Trujillo recalls his 'hungover' Metallica audition

Robert Trujillo admitted he felt “brain-dead” at his Metallica try-out the day after a heavy drinking session.

Drummer Lars Ulrich had invited Trujillo for cocktails at a couple of bars before going back for more drinks at the sticksman’s California home – by which point the bassist had to crash in the guest room overnight.

Trujillo tells the WTF podcast: “I wake up at 9am and see Lars on the treadmill. It’s like he doesn’t know me any more. He’s already sobered up. I’ve got this crazy headache so he’s like, ‘Lets go to the studio.‘

“This was when they were going through therapy, and had a life coach called Phil Toll. Here I am with a pounding headache, James is now sober, and the last thing he wants anywhere near his band is a drunk Mexican.

“So I’m sitting at the table completely hungover and thinking, ‘Lars did this to me’ – because he was checking me out to see if I could handle it. This was a test.”

He adds: “I played Battery and everyone thought it was pretty slamming, but other than that I was brain-dead. People were asking me questions and I was giving stupid answers.”

Metallica are working on their 10th album, the follow-up to 2008’s Death Magnetic.

Former TeamRock news desk member Christina joined our team in late 2015, and although her time working on online rock news was fairly brief, she made a huge impact by contributing close to 1500 stories. Christina also interviewed artists including Deftones frontman Chino Moreno and worked at the Download festival. In late 2016, Christina left rock journalism to pursue a career in current affairs. In 2021, she was named Local Weekly Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.