, yeah,
because remember Mikie Lewis was supposed to be the one
thousand Yes, So at that time they were touring with Wasp,
and then something very special happens the Monsters of Rock
Festival in England. This happens in August of eighty five,
and instead of playing thirteen hundred people, they're playing to
seventy thousand people. Seventy thousand, seventy thousand people. And then
not too long on for that, they do the day
on the Green Festival and they played a sixty thousand people,
So suddenly they've been exposed to a whole lot more folks.
So then they record album number three, Master of Puppets,
which a lot of folks consider like like a perfect
album album, right, Yeah, the best album that came out
in March of nineteen eighty six. It reached number twenty
nine on the album two hundred Albums chart on Billboard,
spent seventy two weeks on that chart. They only had
one single come off of that album, Master of Puppets,
But that's what led to the Ozzy Osbourne tour.
Speaker 3: That's interesting because at this point in my life I
started seeing guys in my school wearing Metallica T shirt.
Now these are still the guys that you know go
across the street at lunchtime to smoke you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, right, and the kind of the rougher edged people.
But it's slowly.
Speaker 3: Moving into people becoming familiar with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And it moves from people being familiar with
them to their playing the Colisseum opening for Ozzy Osbourne
and people won't stop chanting their name, like they can't
get off the stage because the entire coliseums and we're like, wait,
isn't this the Ozzy Osbourne tour?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ozzie said it was very hard to follow them
a lot of nights.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't. I mean, Ozzie was what we were here?
Who are we here to see?
Speaker 3: And it's interesting we talk about Ozzy. Ozzy was sort
of fat and bloated, coked out Ozzie at this point.
True No More Tears comes out. That's his comeback album
after he sobers up. Right, It comes out Fall of
ninety one as well, so you have that in there
as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So during that time, James Hetfield broke his wrist
skateboarding and as you do when you're twenty two, right,
And so they had this guy who was Kirk Hammett's
guitar tech sub inform. Guy's name is John Marshall, a
little bit of true life foreshadowing for something that's going
to come up later on Yep. By the way, John
Marshall from the band Metal Church six foot seven, Big guy,
six foot seven, Wow. But it pays to know if
you're going to be a roadie, if you're going to
be guitar tech with a band, it pays to know
their music because you might end up on stage for them.
And this is the part that'll be hard to talk about.
September twenty seventh, nineteen eighty six, they're on their Damage
Ink tour, going from Sweden to Denmark, or Denmark to Sweden.
They drew cards to pick bunks, and Cliff won and
picked Kirk's bunk. Cliff and Lars were the last two
to go to sleep. Lars went up front, went to
sleep before Cliff, and that was the last time anybody dies.
Speaker 3: I heard Kirk recalling this story, and you're right. They
drew cards out of a deck and the first card selected,
Cliff got the Ace of Spades and that's the card
of death.
Speaker 2: It's also the highest card in the deck.
Speaker 3: Now, as soon as he drew that Ace of Spade,
he's like, I want your bunk, pointing to Kirk. Kirk's like, fine,
that's why I just take it whatever.
Speaker 2: So Kirk could have easily fit in that spot. It's
kind of like the way engineing story. Yeah, so just
before sunrise, the driver lost control of the bus for
some unknown reason.
Speaker 3: He says black ice, right, He said he walked like
a mile back in his underwear looking for black ice
and couldn't find it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So, after the crash happened, you know, they they're disoriented,
they all are freaking out. They've James kicks out the
back glass. They're all out, They're all like screaming, and
then suddenly they realize they don't get close to us. Yeah,
is that at that point that they look and they
see his legs coming out from underneath the bottom of
the bus. It's really interesting, you know, Cliff he had
done a bunch of other kinds of music. He had
done southern rock, he had done jazz, He had done
some classical stuff as well. He was really a very
musically deep guy, which is kind of weird to think
of the bass player for a heavy metal band being
the deep music guy. But I remember reading an article
that like just that the interview came out just before
this all happened, and he was talking about how much
he left the Police album, the Synchronicity album.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: Musicians love music, and so they don't necessarily confine them
so sure listening wise to one set of music. But
it's just neat to know that the bass player for
Metallica had a deep appreciation for what was going on
with a very new wave sound. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Tragically, he died that day in nineteen eighty six, and
the band question in the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they checked with his family. They said, Cliff
would want you to keep on going. They're like, you're
absolutely right, that's exactly what he would want, And so
they started auditioning for a new bass player. Among the
guys that auditioned was a childhood friend of Kirk's named
Less Claypool. Less Claypool who Will. You might not know
the name, but if you heard his bass from the
group Primus, it's unmistakable.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they listened to him and they're like, ah, you're
too good for us. Good luck in your future endeavors. Yeah. Yeah.
They had another guy, Troy Gregory, who had been with Prong,
and they had this kid named Jason Newstead who was
a super fan and had previously belonged to this group
called Floatsome and Jetsam. He learned their entire set list
before he went to audition. Good for him, and it
got him the job.
Speaker 3: That's that's why you show up ready people for your
job interview.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so they at the urinal decided, yeah, this
is the guy that they want as they're eating at
the restaurant or wherever. So they go out and they're like, sorry,
you didn't get it. It's like they're like, we're just kidding.
You got it. And he starts doing backflips off the table,
like dude, you get a chill, And at that point
the hazing began. Yeah, they hazed the crap out of it.
They said. They told him, I can't remember like it was.
They told him that some it was. It was a wasabi.
It was a ball of wasabi sabi. Oh yeah, I
try that. It's like putting or something. It's delicious, it said,
hea'ts an entire spoonful of wasabi? A yeah, he was.
I think they took out a lot of frustration on him,
and that's kind of unfortunate.
Speaker 3: Well, they didn't want him to feel like he was
just won the lottery. And walked into this band who
was mega successful, and hey, guys, here I am. I'm
just gonna start my millions with you all. So they
want him to earn his spot. Yeah, and maybe they're
a little.
Speaker 2: Tough on Yeah. So they were supposed to appear on
Saturday Night Live in nineteen eighty seven, but Hatfield was
skateboarding again and broke his wrists again. What and so
they had to cancel. They would have I'm wondering what
would have happened had they appeared on Saturday Night Live
in eighty seven, now that they weren't already doing really
well at that point, but it wasn't the mind blowing
thing that it was once the next album came out. Interesting,
I did not know that. Yeah, in August of eighty seven.
You know, they've kind of been having an album come
out every year. August of eighty seven they had an
EP come out and it's all covers and it was
called the five dollars ninety eight cent EP. Garage Days
re revisit it. Then they do a video that's called
Cliff a Mall and it's a tribute to Cliff as
his bass solos, as home videos and photographs. I haven't
seen it, but I'd really like to check that one out.
It's interesting. I'm going to tell this person story. You know,
my mom passed away in eighty eight and I went
out to see my aunt and my cousins who I've
spoken about before, the ones that I went into the
Vacation Trading Places Risky business movie with, and they lived
in Castra Valley, which is just outside of San Francisco. Right.
I can remember talking to my cousins who were also musicians,
and then Metallica came up. I don't know how or why,
but it came up, and they're like, oh, yeah, we
knew Cliff. He was a really, you know, amazing guy.
And I was like, I don't really know who it was,
so didn't mean much to me at the time, and
maybe there was like he died, and I'm like, okay,
later on I remember that conversation, but I also know
my cousins and I'm like, okay, maybe they're a little
full of it. Right right, Well, when I was looking
at Cliff Burton, he went to Castra Valley High School,
like he literally like he was four years different in age,
and these guys they actually probably knew it all right,
and then we have and Justice for All fourth album
September nineteen eighty eight, reaches number six on the two
hundred Albums charts, went platinum in nine weeks. This is
kind of where I entered the scene. Absolutely where I
entered the well when the video for one comes out, right,
that's where I entered the scene. Like you said, the
thrash metal to me, it was all in the same
category of Megadeath, iron Maid, and Anthrax. All of those
guys were not people I was interested in listening to.
But I was an MTV devote me too, and when
one came out, that video was mesmerizing. That song was incredible.
I still it's my It is my favorite Metallica song
of all albums and all songs. Okay, definitely, definitely. And
I I passed the song to my eighteen year old daughter.
I think she was probably seventeen or sixteen when I
had her listen to it for the first time. But
she's like, I want to learn how to play the drums.
And I said, if you want to learn how to
play the drums, I need you to listen to the song.
And so I played it for and she like it
became her I'm playing this every single time we're in
the car song. Wow, it's amazing that double kick drum.
Yeah it's tough.
Speaker 3: Yes, but you're right that that video was super interesting
because I had some movie clips from Johnny Get Your Gun,
and yeah, it was sad and like, oh my gosh,
this guy's trapped in his body and he can't talk
and he can't communicate and it's all in his head.
Speaker 2: And so normally in this situation the band would license
the rights to use the movie in their video. They
bought the rights. They bought the rights to the entire film.
So I think now if you ever, you know, if
you catch it on TV, Metallics getting a cut of
that because they bought the rights to the movie. That
is cool. Yeah. So they start doing the Damage Justice tour,
and then they get nominated for a Grammy New category.
Yeah hard rock. Okay, this is interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the Grammys at this time, they're just kind
of recognizing hard rock, and it's like the people who
are in charge don't even.
Speaker 2: Really know what they're doing. Obviously, well we're going to
talk about this.
Speaker 3: But Metallica was nominated and they were the favorite. Yeah,
and they performed, they play were formed one killed It.
They're off stage prepared to receive this award, and the
Grammy goes.
Speaker 2: To Jell What what, I'm sorry, did you say the
nineteen seventies hard rock at the fluid guy? What? Yeah,
don't even wrong. I love Jethrow Toll, but not in
nineteen eighty eight. What It makes no sense? Yes, no sense.
Not only did it not make sense to us, but
it also didn't make sense to Jethro Tull's manager, who said, guys,
don't worry about coming, just stay home. Metallica is gonna win, right, Yeah,
Jethrow Toll wasn't even there because they were sure that
Metallica was going to win. This yeah, referred to as
one of the biggest upsets in Grammy history. I'm sure
they'd like to do that over. Yeah. Could you just imagine,
I mean, just imagine that you're one of the members
of Metallica, You've just done this killer set, You're standing
just off stage, ready to burst out, and the winner
is Jethro Tall. It's like all the air comes out
of your boxy.
Speaker 3: This is like in nineteen eighty four if Michael Jackson's
standing off stage and they're like Okay, the album of
the Year is Donnie and Marie Osmond.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that taste. And another thing that happened, which
was the release of an album that we covered last
year called Doctor feel Good by one of those hair
bands that Metallica hated yep spawned a me.
Speaker 3: It did because they weren't fans of Motley Crue, but
that album sounded great in their ears, and they're like,
who is the guy who produced that album?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Now, the guy, mister Bob Rock, who we've talked
about before. He had been an engineer on the bon
Jovie albums. He had produced Doctor feel Good and Aerosmith,
and he had come from this little band called kolis
Kalis Yes, who had a hit called Eyes of a Stranger,
which was on the Balley Girls soundtrack. All right, it
won the Juno Award for Single of the Year. What Yeah.
But his career in music was not to be one
on the stage. He wanted to be producing, and so
he went to a listen Metallic a live and he said, guys,
glad you called. You are not capturing what you sound
like live on your albums, and you need to because
it's incredible and I can do that for you. Yeah,
how do you not say yesterday?
Speaker 3: I know Lars at the time was a little taken aback.
He's like, uh uh, who are you?
Speaker 2: You're talking to me? What? Yeah? But he was right.
Speaker 3: The sound of the Black Album is one of the
things that sets it apart.
Speaker 2: Dude. The lucky thing of wandering in stores as a
dad is that you wander by those five dollars CD creates, right,
And I'm like, was that the Black op? Holy crap,
that's Blood Sugar Sex Magic. I'm like, oh, this is
rage against the machine.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, what, these are really five dollars the
bargain ben.
Speaker 2: So I bought all of these CDs and so when
we're covering this, I usually don't pull out a CD
to listen to, but this time I got to. And
I know that music is supposed to be the same
in all digital formats, but I'm just going to tell
you listeners, go listen to your CDs again, because when
I plug that CD into my car and listened to Boom,
I was like, Holy crap, this is so much better
than what I'm listening to off of my phone. What
is going on here? Yeah, it's a better sound.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, And people have gotten used to listening out
of their crappy little device. Yeah, it makes a difference
with a good pair of speakers, a good set of headphones,
and you laying on your back on the middle of
the floor with the seating jacket open.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, before we go anywhere, I want to do a
couple of things. So this is such an epic project,
you know, the Black album means a lot to people.
Usually Lusion one and two were certainly such big, massive,
eventful albums in ninety one that we reached out to
a couple of people and asked for their thoughts. So
our buddy John Reid from the thirty something Movie podcast,
good friend of ours. He also co hosts the podcast
Full of Kryptonite, which we do with him together. Go
check that out, by the way, podcast Full of Kryptonite, it's.
Speaker 2: All thanks Superman. Gotta love it. Go check that out. Subscribe.
Speaker 3: But I just I talked to him. I know he's
a huge Guns and Roses, a Metallica fan, and I
just asked for his thoughts and here's what he.
Speaker 1: Said, Dan Jason, it's your good buddy, John Reid, the
host of the thirty something Movie podcast and co host
of the absolutely amazing podcast Full of Kryptonite that I
co host with two of my very best super friends,
which just happened to be you guys. Just want to
say I've been loving your shows lately, Terminator, Aliens, Now
Metallica and GNR. You guys are hitting up all of
my favorites, all of my adolescent formative years, movies and
music and all kinds of stuff. So it's just been
so much fun to listen to you guys, and you
guys are as always knocking it out of the park.
I just wanted to call in real quick and just
drop a line and just say GNR, Metallica. I mean,
that was big for me. Those are probably my two
biggest bands that I was into as a kid. Actually
had an opportunity to go see Guns and Roses in
Paris in June of ninety two. I had some friends
I was living overseas at the time in England, had
some friends that were going. I mean we were only
eleven twelve years old at the time, but their parents
were taking them, and my mom found out and they
actually invited me to go with them. The parents were
going to take me, and my mom found out and
said no, I'm not. My eleven year old child is
not going to go see Guns and Roses in another country,
So I did not get the chance to go see
that one, which then, ironically that was right before you
had the tour that started up that was Metallica and
Guns and Roses together, so which we kind of know
how that thing all ended up. But yeah, no, I
loved Guns and Roses. My first exposure was Use Your
Illusion Volume two, which I had one of my buddies,
Like I said, he made a bootleg copy for me,
and I kept that hidden in my jacket pocket so
that my parents would not find it. And then it
was a pretty long stretch of time until I finally
got Use Your Illusion Volume one. Next few years, we
moved back to the States and I was a moody,
angsty teen and Use Your Illusion Volume one was the
perfect album for that time period in my life. Volume two,
I'd say, Yesterday's Get in the Ring any Angsty preteen
or teen is an awesome song just because anybody who's
heard it knows exactly why. And then you could be mine,
you know, knowing I was a big Terminator fan that
that one was from that movie, and I was able
to hear it there and just a great song. Volume one.
I think Double Talkin' Jive, Garden of Eden, and Coma.
They were the much darker songs and I think those
are the ones that I really liked from that album.
Then on into high school, I was into Got some Friends,
then got me into Metallica, and so in Metallica. On
the Black Album, I'd say Sad but True, Wherever I
May Roam and The Unforgiven are probably three of my
favorites off of that, and Metallica kind of carried me
through high school. I kind of switched a little bit
from Guns N' Roses to Metallica, So i'd have to say, now,
if I had to look back on them, which one
is the best? I think I'm probably going to go
Use Your Illusion Volume two. I still enjoy Metallica, but
I've swung back to listening to Guns and Roses a
little bit more often, and I think it's probably more
my all time favorite. If I had to choose, if
anybody was asking my opinion, I would say Guns N' Roses,
Use Your Illusion Volume two is the best out of
those three. All right, guys, good luck on the rest
of your recordings, and thank you so much, and thank
you for all you guys do to just continue to
entertain and inform us and just all the great shows
you guys are putting out. We'll see you later for
some more Superman episodes too.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's interesting. We'll see whether we agree with John
or not at the end. I guess John's a great dude.
He's got a great show.
Speaker 3: At the Thirty Cents of Movie podcast, they go all
through their movies that are thirty years old, so they're
going through ninety one right now.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, these albums are coming out right at the
same time that the movies that they're discussing are coming
out as well. Thanks Jean, appreciate you, buddy. Okay, guys,
if you've listened this far, please if you haven't yet,
hit that follow button, hit that subscribe button, whatever podcast
app you're using to listen to us, make sure that
you hit that so that when our episodes come out,
they automatically come to your phone and you don't miss
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and go follow us on Facebook and on Twitter. We
are having a heck of the time. Okay, guys, if
you would like to be an executive producer of a podcast,
we have a very easy and inexpensive way to make
that happen. Go over to our Patreon page. You go
to Patreon, you search Shirley Podcast. We will pop up
and for as little as five bucks a month, you
can become an executive producer. Beyond that, there are prizes
and wonderful gifts. Beyond your imagination, there's some pretty cool
stuff that we send out. Yeah, but it's a secret.
We're not going to tell you what it is. We will.
You will just have to wait and see what I
promise it's worth. It could tell by never mind.
Speaker 3: Never mind, We're not talking about that this week. Thank
you to all of our patreons. We really really appreciate
your particular support. We really could not do this without
you guys. Thank you.
Speaker 2: So I think that means it's time for us to
plug in our CD. Here we go, why track? Wait? Sorry,
next week? Next week? Stupid record player ever