Talkin' Rock with Metallica's Robert Trujillo (Part 1)
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00:00It's a weekend we've been waiting for. Metallica, Pantera, Wolfgang Van Halen for Friday night.
00:05Of course, Ice Nine Kills, Five Finger Death Punch, and then Metallica once again
00:08on Sunday night. Had a chance to sit down with bassist Robert Trujillo. Here's what it sounded
00:13and looked like. Rock, metal, prog, and everything in between. If you're into rock,
00:20you've come to the right place. Welcome to this episode of Talkin' Rock with Meltdown.
00:25Don't forget to follow the audio-only Talkin' Rock podcast on all podcast platforms.
00:30And now, it's time for today's conversation. Here's Meltdown.
00:35Hey guys, Meltdown here along with Robert from Metallica. This interview is going to be so epic.
00:39We're going to do two parts. Is that okay? Sure. Whatever. Let's go for it.
00:45Yeah. Welcome back to Detroit. Of course, 72 seasons right here came out earlier this year.
00:50I didn't realize you guys wrote this about the Lions and how many seasons they haven't made the
00:55playoffs. So, we're hoping this will... That's a Don Jameson joke, by the way. It's only that one.
00:59You know what? I am so proud of this team. The Lions, of course, and what's been happening.
01:07I'm actually a fan. Oh, really? So, yeah. So, there you go.
01:11Have you been to a game outside of Detroit or no?
01:13I haven't been to a game outside of Detroit. I haven't been to a game in years, actually.
01:17But, you know, I've been following them and, you know, kind of keeping up to date with,
01:25you know, all the cool, positive victories and all the great things that have been happening.
01:31We'll have to get you up here in the... I know that James has a video they play here in
01:35the stadium where he's like, Lions fans, you know.
01:37Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, James is a fan, too. So, yeah. I mean, you know, it's kind of
01:42interesting with the NFL because, you know, I grew up a Rams fan and over the years I've
01:48been fans of various teams for different reasons. Sometimes it has to do with players that I
01:53followed in college that have gone on to some of the other teams. But, you know, Jared Goff
02:00actually played at Marin Catholic, which is in the same neighborhood as our studio.
02:06Oh, in Metallica, yeah. In Metallica HQ. So, I've been kind of following him since he played
02:12at Cal. And even when he was playing against my UCLA Bruins, I was still kind of noticing
02:17how good he was. So, for him to come here and to help, you know, build such a great team
02:24with your amazing coach has been really inspiring, even for me as a musician.
02:31Well, sports talk here with Robert from Metallica. There you go. But 72 seasons, of course, like
02:37I said, came out earlier this year. And there it is. I actually went to the debut of the movie
02:43thing. That was really cool. Out of all the Metallica records you've been involved with,
02:46how much input did you have in this one? This one was a lot of fun because this was
02:51pretty collaborative. And a lot of that just kind of had to do with, you know, the whole
03:01COVID thing and being away from everybody and then coming together and sharing that creative
03:09spirit. You know, when you're away from other, your musician brothers and you can't create
03:15together, when you get in that room, man, I tell you, it's just, you know, you just go
03:19to a new place creatively. And we started creating this album and building it via Zoom, actually.
03:27And then eventually, obviously, we were able to get in the same room. And once we were
03:32able to do that, you know, it just was like, you know, a new experience again. You know,
03:38you got to play music in the same room, you know what I mean? And you forget about those
03:43things and take those things for granted sometimes. But it was pretty special. And you hear that
03:48on this album. A lot of the songs, you know, you feel that kind of magic of the room at
03:55the moment, you know, and that's what I love about this record.
03:58Yeah. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that getting back in the studio because
04:01so the world shut down and I don't really like to talk about the pandemic anymore. But
04:05one thing that it did, it did open my eyes to when you guys played that, that live movie
04:11theater, the drive in thing. Yeah. So I haven't been to a concert. I've been around music fans
04:17in like six months. And it was so cool. I forgot what it was like to interact with music fans.
04:23If you take it for granted, all of a sudden it's gone. And now it's like, I can't wait to
04:26get there and talk to the listeners and talk about music.
04:28Yeah. I mean, you know, we had that experience in a big way in South America. You know, we had
04:35gone down to Brazil and Chile and Argentina. And I tell you, the level of passion was just through
04:41the roof. It's already, you know, very passion driven down there. They love rock and roll.
04:47And it just felt like everything kind of escalated, you know, to a whole nother level. It was very
04:53impactful. And it's been that way pretty much through the whole 72 seasons tour here in the
04:59States, all around Europe. Everybody seems to be wanting to celebrate this music, this band,
05:07other bands too. You know, we've been to a few shows and have witnessed it. So it's been
05:11pretty cool to actually see that live music still means so much to people.
05:19Now, so you guys are here, obviously, for Friday and Sunday, like you've been doing
05:22throughout the country. You've been here for a few days. Is that kind of normal? Do you
05:26guys come into town a few days early like this?
05:29Sometimes it depends. I haven't actually been to Detroit and hung out for a few years. I mean,
05:37the last time I think was around, was it 2014, 2015? And I've had an incredible time. It's a
05:45great city with a lot of history, a lot of history and music. And the food is great, you know, and the
05:53people are nice. It's just been really, really fun. And, and where we're staying, it's more of a
06:00an apartment vibe. So you feel like, you know, you're at home. And yeah, by the way, we'll talk
06:06about Detroit and its history in part two. Okay, that's coming up next. But, but there you go,
06:10a little tease for the next one. But no, I saw that you were on stage at the Fox. And it's funny
06:14because one of my friends was with you. And he said, you kind of got told by the crew hands that
06:18you couldn't stand on the stage because they were getting ready for the Grinch.
06:21That's right. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that for a second. So I was walking with a couple friends
06:30and there was the Fox. And it was like, wow, I remember playing here in 1991 when I was in the
06:38Infectious Grooves. And we were opening for Ozzy on the Theater of Madness tour. And I remember this
06:44theater being incredibly beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. It was just really, really special and always
06:50stood out. So we're watching them kind of maintain this incredible neon sign in front. I guess they
06:59had recently, I don't know if they replaced it or they redid it, but they were fixing something up
07:05there. Started talking to one of the guys that was working on it. And I told him that I had played
07:11there. And then he was like, oh, you want to get a tour? So we were able to get in there and we ended
07:16up hanging out for an hour. And, and it still is incredible. I mean, it's an incredible theater. And I
07:22remember, you know, 1991 and being there on this tour and how special it was. So there's a lot of those
07:30memories. And it was just weird because it was very random, you know, to, to actually get in that
07:36building and have that moment reconnect with that place. Yeah. Joe Bonamassa told me completely
07:42unprompted that the Fox Theater is one of the nicest places he plays in the whole world.
07:46Yeah. Yeah. It is beautiful. Yeah, it is. It is definitely. It's a very special place
07:50with a lot of history. We tried to find Ozzy's signature down in the basement and we couldn't find
07:56it because it's been, you know, 32 years, but. And then you were playing Infectious
08:00Grooves and you went to Ozzy and I was, I was out with Charlie Benante earlier today. We went to the
08:05Motown Museum and he said that there was a gig that you played. I think it was with Suicidal in
08:09Finland or something where somebody threw something up on stage. Did Anthrax jump in the crowd or
08:13something? Yeah. Yeah. Is that what happened? That's when, that's when our relationship
08:18with Anthrax for me officially became real because those guys stood up for me and went out there and
08:28went toe to toe. Now look, at the, at the time it wasn't like the fans were pissed off. They were
08:35angry at a technical issue. They weren't, we, they couldn't even see us because we were behind the
08:40amps warming up. So they chucked some, you know, back then you could have glass beer bottles and they
08:46chucked a bottle and it went over the base amp and I had been kind of hunkered down practicing,
08:51getting ready. And there was a problem with the PA system. So they were getting impatient,
08:54but that bottle hit me in the head. And of course I just kind of saw red and I went out to the front
09:00of the stage. My face was bleeding and I'm like calling people out and there's like fricking 15,
09:0520,000 people out there. Of course, you know, and everybody's drunk. So they're like, yeah, cool.
09:11You know, let's fight. And I literally was going to try and go out there and fight, you know,
09:1710,000 people. I don't know what I was thinking. I was young and dumb.
09:20You have no idea who even threw it in.
09:21And so I was pulled off to the side by the tour manager and said, you know, you gotta,
09:29you gotta play in a couple minutes here. So they bandaged me up like at a toothache,
09:33you know, and then they put the hat on and then we went out there and played.
09:37Um, during the time that I was getting bandaged up, apparently my suicidal band, uh, members and
09:47some of the anthrax team went out there and started socking people up that good old fashioned sock
09:53up. And they, they, you know, I remember, I think it was the drummer said, Hey man, just so you know,
09:58we took care of this. Um, you know, it's, it's all good. And I was like, what does that mean?
10:04And then I, of course I found out, you know, basically a couple of knuckleheads got beat
10:09down, but look, that was the way it was back then. Um, I don't condone violence or anything,
10:14but back at that time. And probably even before that, that's kind of what happened at hardcore
10:21shows and, and thrash shows, punk shows, metal, you know, there was a bit of edge and a lot of
10:29people would, you know, start stuff. You'd have to finish it. And you look back on it and it was
10:36kind of like, yeah, you know, I guess it was fun, you know, but, uh, yeah, I, I was, uh, you know,
10:42that was kind of my initiation into, uh, the world of touring and, uh, being in an opening band.
10:48It was a lot of fun anthrax suicidal. That was the first official tour that I went on. And that was
10:55in Europe. And it was a new experience for me that I always remember and cherish.
11:01Yeah. Now, you know, you tour the world with one of the biggest machines out there.
11:05Yeah. Yeah. Now today, well, I'll tell you what, uh, I just celebrated my 28th year at WRIF. And I
11:11thought to myself, I've always wanted to talk to a member of Metallica in a locker room so I can
11:15check that off my list. This is part one. Part two is coming up. Have a great show Friday night.
11:21All right. Yeah.