Robert Trujillo recently spoke with Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation. During their conversation, Robert discusses playing in Metallica for the last 20 years and the different instruments he uses and sounds of other band members. He also talks about his super group Infectious Grooves.
SiriusXM's Trunk Nation, hosted by Eddie Trunk, airs daily at 3 PM ET on SiriusXM’s Faction Talk.
On playing in Metallica for the last 20 years:
“What I like to do with some of the older songs is I'll play, you know, well, I'm playing more four string now. That’s something that I didn't do when I first joined the band. I was pretty active on the five. I don't know, it's been like, over the last few years, I just have felt more comfortable and I realized I was maybe working a little too hard with the five, and it was like, wait a minute, you know, these songs sit better for me, you know, when I'm playing them on a four. So a lot of the older material, the Cliff Burton era songs, I'll jump on a four. I've even played the Aria at times, what he played. But usually it's, you know, my Warwick basses. Sometimes it's a Fender. It's interesting because, you know, between Jason and Cliff, you know, they're very different players and I think that's great.
“I mean, I love the fact that we're all different. We all have our thing that we bring to the band. And, you know, obviously with Cliff, he was such an incredible musician. I mean, he was really a composer when it came to the instrument. And, in the same way that sort of a Jaco Pastorius or Stanley Clarke would've been a composer, you know, they're thinking about the song, but they're also also thinking about the voice of the instrument within the song and how to present it. And sometimes that's utilizing, you know, distortion or overdrive or, the wah pedal, you know, and being melodic with it. And I love that. And that's what I love about him. And then you got Jason who is really keeping it and holding it down, you know, keeping it solid, a lot more simple, but in a good way. You know? Definitely not in any sort of, kind of like, not in a pedestrian way. I would never say that. I think it's just really solid.”
On Infectious Grooves:
“Every once in a while, I get a call from Mike and he'll say, ‘Hey, you know, we got the opportunity to do this show, or this has been offered, or that's been offered.’ And nine times outta 10, you know, I can't do it. But this time around it was like, ‘You know, we've been offered some dates in Australia with a couple of warmups in California, you know, are you down?’ And I thought about it and he goes, ‘If we don't take these, then it may never happen.’ And I thought about it and I was like, ‘You know what? I think it's time to do this.’ And I always check in with my Metallica brothers, you know, for anything. And they're like, ‘Yeah, yeah, it sounds like fun.’ You know? So, you know, I said, ‘All right, let's do it.’
“And, you know, we put together the set, the band, you know, Brooks Wackerman from the Avenged Sevenfold. He was our drummer when he was 15 years old back in, you know, in the ‘90s, in the mid-90s. And he was unavailable, or he would normally have been playing these shows. But you know, Jay's been great. He's been tremendous, as you know. Yeah, Dave Kushner is from Velvet Revolver, but Dave Kushner actually played on the first Infectious Grooves album back in 1991. He played on the song, ‘Punk It Up,’ so we had a connection with Dave. He also brought in Stephen Perkins who played drums on, you know, on the first album and killed it, you know, at the time I think he was like 24 years old. And then Josh Freese, actually, who now plays in the Foo Fighters, was the drummer on our second album.
“So we've always had these incredible drummers, you know, sitting in that chair for the three albums that we did. Scott Crago also played on the first album. For those of you that don't know, Scott Crago is currently the drummer, one of the drummers in the Eagles, you know. So it's always been kind of a pedigree position. And also the drummers get to go crazy, so it's always fun for them. Every time I talk to different drummers, they're like, ‘Dude, I want that gig, or I want you to play that show,’ you know? And so it's exciting.”
(Credit - SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation)
