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Hall Of Metal have an interesting interview with Metallica bass player Robert Trujillo:
- HoM. I have just listened the new record and I think is a good album, very classic sounding. Do you think it can compete with the first five albums of Metallica?
Every album is different from each other and each Metallica album has its own personality. Some songs in this album are really amazing. For me a great album is an album that needs a couple of listens to get into it and this is what happens with this one. I like Death Magnetic but I still don’t know how much I like it. It’s really dynamic and very detailed. It feels alive. We recorded the album as if we were playing a live show, standing up while recording and it was was the first time I recorded an album this way. When you listen to the album you feel the Metallica past is still alive. I really love Master of Puppets and I don’t know how can we compete with the classic albums, but it’s a great album with its own personality and with lots of great moments. The feel of the album is that it’s like a whole, like a Pink Floyd album, not only a buch of songs put all together. Anyway, in the end it’s up to the people to decide if it’s good or not.
- HoM. Why did you decide to choose “The Day Than Never Comes” as a first single?
Our manager took that decision. “The Day Than Never Comes” it’s a very classic song, in the vein of old school Metallica. It’s almost two songs in one. It was built on jamming specially the second half of it. James did a great job on the guitar and we had a lot of fun playing that song. Many people will say it’s too long for a single but we don’t really care. This album is not based on singles. There is a song called “My Apocalypse” that is under 5 minutes, but its too much a straight thrash metal song to be a single. Anyway, people seems to be liking “The Day Than Never Comes” so far.
- HoM. What has changed inside Metallica to decide to get back to the old sound?
We decided that for many reasons and Rick Rubin has something to do with this. St Anger was some kind of transition for Metallica, James felt more fragile at that moment and everything was very scheduled and planned. It was really strange. But the last years he seems to be back into shape. He’s fine now he’s really focused on the music. When I joined the band I was focused on my band and I was really out of touch of the last Metallica stuff like Load and Reload. I just loved the old stuff and when I got into the band the first thing I did was to ask them to play old stuff and, instead of running away from that idea like refusing their past, the guys felt ok about that. Playing old songs on tour was like they were trying to re-learn and that helped to make an album like this. The new songs feel alive and we feel we can play these songs live. The new songs sound in the vein of the old stuff but they are all new and fresh.
- HoM. How was the process of composing the new record, from your point of view as a member?
Unlike what happened in the past as a bass player, I was there every day. James was a very important part in the composing mode. He is able to turn up the guitar and play about ten seconds and he’s getting a new amazing riff. He is never short of great ideas. In the end, during the last two years, we recorded about 60 hours of music to listen before starting to write the final stuff. I also worked with them in the writing of the album and I have a lot of moments in this records. They have had open arms towards my ideas. They wanted my oppinion constantly. For instance, at one point I was playing my spanish guitar and when they heard me playing they said “wow, it sounds cool, use that in one song”. They were very open minded about my thoughts. Every time I said I had new ideas they run to hear them. They were very receptive. At the time of recording the album I felt we were really working as a team, collaborating all together.
- HoM. What can you tell us about “The Unforgiven III”?
James is very passionate about it. We had 14 songs recorded and we needed to reduce that number to 10 and although all of them were great, James said to include this one by imperative. He really loves that song. Unforgiven III is like a breath of fresh air since most of the songs are really intense. It’s more straigh ahead with a lot of room for dynamics. We all like the song but for James this is a very special one. He feels very close to it and it’s a very important song in the new album.
- HoM. Which are the main differences between playing with Metallica and playing with your former bands like Black Label Society and Ozzy?
BLS wasn’t my band at all. Zakk Wylde is actually BLS. He knows exactly how he wants to sound and he doesn’t like very much to get input from other people so I was just playing the bass in his songs. Playing with a huge band like Ozzy was more confortable (hotels and things like that) and it was also great in the sense it prepared myself to get into a big band like Metallica. About my other bands, in Infectious Grooves all the songs were written around the bass guitar and about Suicidal Tendencies they were very protective againts its own sound and they didn’t want other people to mess with their songs. The great thing about Metallica is all the guys are open to new ideas, no matter if it is a flamenco guitar or some crazy idian or russian melody.
- HoM. Your perfomance on stage are closer to crossover and modern metal than to the Metallica style. What do you think about it?
When I’m in stage I do the same things no matter the band I’m playing with. I still feel like a kid, a love surfing, snowboarding and maybe my performance is in some way related to the things that I love, physically. I just feel the music and I do what I do. I don’t know if I’m performing as the young metal bands do nowadays or not because I’m not very much into it. It’s just myself.
- HoM.You have just said you always feel like a kid. Do the rest of the Metallica members have the same kind of feeling?
I swear to God that when I’m rehearsing and recording along with them they are like big teenagers. When I’m with them I’m always laughing inside. The world they live in and the bubble they’re standing in is really funny. When they turn their guitars on, they are kids again and that’s the beauty of Metallica and that’s also the beauty of Death Magnetic from my point of view. They are some sort of teenage musicians no matter how old their bodies are. Their youthful attitude make them special and relevant yet today. When we get on stage, no matter how good or bad it sounds, they really give all they have inside.
- HoM. You are the most technical bass player Metallica ever had, so it’s strange you don’t have more solo parts in the instrumental song called “Suicide & Redemption”.
James wrote the guitar arrangements in this song and he played the solos on it. It’s like his baby and I didn’t want to mess with it. I didn’t feel good if I would have asked him to include more things on it. It would be like stepping into his territory. I don’t know what they think, but I personally think, in my own oppinion, that my role in this album is a bass player that plays very hard, like hitting a punching bag, to supply the necessary warmth under the guitars. That is how I feel about my work in the album. You have to find your own place in the sound to find the correct balance and that’s one of the most important things in Death Magnetic.
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