To have the opportunity to bring 'Tallica Parking Lot' to life through images was really special. And also to have a lot of my heroes and my friends in the film was really, really special. People like Lemmy from Motorhead.
— Robert Trujillo
'Tallica Parking Lot' is, basically, roughly about a four-minute animated short which is centered around the parking lot of Metallica, and that can be anywhere in the world.
I've played with the best drummers in rock, ranging from Josh Freese to Brooks Wackerman to even Dave Lombardo.
I've been a baseball fan in the early part of my life, so through the '70s and the '80s, I was a huge fan. I actually followed the Dodgers back then, back in the Kirk Gibson years, Steve Garvey.
With my experience with Metallica, I've already surfed Portugal, Morocco, and all over Australia with Kirk.
Between 'St. Anger' and 'Death Magnetic,' we had, if I'm not mistaken, five kids born. And, of course, that would allow things to take time.
A lot of the hardcore fans wanna hear the deep cuts - songs like 'Orion' or maybe like a 'Disposable Heroes' - you know, songs that we don't play all the time - and then, of course, they wanna hear 'Sandman' and 'Nothing Else Matters' and some of the hits.
I was in a party band in the early '80s, and we played Sabbath and Ozzy songs as well as Rush and Van Halen... all that kinds of stuff.
James Hetfield, I mean, the minute he plugs in his guitar and adjusts the tone knob, he comes up with the world's greatest riff.
We just like to make great songs and have fun, and if people want to nominate us for a Grammy and celebrate it, then we'll take it.
Flamenco was probably the first music that I may have heard as a baby, because my father played flamenco.
It's all about the experience and having a good time and connecting with the fans.
Jaco Pastorius gave the bass a new voice. I mean, he was very inspired by singers like Frank Sinatra. And in a lot of ways, maybe he wanted to be a singer himself.
One thing about being in Metallica is I've always felt challenged.
We absolutely cherish our kids. But the fact that we all have them - it's definitely created an additional bond. It's not just Metallica - it's our families. And we also have Metallica.
You can make an album, and people won't get it. Or won't connect with it. Or won't - whatever is going on in the universe at that time, it doesn't really register.
I always say, 'Hey, I'm in Metallica, but I wasn't on the Black Album.'
I've always been a fan of animation. As a kid, I used to watch a lot of the Saturday-morning cartoons, and I was always a fan of even claymation and that whole medium.
There were a lot of different styles in the house - Motown, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, jazz - and my dad played flamenco guitar. Soon I realized that bass was what was really grooving me.
If you choose to take care of yourself, you're going to get more mileage for your career.
I feel that music is such an inspirational form of energy, as baseball is. And especially with Metallica, believe it or not, our shows are very physical. Sports is a very physical thing, too.
Being able to surf in Tahiti and places like Brazil was unreal.
With our producer, Greg Fidelman, it was really a joy to work with him and to try different things and experiment.
It's always nice, no matter what style of music, as long as it's grooving and you feel that, I feel that's what makes... part of what makes a great song, for sure.
Sabbath is always some of the best music ever. And the reason is because it grooves. It's funky. It's heavy. It's got lots of great changes, twists, and turns.
I've been wearing Vans since I was a little kid. I wear them on stage, and I grew up skateboarding and surfing.
It's really, really great; it's special when people embrace your music.
'Frayed Ends Of Sanity' off the 'Justice' album is a song that I really wanted to play with the band, and for years and years, I was always like, 'Let's play this song!' But I'll tell you something: I started working on that song almost from the very first time I joined the band.
Sometimes artists die young, and we don't know exactly why. I think that, in life, you have these special individuals, whether it's Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain. They're on this journey - they're on this earth to change things, to make things incredible - and then they're not with us anymore.
Playing with Ozzy was a dream come true.
I just wanted to experiment with the bass, and my main influence from Jaco Pastorius inspired me to write music in a certain way.
I feel like I've always been a great mediator.
The cool thing about the smaller gigs - it's the intimacy. You really feel connected to the crowd.
I had a band called Infectious Grooves back in the Nineties. That music was really a mixture of styles, and we had some stuff that was punk rock, ska, but then we had a lot of funk in there.
That's what I find so special: when you actually imagine something. But really, when it comes to you in a dream, and then you can bring it to life on the screen, it's very powerful.
There's a lot of personality in Lars's drumming. That's what makes it unique.
It's really a rush and a thrill to feel you've been part of a body of music that's inspiring.
I think every Metallica album is unique in its own way.
Mike Clark, who's a really amazing surfer, got me back into surfing. I surfed a lot from '82 to '86, and then I kind of started slacking.
You've gotta be careful because art is really important to most people, and you wanna respect that as much as possible. So I live by that rule.
With our fans, a lot of times, people get upset because maybe they didn't get what they wanted, whatever. But we always write the songs for us, number one.
We all grew up with Black Sabbath. I mean, there's no secret there. Any of us, any of the members of any band I've ever been in, or anyone I've ever worked with.
You just go out and do the best that you can. I think people feel that, and they embrace it, and it's a part of what makes Metallica special.
My father had a friend who actually had a hollow-body bass guitar and didn't work through an amp, but because it was hollow body, I could play it. So I kind of played on that for about a year, learning scales and all that. And here I am.
'Justice' is the biggest challenge 'cause it's also complex in the arrangements.
With the fretless bass, you have a different tone and different sound, a different dynamic to the instrument, so you can really make it sing.
When I was younger, I was trying to create from attitude more than anything else.
You can be an incredible player, but when you get onstage, you've gotta be yourself, and you've gotta bring it, as we say, and that just means give 120 percent.
We see kids out there on their parent's shoulders rocking out. And that's really special.
What we're doing is special and unique in its own way but still keeping it heavy. For me as a listener, part of the journey I'm on with Metallica, there's just a certain edge that needs to be there.
