Metallica: Enter Night (33 page)

Dome goes on to suggest that Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo was being lined up. ‘Dave Lombardo was definitely mentioned at one point as the guy they wanted in,’ says Dome. ‘I don’t actually recall any other names but Dave was definitely on that list and with good reason.’ An astonishingly innovative drummer, technically light years ahead of a player of Ulrich’s limited scope, it’s easy to see how Burton and Hetfield – already masters of their own instruments – would have been excited at the prospect of working with someone like Lombardo. Indeed, his work on
Reign in Blood
, released that year, had thrilled both men. Intriguingly, Lombardo was also about to walk out of Slayer, citing financial reasons. ‘I wasn’t making any money,’ he said, ‘I figured if we were gonna be doing this professionally, on a major label, I wanted my rent and utilities paid.’ Within weeks, however, the broke drummer had been talked into returning by his wife, Teresa. Had Metallica approached him then it seems highly likely he would have jumped at the chance. Might his defection from Slayer even have been influenced by some whisper of what was allegedly going on behind the scenes in Metallica? Certainly there appears to be little doubt James and Cliff did discuss the notion of getting in a better drummer, just as James and Lars had once discussed getting in a better bass player. As the rhythm engine of the band, Burton and Hetfield would also have been the ones who most acutely felt the drag Ulrich’s lack of wide-ranging drum skills imposed upon them. How seriously they entertained the idea of actually replacing Lars, however, is something only James Hetfield knows. It might have just been one of those drunk and stoned late-night rambles lots of band members have, bitching about each other behind their backs. Or perhaps they really were serious. It seems unlikely that Lars would already have patented the name ‘Metallica’ at that stage, and even if he had it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that both James and Cliff were still young and idealistic enough to play around with the notion of starting again with a newly named outfit – maybe one that included Dave Lombardo and possibly even Kirk Hammett, Cliff’s other close friend in Metallica.

Any such notions died with Cliff, though. Getting over the loss of Cliff was going to be hard enough, starting again with a new drummer as well would be simply unthinkable. Indeed, now that he was gone the relationship between James and Lars began to reassert itself. ‘After Cliff died, James and Lars got really close again,’ says Schneider. It had always been their band, their songs, but now they really did take control seriously for the first time since the days when there was just the two of them rehearsing in Ron McGovney’s garage. Malcolm Dome recalls going out with Lars in London one night not long after when the drummer became very emotional over a few drinks and began earnestly extolling the talents of his singer. ‘Lars got very drunk and went into this huge defence of how brilliant James was,’ says Malcolm. ‘How he never gets the credit for how great a guitarist he is. It sounded like they really had bonded through the grief of losing Cliff. And I think that bond overturned any thoughts in James’ mind about, well, maybe we should actually replace Lars as well and get a new rhythm section altogether.’

That wasn’t all. Cliff’s death threw all the remaining members’ hopes for the future into sharp relief. It didn’t just draw Lars and James closer together, it focused their minds like never before on what it was they really wanted out of Metallica. Cliff’s very presence had always meant the lines between musical integrity and career ambition were fuzzily drawn, hazy and disguised in wreaths of weed smoke. It was easy to see how ambitious Lars was; it was always assumed Cliff had nobler aims, which he ostensibly did, in terms of not bowing to fashion or commercial pressure. Cliff was just as keen on making the band a significant success, though. Lars had always been the brains, James the brawn. But they were young and innocent enough still to incorporate Cliff’s longer-term views into the cause, or at least pay lip-service to them. They were all comfortable with the idea of selling millions of records, yes, but only on
their
terms. Certainly they never saw themselves as competing on the same terms as the likes of Bon Jovi and Whitesnake, groups that released four or five singles per album and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on state-of-the-art videos. Metallica’s blood was purer, truer; they belonged to a proud tradition that stretched back through Iron Maiden and Motörhead, to ZZ Top (before the cutesy videos) and Lynyrd Skynyrd; all the way back to Zeppelin and Sabbath; groups that didn’t kiss ass or kowtow to the Man.

Now, with Cliff gone, those values would become steadily eroded. They still talked of not selling out and only doing things their way, but the reality was that their way, without Cliff, quickly narrowed down to the laws of the jungle and the rule of tooth and claw, where only the strongest and fittest survived. Where the only voices that count are the ones the business itself takes seriously. In that respect, Metallica with Cliff had started with a disadvantage. There were always caveats about what they would and would not do; always special pleading to be judged not as others were but on their own singular terms. Now, without Cliff’s sardonic voice to offer an alternative view, Lars and James were able to get down to the real nitty-gritty. In many ways it would be the making of them – a bold new pragmatism that ensured Metallica would not just survive but continue to prosper with ever-increasing abundance, no matter what.

Auditions for Cliff’s replacement began straight after his funeral, in special rooms set up at Hayward, their usual rehearsal space. ‘They really tried to do it so it wasn’t awkward for anybody,’ says Bobby Schneider. ‘Guys would come in, wait in a room then come into the main rehearsal room and play.’ Among the cattle call of nearly sixty people who showed up – including one kid who brought a pal just to stand by the door taping it; another who didn’t even get to plug in, shown the door by James as soon as he saw the Quiet Riot autograph on his bass – were some notable applicants, such as Les Claypool of Primus, Lääz Rockit’s Willy Lange, Watchtower bassist Doug Keyser, Troy Gregory of Prong…

One bassist who actually turned them down was Joey Vera of Armored Saint: ‘I got a call from Lars asking me to come up and jam with them, because they were becoming very disillusioned. They wanted to play with some people that they knew and were familiar with. I was very honoured that he called me [but] I had to say, “Well, let me think about this overnight.” And I had to come to this conclusion that…if I go up there and play with them, I have to go up with the intention that I’m gonna be that person [and] I’m gonna quit my band.’ In the end, Joey simply decided that, ‘I wasn’t ready to bail on Armored Saint, who were still signed to Chrysalis. As a matter of fact we were in the middle of recording our third record with them. So it wasn’t a situation I was ready to take as an opportunity for me to move on.’

Lars took it well, he says. ‘He was very cool with it. I think he respected my decision at the time. He probably thought I was crazy later. But at the time, he just wanted to reach out to people he knew personally to come up and jam and take the load off of this cattle call. It must have been
horrible
, I can’t imagine it…I knew that him and I also had a kinship with a lot of other things. And it’s like, I wanted to help my friend out…I almost wanted to go up just to give them a fuckin’ hug. But I had to say, it was a time in my life where I wasn’t ready for that change.’ He adds with a sigh, ‘Of course, I get asked this question now by people that are much younger, and they have this look in their eyes, like “Are you fuckin’ crazy?” The question is always: do you regret it? And my answer is always: no, because I’ve had a wonderful life since then.’

Then, on the afternoon of Tuesday, 28 October – exactly three weeks to the day since Cliff’s funeral – Metallica found what they thought they were looking for when a twenty-three-year-old former farm boy from Michigan named Jason Newsted walked through the door at Hayward and plugged in his bass. ‘Jason had the spirit,’ says Bobby Schneider. ‘Jason could eat, shit and sleep Metallica. It was Jason’s dream.’ Bobby recalls picking up the wide-eyed hopeful from the airport and Jason realising halfway through the drive that he’d left his bass amp at the luggage collection. Going back to pick it up made Jason late for his audition, which made him only more nervous. ‘The kid must have had balls of steel, though,’ says Bobby, because as soon as he started playing, ‘I think they knew he was the one.’

It had been Brian Slagel – the very same guy who had first turned them onto Cliff – who first mentioned Jason to Lars. Just as with Trauma, the first release from Jason’s current band, Flotsam and Jetsam, had been a track on one of Slagel’s ongoing
Metal Massacre
compilations (
MM VII
in 1984). They had followed that with an album for Metal Blade,
Doomsday for the Deceiver
, released in July 1986, which
Kerrang!
had over-excitedly awarded six out of a maximum five stars to. ‘Lars said, “Okay, cool, send me some stuff,”’ Slagel recalls. He also spoke to Jason: ‘I don’t want to get you too excited [but] what would you think about possibly auditioning for the Metallica gig?’ Jason immediately began freaking out. ‘Are you kidding me? They’re like my favourite band of all time!’ A perfectionist by nature, Newsted had spent every waking moment since Slagel’s call learning the entire Metallica back catalogue. Friends clubbed together to help him pay for the $140 plane ticket to San Francisco. When James asked him which song he’d like to play, he answered: ‘Any one you like, I know them all.’

At that point there were three names on the mental shortlist: Mike Dean of Corrosion of Conformity, Willy Lange of Lääz Rockit and Kirk’s boyhood friend Les Claypool of Primus. Within minutes of Jason playing, his name was also added. Said Lars at the time, ‘We wanted to spend a whole day with each of the four because, for us, it’s about more than whether he can play a song well. The whole vibe and attitude of the person, how we would get on with him, the friendship, was just as important.’ Jason was second of the four. ‘We played all day and then went out for a meal. And then we went for the big test, which was obviously the drink test.’ For this, the band took Jason to one of their favourite local bars, Tommy’s Joint. ‘Somehow,’ said Lars, ‘and I swear it wasn’t planned, me and Kirk and James ended up in the toilet together, pissing. So we’re standing there at three in the morning, out of our faces, all of us in a line and not saying anything, and I just said without looking at anybody, “That’s him, right?” And the other guys said, “Yeah, that’s him.”’ The only one not completely drunk was Newsted himself, whose nerves were keeping him sober. He later recalled, ‘They all came back and sat down and Lars said, “So, do you want a job?” And I go, “No!” at the top of my voice. People were looking at us and thinking, “What the fuck?”’

Jason Curtis Newsted was born on 4 March 1963, in Battle Creek, Michigan. Growing up on the family’s horse farm, his parents bought him his first bass guitar for his fourteenth birthday. Like practically every other American boy of his generation, Jason grew up as a Kiss fan, basing his first school band, Diamond, on their songs. His second band, Gangster, had barely begun practising when the Newsted family moved from Michigan to Phoenix, Arizona. Flotsam and Jetsam, which he joined in 1982, were heavily influenced by Metallica and were the first self-styled thrash metal band in Phoenix, down to encoring with a version of Metallica’s ‘Whiplash’ – which Jason would sing. But then he was always more than just the bass player in the group. He was the organiser, the leader, the one who wrote the lyrics and took care of the day-to-day business; the one with the energy and ambition; the Lars and James of the group all rolled into one.

The only time Newsted had seen Metallica play before he joined them had been in Phoenix on the W.A.S.P. tour two and a half years before, standing there in his Metallica T-shirt, eyes fixed the whole night on Cliff. When a friend had phoned him at six in the morning to tell him that Metallica’s bassist had died in an accident, Jason couldn’t believe it. It was only after he’d read it in the paper that it really hit him. ‘I remember tears hitting the paper and watching them soak into the print,’ he later famously recalled. As a mark of respect, all of Flotsam wore black armbands at their next gig.

Jason Newsted never had the pleasure of actually meeting Cliff Burton. When it became known he’d got the job in Metallica, Cliff’s family made a point of wishing him luck. ‘They were the first ones to embrace me. His parents, especially. They came down to meet me the very day I joined Metallica. His mother held on to me for a while and didn’t let go. She said in my ear, “You must be the one because these guys know what they’re doing,” and wished me luck. Very warm, wonderful people.’

Understandably perhaps, his former bandmates in Flotsam did not share in his joy. ‘There was a lot of animosity. But as time went by, they accepted it. Who wouldn’t have tried out for Metallica? My heroes became my peers.’ He did, however, agree to go back and play one final show with them, on Halloween. Ironically, he said, ‘It was probably the best show I ever had with them because I didn’t have the pressure of the business shit going on. This time I just got up there and did it and it felt good. I had plenty on my mind.’ Not least when he sang ‘Whiplash’…

Jason Newsted’s first show with Metallica was on 8 November at the Country Club in Reseda, an unannounced Saturday night opening slot for Metal Church before a couple of hundred in-the-know fanatics and genuine Church fans. Essentially an extension to the solitary week of rehearsals he’d had, they performed a full-on thirteen-song set that included material from all three albums and an extended solo spot from Kirk. A second show the following night at Jezebel’s in Anaheim was shorter but provided the band with a final tightening of the screw before the official start of Jason Newsted’s career in Metallica. Flemming Rasmussen was at the Country Club show. ‘That place was
packed
. They tried to keep it a secret but word had gone out.’ Not seeing Cliff there, ‘It was pretty terrible.’ Seeing the new guy, ‘It was strange but I was happy that they were going on, that they weren’t stopping, because I thought they had much more in them.’