By

Skeletal Grace

Dead Rebel of The Week

~ Cliff Burton ~

September 27th 1986... 5 AM... Outside the small Swedish town of Ljungby...

Two buses are driving along an empty highway, heading for Malmo to take the ferry over to Copenhagen. On board one of them is Metallica, sleeping like babies after having played a sold out gig in Stockholm, which also was Hetfield’s first guitar playing showcase since he broke his hand earlier in the summer. Cliff had treated the audience to a beautiful bass solo rendition of the Star Spangled banner and the band was in agreement that this gig had been one of the best of the whole tour so far.

For some reason they drew cards for the bunks and Cliff got the ace of spades, giving him the right to choose. He picked Kirk’s bed. How cruelly fate mocks us huh?

5.10 AM… The bus driver nods off and the bus starts veering slightly to the left… As quickly as he falls asleep he snaps awake again, feeling something is wrong… He sees his bus heading for the wrong lane and pulls the wheel over hard, knowing he fucked up… Fucked up bad… The bus starts to slide on the cold hard road and the driver over compensates by throwing the wheel too hard the other way. It’s too late…

The bus jerks violently to the left, almost on two wheels now, and Cliff is thrown out of the window over his bunk. He sails through the air for a few seconds and lands in the ditch… And then the bus comes crashing after him… Its wheels catch on the side of the road and it flips side down… Crushing Cliff to death upon impact.

Swedish police arrive and arrest the driver as a matter of routine. He is later released claiming it was a patch of ice that made the bus fishtail… Yeah right… I have driven that road many many times and I can’t even count the number of times I have honked at people nodding off at the wheel. It is a long damn stretch of road with no turns anywhere so why a patch of ice would send a vehicle that's going straight into fishtailing is beyond me…

As tragic as this was for Cliff’s family and for his fans, it was also the beginning of the end for Metallica… His replacement, Jason Newsted, was resented by the other members for taking Cliff’s place and even had his bass on “… And Justice For All” mixed down so low it’s barely audible just so he wouldn’t get any funny ideas about being a real member or anything.

Then Metallica sold out and the rest is just sad history…

Why was Cliff so important then? For Metallica and for music in general?

We have to dig deeper to find that out…

He was born on February 10th, 1962 in San Francisco to a pair of hippie parents. He was early on encouraged to play music and at the age of six he started playing the piano. After having taken classical lessons for years he was lured by another instrument. The bass… He was a huge fan of bands like Thin Lizzy and he wanted to start rocking out more. After practicing on his own, taking lessons as well, he developed his own style… As much inspired by bass greats like Geddy Lee and Lemmy, as by prominent guitar players such as Hendrix and Iommi… He strived to incorporate guitar playing modes and styles into his solid bass playing and by the early 80’s he had made quite a name for himself in the local music scene.

At this time he was playing with a band called Trauma and it was at a gig with them that he was “discovered” by the guys in Metallica who wanted to replace their bass player, Ron McGovney, who they felt couldn’t deliver… Hetfield, Ulrich and Mustaine was blown away with the way Burton seemed to play “lead bass” in Trauma and rather than taking the backseat live, as bass players tend to do, he was the front man… absolutely ruling the stage.

After the show Metallica asked him to join and Cliff, feeling Trauma was going nowhere anyway, accepted on the condition that the band relocated to his home turf in San Francisco. Cliff didn’t move for nobody…

Said and done… From the first rehearsals Cliff took charge of the band. He was a little older than the rest of them and much more experienced. He was also the only one who could write down music and times on paper so all songwriting was always centered around him. Burton was way more involved in the songwriting process than he was ever credited for, arranging and fixing riffs and beats… He was also the guy who took charge live, who set the pace and decided on the course. The other members looked up to him almost as a big brother and even though no “leader” was never assigned to the band (that came later), Cliff was pretty much it.

Burton always insisted on making Metallica’s songs more intricate, interesting and varied than just burping the same riffs over and over like the rest of the NWOBHM-inspired Bay Area bands did. With his flair for odd jazz timings and psychedelic taste in melodies he stressed Hetfield and Hammet to pull out the absolute best they could when playing in order to write some undeniably timeless classics that shaped and set the standard for a whole new genre of music; Thrash Metal…

He made sure to put some bass soloing on every record to inspire young musicians as he himself had been inspired, and to show guitar masturbators and unbelievers that the bass could be a virtuoso’s instrument as well… “The Call Of Ktulu” and “For Whom The Bell Tolls” are perfect early examples of Cliff’s impact on Metallica’s song writing and overall sound.

Burton was also the driving force behind Metallica’s fan favorite, “Master of Puppets”, delivering superb playing on tunes like “Orion” and “Master of Puppets”. The sound was now heavier and faster, without ever losing the sense of melody or originality. The band was on the track to even greater things when tragic struck that September morning…

Where would Metallica have been today if Cliff was still alive? Who knows? Musically they could have gone in any direction since Cliff was the experimental one, but one thing that did die with him was Metallica’s integrity. Cliff would not have stood for Hetfield’s and Ulrich’s ever growing greed and absolute lack of self respect. The very things that have made Metallica the sell out piece of shit band they are today.

Cliff was the one that kept the band secured to the ground, the one who reminded them who they were and where they came from and the one who kept things simple and natural…

Can you see Cliff standing next to Kirk The Pimp at an MTV music award show sporting a waxed hairdo and a raccoon eyeliner?

No… me neither…

"We're not trying to be something big and fancy, it's just us, doing what we do. We'd like to keep it that way."

- Cliff Burton