James Hetfield thinks Metallica’s path in the 1990s would have been very different if bassist Cliff Burton had been alive.
Hetfield tells Metal Hammer that if Burton hadn’t died in a 1986 bus crash, he would have pushed against hiring Bob Rock to produce 1991’s Black Album. He says, “I think Cliff would have probably interjected some different stuff, getting his bass heard and some more musically challenging things, probably. I would certainly think that…Load and Re-Load, I would have had an ally that was very against it all — the reinvention or the U2 version of Metallica.”
Hetfield adds that he’s not totally dissing the albums, for which the guys cut their hair and went with a slicker image. “There’s some great, great songs on there. But my opinion is that all of the imagery and stuff like that was not necessary. And the amount of songs that were written was…it diluted the potency of the poison of Metallica. And I think Cliff would have agreed with that.”