Five musicians rejected by Metallica
Metallica are more of a metal institution nowadays than a traditional band. After becoming one of the biggest thrash acts of all time, the band’s sights on mainstream success turned them into one of the biggest outfits on the planet, with legions of fans singing along to songs like ‘Master of Puppets’ and ‘Enter Sandman’. But with fame comes expectations, and none of the members would let something slide when drafting a recruit.
Throughout their tenure, Metallica have lost a few members along the way. Now, they have a strict rule about drafting anyone new. Every band member needs to be up to a certain skill set and have the right attitude towards the music, which wasn’t always the case with the musicians listed below.
Granted, each of these musicians was auditioning under different circumstances for Metallica. From the loss of Cliff Burton to when the band were in therapy during the sessions for St. Anger, each bassist needed to provide the right extra ingredient to prove themselves as a fully-fledged band member, with most admittedly coming up short.
Then again, not every musician bore a grudge (usually), going on to form impressive bands of their own and never looking back from not playing with the metal heavyweights. Although it might have been fun to jam with Metallica, history would have been very different if any of these musicians had stayed the course with the godfathers of thrash metal.
Five musicians that Metallica rejected:
Danny Lohner – Nine Inch Nails
To play bass for Metallica would be any average metal fan’s golden ticket. Although the band were without a bass player through most of the sessions for St. Anger, producer Bob Rock laid down most of the basslines instead. Since Rock had no intentions of playing with Metallica for the long term, the hunt was on for a new bass player, and the star list started adding up.
Since it was the early 2000s, some fresh faces in modern metal showed up, including Danny Lohner from Nine Inch Nails. While Lohner had been called specifically because the band liked his bass tones, things started to fall off the rails when they played with him, including footage in the documentary Some Kind of Monster where he’s struggling to keep up during the song ‘Battery’.
One painful part of Lohner’s audition made it into the final film, where Kirk Hammett is trying to explain how ‘Battery’ is supposed to go, and James Hetfield says “just follow” in as much of a nice guy tone as he can. While the band eventually drafted in Robert Trujillo for his work with Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves, they missed out on the next phase of the band being slightly more industrial.
David Ellefson – Megadeth
After years of being treated like dirt, Jason Newsted figured enough was enough when he decided to leave the band. Newsted had not been given a creative say in the band, and his departure before St. Anger led to the band undergoing therapy. In the middle of the band’s spiral, Megadeth also had a bass player without a job.
During a period of lawsuits, David Ellefson had left Megadeth and talked about being asked to audition for Metallica at the time, telling Metal Injection: “I know that there was a conversation about considering me. I know Lars Ulrich and Dave Mustaine had chatted, ’cause Metallica were putting their shortlist together”.
By the time the band were settling on potential replacements, the timing didn’t work out for either of them, as Ellefson continues, “I would be there to be of service with them in whatever way, but they, I think, made their decision right around the time when Megadeth had disbanded in 2002”. Then again, if Ellefson had taken it, he would have joined a short list of people who have been in two of the Big 4 of thrash metal.
Pepper Keenan – Corrosion of Conformity
During Metallica’s wilderness period in the mid-1990s, the band were toying with different styles of rock and roll. As much as they held onto their thrash roots, they always pulled from different influences, including some alternative acts like Alice in Chains. James Hetfield always had an affinity for Corrosion of Conformity, and bandleader Pepper Keenan was one on a short list of potential people to join their ranks.
After the band got back together following Hetfield’s stint in rehab, Keenan was brought down and had fun playing with the band, showing himself as a capable person to be in the group. As everyone started warming up to the idea, Keenan was the one who ended up pulling the plug.
Between sessions, the dynamic began to change, with Lars Ulrich thinking that the power dynamic in the group might be swayed because of Keenan’s friendship with Hetfield. In the outtakes for the Some Kind of Monster documentary, Keenan suggests that he shouldn’t be in the band because of that connotation and that he wouldn’t care either way. Out of all the people considered for Metallica, Keenan might be one of the few who came close to an offer and said no.
Dave Mustaine – Megadeth
In Metallica’s early days, they were some of the gnarliest band of punks that any thrash fan could ask for. The band got the name ‘Alcoholica’ throughout their early gigs because of how much they drank, turning every gig into one big kegger wherever they went. For all of the beer that they drank, Mustaine was the one holdout who could never control his liquor.
On the band’s way out to the east coast, Mustaine would get violent, trashing houses in his way and disrespecting many of their fans. By the time they finally arrived in New York City, Hetfield and Ulrich had made the decision to let Mustaine go, catching him off guard as he woke up by giving him a bus ticket back to California.
For as angry as Mustaine was at the time, he vowed to get revenge, saying in the Behind the Music episode on Megadeth that he formed his new band strictly to get back at them. Although Megadeth and Metallica began a rivalry that would last for decades, metal fans won out in the end by getting two great bands for the price of one.
Les Claypool – Primus
None of the members of Metallica were equipped to deal with the death of Cliff Burton. Burton’s knowledge of music had left an indelible mark on their sound, and his death in a bus crash in 1986 cast a shroud over the next few months of their career. Although the perfect replacement came in the form of Jason Newsted, Kirk Hammett called one of his high school buddies to try out as well.
Having no knowledge of Metallica’s music, Les Claypool from Primus auditioned for the band while looking absolutely out of place amongst the group. Although the band had cited him as being too good when interviewed for Behind the Music, it was clear Claypool’s virtuosic playing didn’t fit in with what Metallica was about anyway.
In the episode, Claypool did take his rejection with a grain of salt, sarcastically mentioning that he wept like a little girl when he didn’t get the call. Then again, Primus and Metallica crossing over did happen a few times off and on, like Claypool sprinkling bits and pieces of ‘Master of Puppets’ into his bass solos when playing live.
