As you listen to Metallica’s latest album, “Hardwired…to Self-Destruct,” your ears may tell you the album’s opening track, “ManUNkind,” is somehow inspired by late bass player Cliff Burton. As it turns out, current bass player Robert Trujillo says, indeed, he did craft the bass line on that track as a nod to Burton.
“When I had written that, I was definitely thinking about Cliff,” Trujillo said in an interview with Canada’s Exclaim!TV. “In a way, that to me is a tip of the hat to Cliff Burton and the spirit of Cliff. If you hear that little thing before ‘ManUNkind,’ for me personally, that was with Cliff in mind.”
Burton passed away in 1986, closely following the release of Metallica’s multi-platinum ”Master of Puppets” album. Bass player Jason Newsted held down low-end duties for the band up until 2003, when Trujillo became Metallica’s full-time bass player.
In addition to the Burton tribute, ”Hardwired…to Self-Destruct” also includes the song “Murder One,” which Metallica penned to pay homage to late Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister. We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of Kilmister’s death. He passed away December 28th of 2015.
