Metal
Jason Newsted has spoken about Cliff Burton in an interview with Heavy Consequence published on 27 September, forty years to the day after the tour bus crash in Sweden in which Burton died. Newsted was the bassist who replaced him in Metallica.
On what he saw live the year before: “From a bassist fan player person, I saw him play in 1985… a year and a little bit before he died… It was like, why do you even fucking bother?” And on what he took from it: “Maybe if I try really hard, I could be a tenth of as good as that.”
Newsted places Burton’s level early: “By the time [Burton’s] 16, 17, pretty, pretty goddamn good already. Same as Les [Claypool].” And he recalls what the other two did: “James and Lars, who are also very exceptionally talented people, recognized it so strongly that they moved their lives to be just in a band with the guy before they even made a fucking record… He was that fucking good.”
“I think that what I like the most or what I really appreciate is how everyone continues to show such respect for his efforts, because they were so fantastical in his brief span,” he says at the end. Burton recorded three albums with Metallica.
Text by Roger Estivill