Latest about Cliff Burton
“Lars said, ‘You’re not really used to this kind of music, are you?’” Les Claypool on his failed Metallica audition
According to James Hetfield, Les Claypool was “too good” for the thrash metal giants
When Cliff Burton met Geddy Lee: “He started pacing, he started smoking pot, and he was like, ‘Oh my God!’”
Kirk Hammett remembers when Rush frontman Geddy Lee showed up at a Metallica show
Cliff Burton wrote one of Metallica’s heaviest riffs on a de-tuned classical guitar
Kirk Hammett: “To this day, I think: ‘How did Cliff write that?’”
Metallica’s Robert Trujillo: “Cliff’s approach was, ‘I’m gonna play what I feel, and if you don’t like it, screw you!’”
Trujillo remembers bass guitar’s ultimate metal maverick, Cliff Burton
From the vaults: former Machine Head bassist Adam Duce on the tone secrets of Cliff Burton
“He had a Stratocaster pickup hidden under the bridge of his Rickenbacker”
A year before he joined Metallica, Cliff Burton was in a college band with Faith No More’s Jim Martin – watch them jam For Whom the Bell Tolls at a battle of the bands
In 1981, the two childhood friends embraced improvisatory psychedelic chaos as Agents of Misfortune – and their epic jam sessions gave birth to several future classics along the way
Hear Cliff Burton blend sweeping, Eddie Van Halen-esque hammer-ons with Hendrixian distorted runs in his final show with Metallica
The fateful show took place at the Solnahallen in Stockholm, Sweden, on September 26, 1986, and shows the incredible live form Metallica were in after Master of Puppets
How Cliff Burton shaped Metallica's expansive thrash assault – and changed the sound of metal bass guitar forever
We celebrate Burton's career, and dig into his tones and talents with the help of Metallica’s incumbent bassist, Robert Trujillo
