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“All of the guys in Metallica, except for the guitar player, told me what a great guitar player I was”: Candlebox guitarist on touring with Metallica and Aerosmith in the early ’90s – and receiving the ultimate praise from his heroes
Seattle rock outfit Candlebox might never have hit the dizzying heights of Metallica and Aerosmith, but when they toured with the two bands in 1994, Peter Klett's guitar talents converted a number of his peers into admirers.
Candlebox's self-titled debut album, released the year before, shifted four million copies, breaking into the Billboard Top 200 top 10 in August 1994. Soon, they found themselves on the road with two of America’s biggest bands.
“Aerosmith was a short two-week run, which was great, and they were super cool,” Klett recalls while in conversation with Guitar World. “But we didn’t really spend a whole lot of time with them.
“Metallica, on the other hand, was on a long tour. We got to hang out, and they were super cool.”
However, the Shit Hits the Sheds tour, which also featured Suicidal Tendencies and future Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo on the bill, wasn't without its challenges.
“It was quite a challenge with their audience,” Klett admits. “But by the end of our set, the audience went from giving us the finger and throwing things at us to giving us the metal sign and letting us know that we rocked.
“One of the coolest things about that whole tour was that all of the guys in Metallica, individually at separate times, except for the guitar player, told me what a great guitar player I was.”
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Candlebox - Far Behind(Live at Woodstock '94) - YouTube
One would guess, then, that it was Kirk Hammett who failed to extend his compliments to Klett, but he at least received praise from James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Jason Newsted. That’s not a bad innings.
Guitar World's full interview with Pete Klett will be published online in the coming weeks.
A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog, Guitar World, and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He's also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.
