Robert Trujillo: “We have more riffs than we know what to do with. With every handful of riffs we get out of Kirk, there’s another 500 we didn’t hear”

Rob Trujillo
(Image credit: Tim Saccenti)

While there’s no question Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted’s contributions to Metallica will echo for eternity, Robert Trujillo has now been in the group longer than any of his predecessors. 

The Warwick endorsee – who had played in Suicidal Tendencies, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Label Society and Jerry Cantrell’s solo band prior to joining – was hired in 2003 at the end of the audition process famously captured on their fly-on-the-wall Metallica: Some Kind of Monster rockumentary. 

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Amit Sharma

Amit has been writing for titles like Total GuitarMusicRadar and Guitar World for over a decade and counts Richie Kotzen, Guthrie Govan and Jeff Beck among his primary influences as a guitar player. He's worked for magazines like Kerrang!Metal HammerClassic RockProgRecord CollectorPlanet RockRhythm and Bass Player, as well as newspapers like Metro and The Independent, interviewing everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy to Slash and Jimmy Page, and once even traded solos with a member of Slayer on a track released internationally. As a session guitarist, he's played alongside members of Judas Priest and Uriah Heep in London ensemble Metalworks, as well as handled lead guitars for legends like Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, The Faces) and Stu Hamm (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, G3).