DISGRACELAND - Metallica: Thrash Metal, Murder, and the Death of Cliff Burton

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

In the early days of Metallica, their bass player carried a hammer on tour and had a gun that shot knives – or so the story goes. Their former lead guitarist was a drug dealer who kept two pitbulls for protection. They were blamed when a teenager, high on LSD, murdered a man in cold blood and quoted the band’s lyrics. And in 1986, long before they became a household name, they suffered a sudden and horrific tragedy just as their thrash metal music was entering the mainstream.To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com.To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership.Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTERFollow Jake and DISGRACELAND:InstagramYouTubeX (formerly Twitter) Facebook Fan GroupTikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was.

Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the fourth. 14th season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about Battalica, about one of the greatest bands of all time. Call them heavy. Call them rock. Call them thrash. call them whatever you want. There's no getting around the fact that Metallica was fucking metal.

And so is this story. Because it's not only a story about Metallica, it's a story about their original bass player, Cliff Burton. And no one was more metal than Cliff. This story is so metal, it's a gun that shoots knives. It's angrier than a pit bull whose drug-dealing guitar-playing owner forgot to feed it. It's more metal than a deranged psychopath, high on LSD, murdering a man in cold blood and quoting Metallica lyrics.

It's the story of a tragic end that took place before the most metal band of all really even got started. It is, like I said, a story about Metallica, a band that made great music, some of the greatest music ever. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Jerk of All Trades, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to stuck with you by Huey Lewis in the news. And why would I play you that specific slice of hip-to-be-square cheese, could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on September 27, 1986.

And that was the day that Metallica's bus crashed while on tour in Sweden, flipping over and instantly killing the band's bass player, Cliff Bird. On this episode, Hammers, Pitbulls, a gun that shoots knives, murder, tragedy, metal, and Metallica. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland. Metallica's James Hetfield is one of, if not, the greatest rhythm guitar players of all time. He's up there with John Lee Hooker, Malcolm Young, Keith Richards. Like those other guys, James Hetfield did not just play. He innovated.

He created something new when he took the rapid-fire downstrokes of punk rock guitar and added in shuddering upstrokes. The result was a whiplash riff, unlike anything anyone had heard before. And don't get me started on that gnarly tone. To get the tone you heard on Metallica's early masterpiece, master of puppets, you had to do what James Heffield did. Not one, not two, but three-layered guitars, all playing the same thing. James called that third guitar the thickener. So fast, so tight, and so metal. And just like no one had ever played the guitar quite in the same way,

no band had ever brought that kind of playing, that kind of music, to the mainstream like Metallica did in 1991. Their fifth album, self-titled, also known as the Black album, was a phenomenon upon its release. Number one album on the chart for four straight weeks. Metallica was no longer playing to niche crowds of outcasts, weirdos, and burnouts. They were now playing arenas packed with the popular kids, prom kings, beauty queens, even medals long-time nemesis, the jocks. In the past, it was mostly dudes out there in the audience. Mirror reflections of the four guys on stage. Rick jeans, long hair, misfits t-shirt with a sleeves sod off,

working on a butt-heavy, full-body buzz. Now the crowds were at least 50-50 dudes and chicks, which is when you know as a metal band that you've truly made it. But making it didn't come without compromise. Metallica in 1991 was not the same Metallica from 1981. Their music was simpler, more anthems. A change that welcomed sour grapes from the diehards who'd been there from the beginning. You know the ones.

The ones who cried sellout. As soon as Metallica started not just selling out stadiums, but selling out stadium tours. And being called sellouts, being criticized. It wasn't the music that was the problem. The music was fucking great. And anyone who told you differently at the time did so because they're having a hard time grieving the loss of something that was gone forever. Cliff would have never let this happen was a common complaint, referring, of course, to Cliff Burton,

Metallica's former bass player, who died five years prior. Cliff was quickly replaced with Jason Neustead, who'd been doing his best to fit in for those five years since, despite relentless hazing from his bandmates, including being erased from a record, but more on that later. Jason had talent, Jason had dedication. But just like the music wasn't the problem, Jason wasn't the problem either. The problem was that he'd stepped into shoes that were never meant to be filled.

December, 1984, Finland. The very real hammer in Cliff Burton's hand was familiar to anyone with a copy of Metallica's debut album, Killem All. But unlike that record's cover art, Cliff's hammer was not next to a pool of blood. Blood wasn't on Cliff's mind right now. Peace was, restoring it, keeping it. He stepped off the tiny stage and into the unruly crowd. He lifted the hammer above his head and began to swirl it dramatically in the air. And the kids moved aside.

The mass fighting that had been raging just seconds before came to a stop. Cliff pushed through, six-foot-something, his frame accented by this hammer the gods in his hand. Because that's who Cliff Burton was. That's who Metallica were. at least to these kids in this place, they were gods among men. And that place was a high school gymnasium by day. But at night, at least on this night, it was where the end of semester party was being held. Any disaffected youth worth of salt back in the day knew that a circle pit at a Metallica show

was the best place to ditch all those feelings you were too young to process. Metallica pits were the best because Metallica had realness. Not some airbrushed metal fantasy. Not Iron Maiden's Eddie, and I'm not trying to dump on Iron Maiden. I love Iron Maiden. Eddie's cool, still is cool, but Metallica back then were cooler because they were more real. Cliff, James Hetfield, drummer Lars Alrich, and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett inspired a nightly tornado of long hair moshing into oblivion.

But tonight was different. Tonight started with some bullshit. Metallica's lighting guy pissing off one of the locals, a teenage girl who clocked him in the face. The lighting guy responded like he was getting a reflex test in the doctor's office and he hit her back. That was fucking stupid and that also led to this. Two opposing factions now out in the audience. One siding with the girl and the other siding with the band. And all that chaos soundtrack by Metallica's intense brand of thrash.

The kind defined by that incredible first record I mentioned before, Kill them All. And then refined by their sophomore album, Ride the Lightning. Metal music that was as sophisticated as the guys in Metallica were, Goofy. which is to say very. Metal music had what few of their contemporaries had. Groove that Metallica possessed because Metallica possessed Cliff Burton. At 22 years old, Cliff Burton was the oldest member of the band.

And though he liked the kinds of stuff that the rest of the guys liked, motorhead, budgie, UFO, he was also into Rush, R-E-M, Zizi Top. He ran his Rickenbocker bass through a Wawa pedal and went balls to the wall like he was not a, bass player at all but a lead guitarist. His replacement, Jason Neustead later called him the Jimmy Hendricks of bass. But right now, in 1984, Cliff Burton didn't need any comparison. He was the Cliff Burton of Metallica, down to earth, real as could be, with a melodic sensibility in a groove

that helped propel Metallica's music straight into your head, straight into your soul, metal, up your ass, as it were. That being the original. title for Metallica's first album, a title rejected by their record label, a rejection to which Cliff responded, fuck those fuckers. Let's kill them all. And thus, the album title, Kill them All. And Cliff and Metallica did kill them all. Not literally, of course, but with their music. Music that was a far cry from what the rest of America was listening to at the time, which was Brian Adams, Bruce Springsteen, the footloose soundtrack. Metallica music, was metal that put posers on high alert.

Posers like those sunset strip clowns with their makeup and their spandex. Motley crew wasn't real. Metallica was real. Cliff Burton just wanted to play music. And maybe he earned enough money to put a deposit on a house with a yard big enough for him to shoot off his homemade gun, the one that didn't shoot bullets, but shot knives. How metal is that?

Cliff's attitude was pretty metal as well. He did not care what you thought about him. He didn't care what he thought about his Canadian tuxedo, his bell-bottomed jeans, his sleeveless flannel, the peach-fuzz mustache above his upper lip. What he did care about was squashing whatever beef was currently taking place out there in the crowd. So he kept twirling that hammer over his head, the one he brought with him everywhere on tour, from San Francisco to Europe. The one even customs agents wouldn't confiscate. Since this was 40 years ago, when apparently stashing a hammer in your luggage, failed to raise any red flag. Relax. Right now, the kids in that school gymnasium in Finland were heating that hammer's

nonverbal warning in the capable hands of the godlike baseball player. Golden stash and floating locks, denim on denim, like the chain mail of an ancient warrior. And when the fighting was over, there was one clear winner, Cliff Burton, Metallica. They finished their show like the conquering heroes that they were. Just look at James Hetfield, looming over a mic stand that was set low, requiring him to drop his head to sing into it, his long hair hanging down, creating the impression that he was bigger than he actually was. Just like those three layered guitars on the record. Fast, tight, metal, real.

There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. who say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield and in this new season

of the girlfriends Oh my God this is the same man a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist I felt like I got hit by a truck I thought how could this happen to me?

The cops didn't seem to care so they take matters into their own hands I said oh hell no I vowed I will be his last target he's gonna get what he deserves Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe.

On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of family secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air. so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle.

Each week, we dive head first into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything, and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car

and drove off, and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests, like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, and my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in.

Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going. And the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting.

I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things. Tena, Mongeau, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movement. From day one, that's what it was all about. James Headfield moving away from a screwed up family in Downey, California. Christian scientists who refused medical treatment or medical education, meaning teenage James stood alone in the hallway while the other kids sat through health class.

That made him a real misfit, real quick. His father up and leaving, the family just pissed him off more. For James, there was no brave face to put on. There was only his trademark, stay the fuck away from me face. Then there was Lars Ulrich, moving out of his native Denmark to attend tennis school in Florida and then to California, trading a bohemian lifestyle, competitive sport for the down and dirty subculture of the new wave of British heavy metal. Lars was small, but he was persistent, sneaking into green room after green room, reppping the U.S. of the Motorhead fan club as their unofficial president, meeting Lemmy, and then meeting the guys in Diamondhead, that thick maiden patch on his jacket getting attention from the right people, people who wanted to know,

Hey man, you're an angel witch? And then, Metallica as a whole, literally picking up and moving from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the Bay Area, where Cliff Burton made his home. That's how good Cliff was. They went to him. Cliff, like many others in the country, California metal scene was a Metallica fan. He was also a prodigious player, six hours a day on base, at least driven in part by tragedy, the death of his older brother at just 16 from a brain aneurysm. Cliff played to honor his brother's memory. Cliff had integrity, a quality he passed on to the band when they ditched L.A., along with their original bass player Ron McGoverny. Ron had been in the trenches with Metallica since their first show, trenches he shared with James

and Lars, and with the band's original lead guitarist Dave Mustaine. Dave didn't have James's stay the fuck away from me face. He didn't quite have Lars' ego either, though. He was close. But what he did have was a sister who was a witch, or so he said. Dave fucked around with some occult shit, spells, chants. He went after a big dude, a real tormentor type. Not with his fists or even the knife he carried with him as protection on account of the fact that he slung dope on the side. Dave hit this dude with some Prince of Darkness incantation. And guess what? The guy broke his leg.

He never walked the same again. That made Dave Mustaine feel pretty good, feel powerful. And if you're James Hetfield or Lars Alrick, you didn't want to mess with that kind of power. Just like you didn't want to mess with Dave's dogs, two pit bulls, again, drunk dealer. And that is unless Dave pissed you off enough and you just had to. One of those dogs jumped on Ron in the bass player's car.

James Hetfield pushed the dog off before its nails didn't. number on Ron's paint job. Dave then lost his shit. He squared up and punched that field right in the mouth. Ron then jumped on Dave's back, throwing his arms around Dave's neck. Dave was stronger and he easily threw Ron to the ground where he writhed around in pain while James' irritation with his lead guitarist was equal to only by the irritation on his face where Mustaine had just punched him. And that was the first time Dave Mustaine was fired from Metallica. The second time was for good. after he got drunk and told the guitarist in another band that he sucked and that no one gave a flying shit about him.

That kind of bad attitude in the scene, that kind of bad mojo is just bad for business. The next morning, James, Lars, and Cliff woke Dave up from a deep sleep, put a bus ticket in his hand, and told him to have a nice life. That is, after he enjoyed a four-day ride on the Greyhound from New York back to California. And yes, Dave Mustang did go on to form Megadeth, which failed. to shatter the glass ceiling like his former band eventually would, a fact which probably has played a part in his 40-year-plus inability to get over getting fired, but I digress. First, with the inspired hiring lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, then just 20 years old and under the tutelage of Joe Satriani. Next, with their albums, each bigger and better than the last.

Kill them all, Ride the Lightning, and then in 1986, Master of Puppets, a masterpiece which brought thrash metal to popular culture, giving Metallica their first gold record. But it also gave them their first real taste of backlash from the metal community. Backlash that claimed Metallica were getting soft, while other metal bands, like Slayer, were getting harder. But James, Lars, Kirk, and especially Cliff, they didn't care if their commitment to metal music was being questioned. Or that legions of once hardcore fans were now calling them alcoholica

on account of how many bottles of beer and vodka they crushed on the regular. They greeted all these things with Cliff's trademark declaration. I don't give a fuck. That is, until their tour bus pulled into Texas. 18-year-old Troy Cuncle's head was spinning. The acid, the alcohol, the combination of the two. He was loopy, as were his girlfriend and his other friends here in the car with him, barreling down a Texas highway on their way to a party in Corpus Christi.

One of those friends, Russell Stanley, pulled a 22. stuck it out of the window of the moving vehicle and fired. Y'all want to make some money tonight? Come on, Russell, someone else was saying. Acid and guns don't mix. Russell put the gun away, but the idea of armed robbery was in everyone's heads now. It bounced around and Troy Cuncle's fucked up brain. And when they got to Corpus Christi,

Troy told the driver to pull up alongside a man, probably about 10 years their senior, walking along the road. They asked if you wanted a ride. The man didn't know these kids but appreciated the offer, so he got in a car up front next to Troy's girlfriend. Russell Stanley pulled out the 22 again. From the back seat, he pressed it into the man's head. Give me your wallet.

Troy's eyes lit up as he watched his friend threaten a complete stranger. He told Russell to do it. Pull the trigger. Russell chickened out. Troy got impatient. He grabbed the gun from Russell and put it back against the man's head and said, we're going to take you back here and blow your brains out. Back here was a skating rink. The driver pulled the car around, pulled it out of sight,

and Troy kept the gun where it was, the butt of it digging into the man's skin. And then he made good on his threat. Blood splattered all over the car and the people inside of it. The gunshot rang out in everyone's ears as smoke poured from the hot barrel. They pushed the man's body out of the car and onto the ground, and Troy's girlfriend fished around in the man's pants for a wallet. $13. Troy looked at the dead man laying there.

His ears still ringing with that gunshot, ringing with the acid, ringing with the booze. But was something else, too. A song. Troy looked at what they'd just done, what he'd just done, and said, another day, another death,

another sorrow, another breath. The words Troy Cuncle spoke after he shot and killed 29-year-old Stephen Horton, were not his own words. He was quoting the song No Remorse from Side 2 of Metallica's Kill'em All album. This fact came out during his trial, in which Troy Cuncle was found guilty of capital murder

and sentenced to death by lethal injection, to ride the lightning, as they say. A fact that everyone was reminded of when Cuncle's legal team appealed his conviction in his sentence, an appeal that was happening right as Metallica's tour bus rolled into Corpus Christi for a show on their damage incorporated. tour. James, Lars, Kirk, and Cliff were greeted in Texas, not by fans, but by news cameras and TV crews. The timing could not have been worse. Metallica found themselves vilified,

culpable, complicit, just like Ozzy Osborne and Iron Maiden a year prior. Satanic panic felt real to the people pushing that paranoid agenda. Even if Cliff and the others knew it was bullshit, Metallica did write about dark stuff, sure, but. but they weren't promoting violence. They certainly weren't promoting murder and not suicide. Their music, just like their ambition, relied on moving forward, pushing through the bad in order to get to the good. Positive momentum, movement.

Which is what they were doing some three months later, when literally all movement came to a sudden, tragic halt in the early hours of a cold September morning. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either.

We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by it. a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. They said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro. I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of family secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive head first into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything. And me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move.

And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some for. fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an act or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in.

Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, Everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over?

Gaten Madarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Marone at Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. September 27, 1986.

Stockholm, Sweden, just after midnight. Cliff and Kirk were bonding. Not over comic books and horror movies are tripping on mushrooms. as was typical of the two friends. Tonight, they were drawing cards from a full deck. Whoever drew the highest card got to pick their bunk on the tour bus

for the nearly eight-hour drive to their next show in Copenhagen. Cliff drew the ace of spades, which of course was not only the highest and most valued card, but also the name of one of their beloved motorheads greatest songs. So metal.

I want your bunk, Cliff said. There was one with a window. Even though the windows were currently covered with pieces of cardboard to keep the near freezing temperatures outside at bay. Fine, Kirk replied. Take it. I'll sleep better up front anyway.

Cliff, Kirk, James, and Lars piled into the bus, along with their tour manager and the backline crew. But behind them, a second bus carried the rest of the crew, and behind that a third bus with the band's equipment. Everyone was sweaty, reeking of B-O, and totally wiped from that night's show. Eager to sleep it off and wake up in the morning to do it all over again. James pounded some vodka.

Cliff smoked a joint. They climbed onto the thin wooden bunks bolted into the bus's walls, and they watched a video flicker on a tiny TV screen and listened to the rumble of the engine as their entourage pulled out onto the highway. By 2 a.m., most everyone was passed out. The bus that the band was riding on was an English model, and this is important.

In England, the driver sits on the right-hand side and drives in the left-hand lane. But in Sweden, where they were, and also in Denmark where they were going. Drivers sit on the left-hand side of the vehicle and drive on the right-hand side of the road, like we do in America. So from the jump, anyone piloting a right-hand drive bus in the right-hand lane has a major handicap.

But it didn't seem that way to anyone on this night. It was late, and the road was clear, and the weather was chilly but unremarkable. The driver behind the wheel did this for a living. There was nothing to worry about. So went to thinking. The guys snored away in their small wooden bunks while the bus made its way down European Route E4 for hours and hours. 6.30 a.m. James woke up first. He felt something hot and wet, raining down on his body.

And then he heard the sound of screeching tires. The coffee pot above him had tipped over as the rear of the bus went careening off the edge of the road into gravel and dirt. The driver tried to compensate for the slight bend up ahead by frantically spinning the wheel. And for a moment it worked, correcting their path and pulling the bus back to the main drag. But the back end wouldn't stop skidding, and the rear wheels went all over the place like they were elastic. And then the bus jerked over to the edge of the road again, and this time off the road, back onto gravel and dirt. And then a huge crushing sound as the bus tipped over onto its right side. Rolling now over and over the sound of crunching metal, broken glass, steel on assholes,

fault, an ear-splitting noise that clawed at your brain while the whole world kept spinning, kept rolling. Jesus Christ, the rolling would it ever stop? Kirk was thrown from his bunk. He hit his head and then everything simply faded to black. Kirk came two moments later, with his eye blackened and bruised. The bus had come to a full stop. But this was far from over. There were screams, James, Lars, their tour manager, the crew, everybody was making noise. All except Cliff. Cliff's voice was oddly absent.

A hard lump formed in the pit of Kirk's stomach. Something didn't feel right. He had to get out now. James was way ahead of him, making his way out the emergency exit at the back of the bus, while the band's guitar attack at 6'7. A giant of a man pulled himself into the frigid early morning air through the roof hatch. Kirk followed James out the back and watched his metabolism. Metallica's lead singer ran down the open highways screaming,

wearing nothing but his underwear and socks. Lars was ignoring the pain in his toe, which unbeknownst to him was broken as he flew out of the bus, scared to death that the whole thing was about to explode. They were all out here now. James, Lars, Kirk, the tour manager, the crew members. Wait. Where was Cliff?

That's when they saw it. Legs protruding from under the side of the bus. that lay smoldering on the ground. Cliff's legs. James ran to where his friend and bandmate lay trapped and tried to pull him free. There was no use. Besides, it wouldn't matter.

Cliff's body wasn't moving. And there was no sound, no sign of life. What did you do? Kirk was screaming at the bus driver now, standing around outside with the rest of them in a daze. What did you do? The driver tried to explain. It was black ice.

The band was stunned. Black ice? Black ice? Look at the pavement. It was bone dry. Where was this black ice? James wanted to know. He took off in a sprint to find it, retracing their tracks,

running down an empty highway in Sweden looking for evidence to validate the bus driver's story. But he found nothing. There had been no rain that evening. No snow. James felt rage bubble up. from his gut. This fucking guy, this bus driver, what a lying piece of shit. There was no black ice. He must have fallen asleep at the wheel. And now, Cliff was dead. James wanted to kill him, right here, right now, end this fucker's sorry excuse for a life. But he didn't. Because deep down,

he didn't know what really happened. No one did. But here's what we do know. Swedish authorities arrived at the scene of the crash and immediately arrested the driver, as was protocol. Local newspapers reported that, much to James Headfield's suspicion, the driver was suspected of having fallen asleep at the wheel. James further claimed that he smelled alcohol in the guy's breath the morning of the accident. That particular accusation was never proven, and no official charges were ever brought against the driver. Before long, he was a free man. According to one biography of Metallica, no one on the bus that night could even remember the driver's name.

It's rumored that he changed his name after the accident and continued to drive tour buses for bands across Europe. What happened to Cliff was much more black and white. During the crash, he was thrown against the window near his bunk, which shattered. His body was halfway inside the bus and halfway out, and when the bus flipped over and landed on him, the official autopsy report was that he died from compression of his chest caps. with correlating damage to his lungs.

Translation, he was crushed to death. Cliff Burton was 24. That day, September 27th, 1986, the day of the accident. Metallica Show in Copenhagen was canceled, as were all their upcoming shows. They spent the night at a hotel near the crash site, but not before James Hetfield was loaded up with pain meds at a local hospital. And those meds may have made the physical. pain go away. But the real pain, the pain of losing cliff, that was untreatable. James went back to his

hotel room and destroyed everything in sight. And then he stumbled out onto the streets, no direction, yelling at the top of his lungs just like he'd yelled earlier that day inside and outside the tour bus. Only now his screams weren't a reaction to chaos. There were a homing beacon in the wilderness, a cry that echoed throughout the quiet streets of a small Swedish town. A cry that the locals listened to for hours on end. This crazy American, out of his mind, repeating over and over again. Cliff. Cliff.

Where are you? For Jason Neustead, it was a dream come true to join Metallica as their new bass player, despite the tragic circumstance. They'd buried Cliff Burton just three weeks prior, but even in the face of tragedy, it was all about movement, always had men and always would be. Jason could do movement. He already knew all the songs. He was a Metallica superfan, just like Cliff was once a fan. But a fandom was cool back then, back in Cliff's time.

It was not cool now. James, Lars, Kirk. They hated fan boy, Jason. They wanted to beat it out of him. make them just as hard and cynical as they all were now. A brotherhood bound by unresolved grief, sadness, and anger. Because when it came to emotions, real emotions, you didn't talk about that stuff.

Not if you were Metallica. Not in 1986. Talking, therapy. That kind of monster. That came later. Instead, they channeled their emotions into how they treated their newest member. They banged on Jason's hotel room at 4 in the morning. called him a pussy.

And when he let them in, they threw him on his bed and piled shit on top of them to television, the chairs, even the desk. They threw his clothes, his shoes, his cassette tapes out the window, and they stuck him with expensive bar taps. The worst offense, however,

would be when Metallica recorded and Justice for All, their first album with Jason and first without Cliff. James and Lars brought Jason's bass so far down in the mix that you couldn't even hear it. They erased them from the record,

I'm serious. Go listen to it. It's tight. It's badass. It's awesome. But it's pretty much got no fucking base on it whatsoever. Jason put up with it all because, well, he was in Metallica. If being in Metallica meant getting haze like a frat pledge, then so be it.

And like all things good and bad, it passed. And they moved on. What else was there to do? Metallica could never be who they were when Cliff was alive. That era was gone. But Cliss really. was not. Metallica had that with them for the long haul. And in the spirit of Cliff, they had to look around and ask themselves what was real now in the current situation they found

themselves in. Real was their latest songs, sad but true, the unforgiven, wherever I may roam. Real was making a record with that dude Bob Rock, a producer more polished and far more focused on hits than anyone they'd worked with before. Real was the same work ethic they'd always possessed, but now working even harder and trying to simplify to streamline, aiming to be as big as Led Zeppelin, but becoming even bigger. That drive, that ambition,

you got to respect the movement. Yes, the Black album earned them renewed backlash from the metal community, but it was nothing they hadn't seen before. So you could go ahead and listen to the Black album and say Metallica sucks or Metallica sold out, but the reality is, When Metallica made that record, that was the exact record they wanted to make.

Metallica was incapable of selling out because every record, every decision, every change has been real, with real integrity behind it. Integrity taught to them by the late great Cliff Burton, who always reminded James, Lars, and Kirk that it didn't matter what the haters or the posers or the ass-sucked fairweather fans said about you. You know what you say to those people? I don't give a fuck. That's metal. That's Metallica. Anything else is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace land. Thanks for listening to this episode, which dealt with the loss of the incredible musician Cliff Burton

and has inspired this week's question of the week. Discos, I want to know which musician speaks to you so much, impacts you so immensely, connects with you so deeply that you cannot live without them. Is it, is it Lady Gaga? Is it Dave Grohl? Is it Taylor Swift? Is it someone else? Hit me up with your answers.

At Disgraceland Pod on Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok, or leave me a voicemail or send me a text at 617-906-66-36-3-8. Your answers will be played and read on the next After-Party bonus episode coming up next in your feeds. Now, if you want to support the show, leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. I pick a couple lucky reviewers every week and hooked them up with free merch. Winners are also announced in this week's After-Party Bonest. episode so you're not going to want to miss that. All right, until then, let's get into some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com.

If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelampod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad-free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes,

special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelandPod and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at Disgracelandpod.

When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? You'd rather be disappointed in.

Do that. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monjou, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunts. funny stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets.

He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.