Enter Night_ A Biography of Metallica - Mick Wall [140]
That wasn’t all. Cliff’s death threw all the remaining members’ hopes for the future into sharp relief. It didn’t just draw Lars and James closer together, it focused their minds like never before on what it was they really wanted out of Metallica. Cliff’s very presence had always meant the lines between musical integrity and career ambition were fuzzily drawn, hazy and disguised in wreaths of weed smoke. It was easy to see how ambitious Lars was; it was always assumed Cliff had nobler aims, which he ostensibly did, in terms of not bowing to fashion or commercial pressure. Cliff was just as keen on making the band a significant success, though. Lars had always been the brains, James the brawn. But they were young and innocent enough still to incorporate Cliff’s longer-term views into the cause, or at least pay lip-service to them. They were all comfortable with the idea of selling millions of records, yes, but only on their terms. Certainly they never saw themselves as competing on the same terms as the likes of Bon Jovi and Whitesnake, groups that released four or five singles per album and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on state-of-the-art videos. Metallica’s blood was purer, truer; they belonged to a proud tradition that stretched back through Iron Maiden and Motörhead, to ZZ Top (before the cutesy videos) and Lynyrd Skynyrd; all the way back to Zeppelin and Sabbath; groups that didn’t kiss ass or kowtow to the Man.
Now, with Cliff gone, those values would become steadily eroded. They still talked of not selling out and only doing things their way, but the reality was that their way, without Cliff, quickly narrowed down to the laws of the jungle and the rule of tooth and claw, where only the strongest and fittest survived. Where the only voices that count are the ones the business itself takes seriously. In that respect, Metallica with Cliff had started with a disadvantage. There were always caveats about what they would and would not do; always special pleading to be judged not as others were but on their own singular terms. Now, without Cliff’s sardonic voice to offer an alternative view, Lars and James were able to get down to the real nitty-gritty. In many ways it would be the making of them – a bold new pragmatism that ensured Metallica would not just survive but continue to prosper with ever-increasing abundance, no matter what.
Auditions for Cliff’s replacement began straight after his funeral, in special rooms set up at Hayward, their usual rehearsal space. ‘They really tried to do it so it wasn’t awkward for anybody,’ says Bobby Schneider. ‘Guys would come in, wait in a room then come into the main rehearsal room and play.’ Among the cattle call of nearly sixty people who showed up – including one kid who brought a pal just to stand by the door taping it; another who didn’t even get to plug in, shown the door by James as soon as he saw the Quiet Riot autograph on his bass – were some notable applicants, such as Les Claypool of Primus, Lääz Rockit’s Willy Lange, Watchtower bassist Doug Keyser, Troy Gregory of Prong…
One bassist who actually turned them down was Joey Vera of Armored Saint: ‘I got a call from Lars asking me to come up and jam with them, because they were becoming very disillusioned. They wanted to play with some people that they knew and were familiar with. I was very honoured that he called me [but] I had to say, “Well, let me think about