Les Claypool on His Metallica Audition: “There Is a Reason I Didn’t Get The Gig”
Les Claypool auditioned to be Metallica’s bass player in 1986 but was turned down in favor of Jason Newsted… and we all know how that went. Claypool has talked about it several times before, but when asked in an interview with Full Metal Jackie about how different his life might be had he gotten the gig he said:
“Oh there would be nothing different because they would have booted me out after about, I would have given it five weeks, they probably would have booted me after five weeks. There is a reason why I didn’t get the gig. I didn’t fit the part.”
In an interview with Team Rock two years ago Les describes how he waltzed into the audition to give you a better picture of what exactly he means by “I didn’t fit the part,”:
“I didn’t fit the bill at all. I showed up with this bass that was a hunk of driftwood, I had two different-colored tennis shoes on, bleach-blond mohawk, baggies, skater pants – I didn’t fit the bill, especially for Metallica back then.”
Sounds to me like he went prepared to audition for a nu-metal band.
Primus recently released a lyric video for the track “The Seven” from their upcoming album The Desaturating Seven, which will be out September 29th via ATO Records; pre-order it here. They will be on tour later this year, and you can find dates here.
[via Ultimate Guitar]
