Talkin' Rock with Metallica's Robert Trujillo (Part 2)
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00:00hard to believe but we're only halfway through our metallica weekend of course wolfgang van
00:04halen pantera and metallica on friday night sunday night it's ice nine kills five finger
00:09death punch and metallica as well tickets are still available for the sunday night show get
00:13them and come and party hey you could take monday off right had a chance sit down with
00:18bassist robert trejillo here's part two of our interview rock metal prog and everything in
00:25between if you're into rock you've come to the right place welcome to this episode of talk and
00:31rock with meltdown don't forget to follow the audio only talking rock podcast on all podcast platforms
00:37and now it's time for today's conversation here's meltdown we're back here part two part deux with
00:44robert from metallica i'm meltdown from wrif thanks again for joining us thanks for having me we're
00:50here in detroit in motown and i was telling you uh earlier uh the last interview we did part one
00:57uh that uh charlie benante myself and a couple of my friends we went to the uh motown museum have you
01:02been there here in detroit i was there uh yeah the other day well you were i was there okay well i was
01:08going to ask you so as i was watching the video that plays before you go on the tour there that music is
01:14bass driven and obviously you know uh james jamerson is like a legend so how much i mean did you take
01:20any of that in your bass playing uh growing up or was that not your wheelhouse no that was a hundred
01:25percent in my wheelhouse i grew up listening to nothing but motown i listened to a lot of james
01:30brown and of course that was kind of my early years and then i started listening to led zeppelin
01:36in the rolling stones and of course black sabbath but the interesting thing was that the i guess you
01:44say the hard rock metal bass players um again before me were very much inspired by james jamerson
01:52and uh you know and then it went it it kind of translated through bands like cream and but there
01:59isn't a bass player in rock in metal and sort of modern music that serious about their instrument
02:06that doesn't respect those bass lines coming out of detroit and motown and the funk brothers of
02:13course um yeah it it was uh really a a an art a true artistic statement that was brand new and fresh
02:24that came out of here came out of this city you know i always think of it that way that james jamerson
02:29kind of he commandeered that the bass would have this persona in this uh it seems so much up front
02:38yeah he just brought the instrument to the front and uh you know so many musicians after that took it
02:44in their own direction but i mean he was the forefather to that with the electric bass yeah
02:50and then uh you just you just had my my brain going all these old uh bass players so jaco pastoria
02:55uh you did you find a base of his or do you search out a base of his no no no so uh that's a long
03:03story basic we don't have time for that one but uh but i mean he must influence you as well yeah jaco
03:09jaco influenced me tremendously in the same way that uh geezer butler and getty lee influenced me but
03:16jaco um he was important to the instrument because he brought the personality of the performer
03:24not just the player the player was an important part of it but back in 1980 when i saw him play
03:30it uh the uh santa monica civic auditorium on the west coast i saw a performer an entertainer use the
03:38instrument as a vehicle to to you know bring that personality which was more prevalent in rock i think
03:46as the guitarists had that you know but he brought that out through the instrument in the same way that
03:52jimmy hendrix brought it out um you know before him um but again you know i i always look back to
03:59motown and all the more kind of soul and funk driven songs uh for the uh the instrument as a standout
04:08as a feature i guess you could say um yeah a lot of history here this i tell you detroit
04:14has there's a certain resonance and there's a soulful quality to this place it's it reminds me
04:23of some of the other cool cities that you know i mean like you new york's got a certain swagger of
04:29course los angeles has a swagger um you know whether it's sort of integrated into the punk and the in the uh
04:37um uh you know skate scene even the way of life it feel i feel like detroit has a certain swagger that goes
04:45way back and um there's just a soulfulness to it you know and it resonates especially with the rhythm
04:52section you know you just feel it in your bones man it it's great being back here and i'm looking at
04:58all the buildings and i'm asking the driver so who lived there what was that or you know because
05:04you know i was also a fan of houdini and you know and i did his last show here yeah i learned that
05:10houdini did everything here over at bell island off the bridge he was you know doing all kinds of
05:17crazy stuff he's a daredevil he was a daredevil and i love daredevils you know i i grew up around a lot
05:23of daredevils in the skate community where i live and uh a lot of the musicians that i look up to
05:30are daredevils and hey he was a daredevil yeah he was everything he was a you know magician but he
05:37was also you know physically doing things that you could never imagine you know at bell island
05:43yeah by the way yeah and yeah where you guys played a right about 10 years ago i think that
05:47was the thing that excited me the most was crossing that bridge and went wait a minute houdini hung
05:52here so you just mentioned uh getty lee so you got a project coming out with getty lee i was trying
05:58to think of the other bass players that are involved in that in this uh special that's coming
06:01up right um as far as i know chris chris uh from nirvana oh yeah yeah um and uh oh less claypool
06:14plus yeah less right yeah yeah yeah there's a couple others but it was a lot of fun i got i got
06:19to hang with getty for two days this is the first time you've actually like kind of really met him or
06:23no i'd met him before but we we were hanging out for 10 to 12 hours you know through the weekend
06:31and uh and um we just kind of kind of threw it all into two days we had two beautiful days down in
06:38socal and it's basically a lifestyle uh hang you know he wants to know or wanted to know what's it
06:46like in the world in the life of robert trajillo outside of base and uh he came by the house
06:52we went down to venice beach we uh we kind of got a a bit of education on the history
07:01of my neighborhood and uh some of the people i grew up with it was really really cool and the stars kind
07:09of aligned um you know those two days uh the waves weren't huge they filmed me surfing and i did the
07:17best i could with what we had um and yeah it was just a lot of fun it was just one of those weird
07:23weekends where everything kind of came together and uh and my son was actually playing a gig too
07:29i think it was on the saturday night that he was there and he came out and checked that out he i think
07:34he was only going to stay for like two songs and he ended up staying for like you know 10 songs
07:39oh really is that right yeah it's pretty cool and the funniest thing was people that were there to see
07:43the show were like wait a minute is that getty lee you know they were there was like the triple take
07:48and the quadruple take and because he had a lot of fans there but it was just so surreal that he was
07:54hanging at a local guy this is local style neighborhood we're talking you know we're we're
08:01you were talking you know neighborhood kids neighborhood parents i mean you know it was all very
08:08very localized he's coming out there from toronto you know yeah i'm always baffled at the things i
08:13get to do just you know growing up as just a punk kid in western new york now here in detroit for half
08:18my life but it's like it's a moment like that where you gotta think to yourself this is insane
08:21yeah i mean basically i mean i played in backyard party bands um at age 16 and we played lavia
08:32estrangiato wow we played yyz we played you know um all those classic songs you know the harder the
08:40better back then and we probably butchered them but we would play these backyard parties and play
08:45rush songs in the same way that we also played ozzy songs and we played black sabbath songs and van
08:52halen and all these different bands so you can imagine hanging out with one of your heroes
08:57and um just trying to stay grounded and uh you know at the end of the day everybody's a human
09:05being and uh you know you always want to treat people with respect and uh and again stay grounded
09:13but at the same time you're going damn that's kenny lee yeah speaking of you know obviously you play
09:18with ozzy a bunch of times somebody was asking me about this uh today about that diary of a madman so
09:23so you redid all the tracks like 20 years ago or something right yeah so basically that's an
09:28interesting story because i don't know what they what who played on what you know what i was telling
09:34someone else i still don't know yeah i don't i mean everybody's like robert trio did this and that
09:38and i'm like well wait a minute i remember like tracking that stuff but i remember i felt like other
09:44people were tracking and i didn't ask questions because i was basically so you don't know what songs
09:48your honor i mean i played everything but i don't know what they used on you know you probably have
09:55to ask the the the record company people but you know i guess uh the way i looked at it at the time
10:03was number one i was there for ozzy and sharon you know and i'm still there for ozzy and sharon
10:09ozzy is uh you know he's my hero and um and the other side of that is it's like the original
10:20tracks are always going to exist they're not going anywhere so whatever i'm doing doesn't mean dookie
10:28or doesn't mean because they're gonna it's always going to be there and that's what people that's the
10:33stuff that counts and um and uh and i kind of forgot about it and then years later people kind
10:39of had brought it up and i go yeah that's right but i can honestly say you know i mean they may
10:46have used it all or they they may have said man that kid butchered butchered the crap out of that
10:50song or whatever you know he played it wrong you know it's like you played the song wrong man you
10:58know i don't know but uh i guess the other end of this too is uh i do remember hearing outtakes
11:05of randy rhodes and bob dazley and you know kerslack on drums and just being like wow and they're talking
11:13and hearing all that fun stuff on there and just you know um kind of more excited about that than
11:21anything but uh yeah i mean yeah it was probably like 30 33 years ago or something yeah it was a
11:28while ago oh is it oh okay that wasn't that wasn't like last week or okay right right i got you i mean
11:33yeah i was i was a lot younger all right well final thing here for you uh when i when i was talking to
11:38you i went back and i re-watched some kind of monster in 2003 so that's 20 years ago and then i i didn't
11:44realize this till i saw your instagram but you got married in 2003 it's like that was like a world
11:49changing seismic shift for you wasn't it that year yes uh 2003 was the year that changed my life
11:57um in so many ways like you said marriage starting a family learning and growing uh being a part of a
12:07team for real um you know moving to san francisco from los angeles uh you know just so many things
12:17happened uh also uh work ethic you know i started to to really process work ethic and and it's
12:25always been important to me but for some reason when i joined metallica you know there were new
12:31challenges and there was sort of a new level of uh of i'll say work ethic you know where it's like
12:38yeah sure you can you can go out and you can party your ass off you you know you're responsible
12:44for yourself but at the end of the day you got to get up on that stage and give a hundred percent
12:49and that's the one thing about this band is it's always a hundred percent you know so no matter what
12:54you do you've got a responsibility to the team to the family and uh and i really did learn from that
13:02not to say that i i didn't embrace that you know through my career before that but at a certain point
13:08when i got in this van it was a little crazier because everything kind of exceeded what i had
13:16imagined meaning there was more press there were longer shows um the catalog was was vast but then
13:26i didn't know what we were going to play some of the times you know i'd ask kirk so what what's the
13:32set list going to look like and he'd tell me one thing and then i'd ask james and he'd tell me another
13:37thing and then i'd ask lars you know who would know more than anybody and he'd tell me something
13:43completely different so you know and i didn't want to like kind of bother people so i tried to learn as
13:51much as i could of the catalog without bothering these guys because you know we had saint anger
13:56coming out they're probably concentrating and focusing on learning those songs which i was too
14:03but at the same time i didn't just have to learn the same anger songs i had to learn you know 22 years
14:08of back catalog so there was a lot of responsibility already when i had joined the band and um it did
14:17help me grow pretty quick and uh teach me a little more about you know being a musician being a
14:23professional and you know being the best person i could be and now 20 years later here you are in
14:29detroit rock city that's exactly where i want to be so it's perfect and of course tonight it's ice
14:36nine kills and five finger death punch and uh and of course metallica so robert thank you so much for
14:41your time and thanks for being so kind of wrif thanks for having me