Hired Gun Page #2

And I remember my tears hitting the newspaper...

And, like, snot hitting the newspaper.

Man, it's like, "F***, what? F***!"

Anybody, especially at that

time they were into metal.

He was our hero.

He was Jimi Hendrix of the bass, man.

I've told that to anybody, straight up.

I don't care who you are, playing bass.

You're not as good as Cliff, sorry.

And, I had only seen him in concert, man.

I'm standing right in front of Cliff, like...

And spent my last 14 bucks on

my Metallica shirt, you know.

The talk started happening.

They were talking about auditions.

"Okay, who's the bass player,

man? We gotta get somebody

because we have to continue this tour."

They have a big, big hit on her

hands, need to Rock n Roll.

They've gotta push through. There's momentum,

and you're never gonna get that momentum again.

They call out 45 to 50 people from around the world.

And I got an early flight, borrowed

money from all of my friends.

Twenty from that person, ten from that person,

seven, nine from that guy.

Whatever they could give

me. "Dude, you got... "What?"

An audition with Metallica? Are you..."

Everybody's flipping the f*** out!

And so, I was ready and I got there

early and I was there the first one.

I was there before the band

got there on audition day.

I look over and I poke my head in,

"What have I got myself into?

Like I'm actually going to step in and play with..."

It hit me, like, "Metallica, dude!"

Eleven days after that we were touring japan.

Metallica touring Japan for the first

time and I was the bass player.

And at that time,

I was a hired gun,

for $500 a week.

"Okay."

I mean, I would have done it for a sandwich.

I mean, it wouldn't have mattered then.

I would have paid you guys five

bucks to let me go. Sh*t, you know!

So that was it. Five hundred dollars a week

until April the next year,

when I joined Metallica...

And I was a full member for 14, 15 years.

I was not gonna pass this up or take this for granted

that I was given this opportunity by these guys.

"Now you're in it, dude.

You signed to be in this thing.

You can't take that lightly.

This is big responsibility now."

Everybody's got their role in this band

and nobody wants to be the weak link.

That's why that band is still around.

Finding the right person for

your band is almost impossible

because you're looking for, to me, three things.

You got to find somebody who...

is an excellent musician

which, that's the easiest thing to find.

There's a million excellent musicians.

Then you gotta find somebody who's really cool...

who can stand on stage

in front of you know 15... a 100,000 people,

and be amazing.

Then, it whittles it down to a smaller group,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes