The brand new issue of Metal Hammer is dedicated to Cliff Burton, the legendary Metallica bassist who died 40 years ago. In this exclusive feature, we speak to Cliff’s pre-Metallica bandmates, friends and music teachers about the birth of the legend.
Cliff Burton was born in Castro Valley, California in 1962. He developed an interest in music when his father Ray introduced him to classical composers and started to take piano lessons. But it was a confluence of circumstances that occurred when he was 13 that funnelled him towards the instrument on which he would so spectacularly make his name.
The first was the tragic death of Cliff’s older brother, Scott, from a cerebral haemorrhage at just 16. “Shortly after Scott died, Cliff came to his mother and me and said, ‘Mom and Dad, I’d like to learn the bass guitar’,” Ray Burton told Alphabetallica. Cliff said he was going to become “the best” bassist in honour of his brother.
The second was a growing friendship with schoolmate Mike Bordin – who would go on to co-found Faith No More – and their joint discovery of more and more types of music.
“It was 1975 and I was sitting in my friend Cliff Burton’s bedroom and he said, ‘Hey man, I’m going to play bass.’ And I said, ‘OK, I’ll play drums.’ It was a total knee-jerk reaction, completely unthought-out,” Mike told Modern Drummer. “A major turning point was when the two of us saw the Sex Pistols at Winterland [in 1978]. Would you have guessed that judging by where Cliff ended up professionally? Maybe you would, but the point is, we were open-minded. We were open to evolution.”
The pair first put together an outfit called Fry By Nyte. Mike described their first ever gig as “pure mayhem!” adding that it was a “totally illegal one in an old movie theatre, with a truckload of booze out back, and zero permits”. They played together for a couple of years before being approached by guitarist Jim Martin, who would also go on to stardom in Faith No More but at that time was playing in a band called EZ-Street, named after a local strip club.
“Our bass player quit, and he told us about Cliff,” Jim told Guitar World in 1992. “We started playing with him and he was already really good, way better than any of the rest of us. And he also looked pretty much the same as he did when he was in Metallica: bellbottoms and huge hair. He knew Puffy [Bordin] and got him to join the band.”
Around that time, Cliff, who was ever eager to improve his craft, started looking for a capable bass teacher. Supported by his parents, he tried two and rejected both because they couldn’t teach him anything. The third he tried was Steve Doherty.
“I’m a jazz player. I know nothing about the world of metal,” Steve tells Hammer today, as he recalls his most famous pupil. “And because I had classical training, it was fun for me because I could go in and see where the strengths and weaknesses were. It’s like being a detective rather than, ‘Now turn the page and play this scale.’ Having said that, we worked on technique and being able to get the ideas that you want out of the instrument.”
The teacher encouraged his student to learn to read sheet music. He taught him about the Baroque melodies of Bach and odd timing meters that went from jazz composer Dave Brubeck right back to Tchaikovsky.
“It was fun because with so many students it’d be, ‘Did you practise this week?’ ‘Well, I had this and I had that…’” says Steve. “Cliff came fully prepared, full of questions.”
EZ-Street gave Cliff the chance to do what he loved, playing shows with those windmilling skinny arms and curtain of hair, playing a combination of covers and the odd original. When the band eventually floundered sometime in early 1981, Cliff went on to study classical music and music theory at Chabot College. He joined another band with Jim Martin, an instrumental three-piece called Agents Of Misfortune, and also frequently jammed with other local musicians.
“Castro Valley was very well known for big house parties with live music,” recalls Mike Overton, who would play guitar alongside Cliff Burton in his first professional band, Trauma. “There was a place called Judd’s Barn and hauling your Marshall up the dirt road wasn’t fun, but the place was just amazing. Cliff was a mainstay on the bass during those jams.”
Cliff agreed to join Trauma at a house party in the summer of 1981, but said that he was going to perform at a Battle Of The Bands event with Agents Of Misfortune first. Despite boasting future members of what would become two of the biggest bands in the world, they didn’t exactly wow the panel.
“They gave us 12 minutes to play a few songs and we just played the same one for 12 minutes. We threw things into a huge, vicious turmoil,” Jim Martin said in Faith No More biography The Real Story.
“The looks on the judges’ faces when they came out playing that were just, like, shock and awe,” Mike Overton says with a laugh. “Most of us were going, ‘Man, that stuff sounds great. It’s so progressive and out of the box.’ But the judges were looking for the next Journey.”
Mike describes Cliff as his “stage buddy” but found his skills a little challenging at first.
“We actually battled a little bit in the beginning because he was playing way too much stuff, and I was just confused,” he laughs. “Cliff was all over the place, but it fit. I really had to learn a little bit in those few months we were playing and practising.”
Trauma started making a name for themselves on the tight-knit local metal scene but also had an eye on expansion. In 1982, Brian Slagel, founder of Metal Blade Records, had put out a compilation of underground metal bands called Metal Massacre, featuring Metallica’s first professional outing with Hit The Lights. He found himself inundated with demos, including one from Trauma, and included the band on the sequel. He also went to watch them play a Los Angeles showcase at The Troubadour.
“Within 30 seconds I realised that the band was OK but this bass player they had was just incredible,” Brian says today. “You know, he was Cliff Burton. He was in the denim with the big, wavy hair and the bass and going crazy onstage. I spent the whole show staring at him pretty much.”
In late ’82, Lars Ulrich told Brian that his band were looking to replace their then-bassist, Ron McGovney. He immediately suggested Cliff Burton. They went to watch him in action when Trauma next came to town and later offered him the role, which he accepted – on the condition they moved from their native LA to the Bay Area. So keen were Metallica to have Cliff in the band that they agreed without hesitation.
Then-Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine later expressed regret about the way that it all went down, comparing poaching bandmembers to being “a homewrecker”. But for Trauma’s Mike Overton, there was no bad blood over the move on his band’s part.
“The other guys in Trauma were getting more into the lighter stuff, so I wasn’t upset,” he says of Cliff’s depature. “In fact, the first show Metallica did with Cliff, he put me on the guest list, and I’m sitting there going, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I was blown away with the raw power. I missed my stage buddy but I think it’s clear he made the right decision.”
His intuition was right. Metallica were the band Cliff Burton needed. And Cliff Burton was definitely the man Metallica needed.
The annual Cliff Burton Day takes place on February 10, 2026 at the Chabot Theater in his hometown of Castro Valley, California.
The brand new issue of Metal Hammer, featuring a tribute to Cliff Burton, is onsale now. Order it online here.
