Found this amazing write up over at
Revolver Magazine with Lars Ulrich of Metallica speaking on Cliff Burton. What an amazing talent that left this world way too soon. For all of us that grew up listening to Metallica in the 80's and being one of our first metal bands, Cliff we forever will remember your memory...
Today marks the 25th anniversary of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton’s
death. In remembrance of him, the band’s drummer Lars Ulrich (pictured
left) gave a personal and emotional account of him in
Revolver’s January/February “Fallen Heroes” issue (available
here).
He had so many great stories about Burton, we couldn’t fit them in the
magazine. So, in reverence, here is everything Ulrich had to say about
Burton.
REVOLVER What do you remember about the first time you saw him?
LARS ULRICH
I had just never really seen anything quite like it. It was just unique
and so original. And there was just this incredible stage presence and
this uniqueness to the whole vibe. I had just never seen anything like
it. It was new, it was different. And obviously you could tell there was
an incredible ability, and there was a stage presence, and all this
type of stuff wrapped up in this incredible type of personality. And I
think we were a little intimidated by him in the beginning because he
was just so unique.
But then as we got to know him a little bit, and I sort of started courting him to try and jump ship [
from his band Trauma],
then I started realizing he was a pretty chill dude. But he was also
pretty firm on the fact that L.A. was not for him. ’Cause me and James
were trying to get him to come down to L.A., and he just wasn’t into
that. He was really rooted up here [
near San Francisco], he
really was a kind of a Northern California…almost a hillbilly like. I
mean, there’s a lot of different vibes up here, and there’s definitely a
kind of unique vibe in Castro Valley and Hayward and stuff. And he was a
real, really rooted where it came from. And he was probably, certainly
speaking for myself, I was much more of a gypsy. When we traveled and
stuff like that, he was the first guy to want to go home. And he was the
one who was probably at the strongest of roots of all of us. He had
family and kind of a history. Me and James were more loners.
He seems like he was laidback.
He didn’t hurt people. He didn’t cross the line, but he was certainly
always up for being part of stirring some shit up. But more like a
rascal point of view then someone who was out to hurt people. So it was
more fun and games. He would fake fight or whatever, throw some kind of
fake punches, but he would never throw any real punches. I don’t think I
ever saw Cliff in a fight. I don’t think I ever saw Cliff get into
heated exchanges or anything. I mean, he was a pretty chill guy. And it
never got nasty or unpleasant.
What are your fondest memories of him?
My fondest memories of Cliff are his total disregard for convention and
his total disregard for playing things out the way you expected them.
He was up to challenge the normalcy, to challenge the status quo, to
just fuck with things musically, attitude-wise—the way he dressed, the
way he carried himself, his sense of humor, his relationship with the
music that inspired him, the music that he played. It was always very
unconventional, and it was very unusual. You could certainly argue that
me and James [
Hetfield] at that time were more kind of the
squarer guys, ’cause we were more like, “Motörhead, Iron Maiden!” Heavy
metal T-shirts, and long hair and bang our heads into the wall. Cliff
was just so fast in his palette of things that he was into and things
that were inspiring him and the things that he was doing. So it was
definitely his music, and his attitude, and his approach towards life
that really inspired me and James to broaden our horizons, broaden
Metallica’s horizons musically. So when I think of Cliff, that’s what I
think…that’s just kind of variety and unpredictability, you know
What are some of the bands he turned you on to?
First of all, he was classically trained and really knew his way around
classical music. He actually studied classical music at college. So he’s
sitting there talking about Johann Sebastian Bach, talking about some
of these kind of cool classical things. And I had heard some of these
words thrown around when Richie Blackmore was talking about his
influences, but it was not something I had ever been exposed to.
Then
he was also really…you know, this whole Southern thing. I mean,
obviously I was aware of Skynyrd and had an appreciation for some of
their heavier moments. But he was so immersed in Skynyrd and .38 Special
and ZZ Top and the Allman Brothers and all of these things that kind of
came in the wake of that Black Oak Arkansas. And the Outlaws and all
that stuff, there was a whole kind of thing there.
He was also
really into a lot of kind of progressive stuff like Yes, and Peter
Gabriel, and a lot of f prog rock. And he was a hardcore Rush fanatic.
Certainly I had an appreciation of Rush, but not to the level that he
did. So there was a whole kind of array of things.
When I met
Cliff in ’81, I had been through a lot of different musical experiences
myself. But at that time, the things that were inspiring me to play
music and so on were…I can’t say that Lynyrd Skynyrd was a particularly
big inspiration for me to start playing drums. It was much more narrow.
Iron Maiden and Deep Purple and Judas Priest and Diamond Head and Angel
Witch, and the stories been told a thousand times. And the New Wave of
British Heavy Metal stuff, and Cliff was just so wide in his scope. I
played him Diamond Head. He liked some of their stuff, he liked some of
Iron Maiden’s energy. He liked Witchfinder General, some of that stuff.
But he also, he was a little more selective in what he liked, where me
and James were more sort of like, Dude, the New Wave of British Heavy
Metal, it rocks! Where some of it you can argue 20, 30 years later was
not as good some of the other stuff. There were hit and misses in there.
But
Cliff was sort of into Peter Gabriel, the Police. Some of the stuff, I
mean, it wasn’t the enemy because I was aware of the fact that there was
musical integrity there. But I can’t tell you I knew much about what
the Police were doing other then five songs I’d heard on the radio. But
all of the sudden, in between the Diamond Head tapes and the Iron Maiden
tapes being played on the tour buses and in the shitty vans, the
fuckin’ Police album
Zenyattà Mondatta would come on. Or what was that Yes album?
90125
or whatever. Some of that stuff would come on. It would just be nice.
He loved to play some early ZZ Top. I just didn’t really know my way
around Tres Hombres or the rest of those albums until Cliff started pounding them in our direction.
What do you think of him when you look back at it all now?
He was really cool. It was, obviously other than losing a brother, it
would’ve been the more… I would’ve been interested to see what else he
could’ve contributed, because it felt like we were just getting started.
We just started playing “Orion” again on the last run, in the last two
weeks [
when Metallica were preparing for the Big Four concert in April].
So playing “Orion,” I think we played it like three times in the last
two weeks. You sit there and all of a sudden go, Fuck! What a, just,
incredible piece of music. And just so unique. And it would’ve been
interesting to see what else would’ve been in that vast well of stuff
that he could’ve shared with the rest of us. That will forever be the
curiosity element. But I’m so glad that I got a chance to play with him
for a couple, three years. And got a chance to know him, and got a
chance to drink with him, and all the shenanigans that probably
shouldn’t be printed in a nice, family publication like
Revolver. But it definitely was a pretty nutty time, and at the time we certainly embraced what life was offering
us. And accelerated it to a “mach 10,” as James used to say on stage.
