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Posted by Metallifreak on 28.02.2010 at16:02:

  The Hammering Down Heavy Robert Trujillo Grounds Metallica - Part 1

Five years have passed since Metallica tapped Trujillo to fill the space left vacant after Jason Newsted left in 2001. The choice was both unusual and perfect. Musically, Robert was raised on Motown and Larry Graham— with healthy helpings of Black Sabbath, Rush, and Jaco. After studying at Dick Grove School of Music, he started making his own musical waves in the early ’90s with thrash band Suicidal Tendencies and its funk-metal offshoot, Infectious Grooves, featuring his aggressively funky thumb work. After Suicidal came a sevenyear stretch in Ozzy Osbourne’s band, a stint in Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society, and close work with Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell on his 2002 solo album, Degradation Trip. Still, Robert remained renowned for his strong slap skills and a metal-funk mentality, which might not have been the most attractive resumé bullet points for Metallica. But there’s an absolute heaviness that pervades all of Robert’s playing, and he counterbalances his monster-like stage persona with a studious work ethic and mellow SoCal disposition.

Trujillo joined Metallica at a time of maturation and change for the band, well detailed in the 2004 rock-meets-therapy documentary Some Kind of Monster. That may have made it easier—though certainly not easy—for him to take up the band’s heavy bass mantle. Revolutionary bass shredder Cliff Burton, who died in a 1986 tour-bus accident, looms largest in Metallica lore, and heavy pick player Newsted made his mark with the band for nearly 15 years. How well would a new bassist with an established style fit into such an institution as Metallica? Five years of stadium-smashing crowds suggests the answer is just fine, but the group’s new album proudly screams masterfully. Death Magnetic is an intricate and powerful recording, with Robert’s blossoming bass tones binding the mighty Metallica riffwork, and occasionally launching small but delicious departures. And, in a handful of mid-tempo moments where head-banging meets head-bobbing, Robert’s groove sensibility seems to have had some subtle influence. Make no mistake, though, Death Magnetic is pure metal, and it seems to capture the band at the top of their skills and in a new creative peak. Death Magnetic is likely to be the biggest and most important Metallica album since the 1991 self-titled release, known as the Black Album.

METALLICA HQ IS AN UNREMARKABLE GREY BOX of a building roughly 15 miles north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Inside, the vibe is part rock & roll fantasyland and part serious business. One side of the facility is taken up by fan-club operations, including the management of five Metallica web sites, the production of a magazine, and coordination of the fan club meet-ups the band does before every show. Throughout the corridors, the studio, the tech workshop, and two rehearsal spaces, Metallica memorabilia is everywhere, from classic tour backdrops and props— like the suspended Lady Justice severed head from the Justice For All tour, to an assortment of fancreated banners thrown onstage over the years. You can feel the personal pride, respect for history, and reciprocal fan love, but the organization itself is run as tightly as a drilled-to-death rock riff. It’s the duality of that environment that inspires the band and gives them the freedom to practice, experiment, and constantly sharpen their craft.

In late spring, after tracking for Death Magnetic was complete, Robert revisited the upstairs room at HQ where he slept, practiced, and did much of his “homework” during the album’s intense production sessions. The small dormlike room had a low bunk, a desk with a stereo, and comparatively spartan walls: a family photo, and a color-and-ink Trujillo-era Metallica caricature on the wall, dwarfed by a framed Jaco Pastorius poster. In the corner stood an upright bass. Robert explained: “I started practicing upright when we had time off. A teacher would come by and we’d do the jazz thing, but then we’d end up getting into Led Zeppelin, jamming on ‘Black Dog’ while he was singing and playing guitar. I had been taking piano lessons with my wife, too, but once we got into writing the album, that was it—I couldn’t do it anymore. It’s hard to come in with your homework done if you’ve been up all night working on a bass track.”

You’ve been in the band for five years, but some people probably still see you as the new guy.

Yeah, it’s interesting. Five years is a pretty long time, but when you think of the longevity of this band and the great history with Cliff and Jason, I guess I’ll be the new guy for a very long time. Jason was, but he came into it when he was very young; it was his first big thing. However, the guys really want me to feel like I’ve been there forever. They’ve gone out of their way to make me feel comfortable, even creatively.

Looking back, do you have a sense of how the band changed in response to you joining?

I can’t say, but I do think I joined at the right time. James is probably easier to work with now versus ten years ago, and maybe the same with Lars. Also, when I came into the band there was an interest in reviving and performing the older material. That was a good thing for me because I’m a big fan of [1984’s] Ride the Lightning and [1986’s] Master of Puppets, and it was a wonderful challenge and experience for me to perform those songs. In fact, I got them to perform “Dyer’s Eve,” the last song on [1988’s] … And Justice for All. It’s crazy, it’s fast, and they’d never done it before. Then we did a Master of Puppets 20th anniversary tour in Europe where we played the whole album. Some of those songs had never been performed in their entirety, and “Orion,” which is a really beautiful instrumental, hadn’t been performed at all.

The bass work on that is intense.
Yeah, it’s involved. To me, it’s a work of art. The song has great guitar harmony and melodic sections, but I feel it was Cliff’s bass masterpiece, so it was great for me to be a part of representing it. It was a challenge, but also very fun. I felt fortunate to come in when they were ready to reunite with this material, and that process helped us pave the way for what we’re doing on this new album. There’s definitely an influence from the older material.

Has the bass presence changed in the band?
That’s up to them to say. They say they’re very happy with what we’ve been doing together. Before, though, their heads were in a different place. Jason was involved at a time when things might have been a bit more harsh. I could see James maybe cracking the whip, saying, “Bass is too loud! I don’t wanna hear any bass!”

Lars and I play together more now than he probably ever has with a bassist. He relies so much on James, and I don’t blame him. In a lot of metal bands, it’s the rhythm guitar player who holds down the fort. Even when I was in Suicidal, it was Mike Clark holding it together. The bass player does, too, but usually even he is counting on that rhythm guitarist’s right hand. But Lars and I started getting together a few months ago jamming the new songs without Kirk or James, which was a first. He actually called me up and said, “Let’s rock.” I thought, Cool—Lars wants to be a rhythm section for real. Brad and Timmy in Rage Against The Machine practice together a lot, and it makes sense: When your bass and drums are on, it means everything. Something’s definitely becoming more solid with the bass and drums, and I think it’s just going to intensify in the future.

Do you feel that’s reflected in the new album?
Definitely. For me, though, my main intention with the recordings was to serve the songs, let these guys really develop them, and not interrupt their creative flow. I’d interject when I felt I had something strong to present. I’ve been in three-piece situations where the bass can make more of a statement. With Metallica I’ve got to be more careful about where I make a statement. That has to do with a lot of things, like the solidity of Hetfield’s guitar playing, and the improvisational element in Lars’s drumming. That’s his signature, and as the bass player I want to find my niche but not mess with the others’ signatures. So I did a lot of listening and absorbing the magic of how James and Lars feed off each other and build songs. From there, it was exploring where I could go with my bass lines. Sometimes that meant trying eight different things to see what sounded best and then focusing on one or two. I knew I’d lock into something the better I got to know the songs. And that’s where homework and practice comes into play. If you keep jamming the songs like Lars and I would, stuff just kind of happens. Each song is like a relationship: If it’s meant to be, it finds a way.